When in the late 1980s and early 90s sturgeon shoals went to spawn at the mouth of the Volga River, they could be caught fairly easily. Back then, the Caspian Sea was home to a large population.

near the mouth of the strategic River Volga. There it was that the Red Army made its stand, clinging on to ever-narrower strips of the west bank of the river. The order from Stalin was "No surrender".

They hammered forward last week to occupy most of the great eastward bend of the Don, where it comes within 48 miles of Stalingrad and the Volga, Russia’s next line of defense. In the Caucasus.

The Volga. By Janet Hartley.Yale University Press; 400 pages; $35 and £25. WITHOUT THE Volga, there would be no Russia. The final words of Janet Hartley’s book sound sweeping. But its 400 pages ...

Nowhere is the Volga River more hallowed than in the city named after it: Volgograd, better known to history as Stalingrad. During World War II, perhaps the bloodiest battle in history took place ...