Saratov Bridge crossing the Volga River between Saratov and Engels (Russia)

On the Volga, hark, what wailing

O'er the mighty river floats?

'Tis a song, they say—the chanting

Of the men who haul the boats.

Thou dost not in spring, vast Volga,

Flood the fields along thy strand

As our nation's flood of sorrow,

Swelling, overflows the land.

Excerpt from Russia's lament

Poem by Nikolai Nekrasov

Saratov Bridge over the Volga River between Saratov and Engels (Russia)

And still we kept the Volga’s tide,

The Volga rolling gray and wide;

While the gulls of the Caspian over it flew,

A flash of silver and jet in the sun,

And, chill though the blast from the Oural blew,

Circled and hovered till day was done.

Faint, in the lulls of the wind, from shore

Came the lowing of herds that roved the plain;

And the bells rang over the water’s roar

Calling the hamlet to holy fane.

And slowly the fishers of Astrakhan

Stemmed the current with laden keel;

While the barges the Kama peasants man,

And the barks of the Oka past them ran,

Heaped with iron and wheat and steel;

And as far as the wind could wander free,

On either side was the grassy sea.

Poem The Volga , Edna Dean Proctor