Kinzelskoye Reservoir

The Kinzelskoye Reservoir is an artificial reservoir in Krasnogvardeysky District, Orenburg Oblast, near the village of Kinzelka. It was built on the Kinzelka River (also spelled Kinzel) to irrigate the surrounding fields, and today it is a popular spot with locals for fishing and relaxing by the water.

History

The reservoir was built thanks to the initiative and efforts of a native of these parts, Nikolai Fyodorovich Vasilyev, a former USSR Minister of Land Reclamation. A pumping station was built next to the reservoir, with pipes and an irrigation system running from it to the fields, supplying local farmland with water for many years.

Geography

The reservoir was formed on the Kinzelka River (also spelled Kinzel), a right tributary of the Maly Uran. The mouth of the Kinzelka is 38 km from its confluence, along the right bank of the Maly Uran, and the river itself is about 19 km long. According to Russia's State Water Register, the Kinzelka belongs to the Lower Volga Basin District; its water management section is the Samara River from the Sorochinsk hydro facility to the gauging station near the village of Elshanka, and its river basin is the Volga, from the headwaters of the Kuibyshev Reservoir to its mouth in the Caspian Sea.

The village of Kinzelka, which gave its name to both the river and the reservoir, is the administrative centre of the Kinzelka rural settlement in Krasnogvardeysky District. The district itself lies in the northwest of Orenburg Oblast, with its centre in the village of Pleshanovo.

Nature and Recreation

The reservoir has become a true oasis in the dry Orenburg steppe, where the hot sun dominates the sun-scorched hills for nearly the whole year. The water's surface, fringed with reed beds and visited by gulls and herons, is especially valued in these parts. A dirt road leads to a paved highway from which the reservoir comes into view.

Here you can fish, have a picnic on the bank, take a walk along the water or go boating — recreation areas have been set up around the reservoir.