Geographical Magazine Geographical books to get you through lockdown this February Written by Geographical THE VOLGA: A History of Russia's Greatest River by Janet M. Hartley From the Nile to the Danube and Amazon, mighty rivers have shaped world history. The Volga, the longest river in Europe, at 3,530 kilometres (2,193 miles), is well and truly in that category. Flowing from the northwest of Moscow to the Caspian Sea, ‘through the forest zone of northern European Russia to the steppe and then to arid semi-desert in the south of Russia’, the Volga shaped the patterns of trade and exchange for both Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, and is still of great importance today, writes Janet M. Hartley.