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50 free Volga River trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Volga trivia quiz covers Europe's longest river from its source in the Valdai Hills to the sturgeon-filled delta below Astrakhan. The easy questions handle the basics: where it flows, which sea it empties into, its nickname in Russian folklore, and the city on its great bend that was once called Stalingrad. From there it moves through the tributaries, the freezing season, the huge Soviet reservoirs and the canals that link the river to Moscow, the Baltic and the Black Sea. The harder half is for geography and history buffs: the river's Scythian and Turkic names, Volga Bulgaria and the Golden Horde, the Ottoman canal attempt of 1569, the drowned town of Mologa, Catherine the Great's German colonists and their 1941 deportation, and the composers from Balakirev to Stravinsky and Glenn Miller who took up the Song of the Volga Boatmen. If you enjoyed our Russia or world rivers quizzes, this is the deep dive on one river. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for the Volga, its delta, reservoirs, canal and the peoples along its banks before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Volga is the longest river on which continent?
Europe
At 3,531 km it is also the longest river in the world to empty into a closed basin.
Q 02Into which body of water does the Volga empty?
The Caspian Sea
Because that sea has no outlet, the Volga never naturally reaches any of the world's oceans.
Q 03Roughly how long is the Volga?
3,531 km
Its catchment area covers about 1,360,000 square kilometres, almost all of it inside Russia.
Q 04What affectionate name does Russian folklore give the river?
Mother Volga
In Russian it is Volga-Matushka; the river is widely regarded as the national river of Russia.
Q 05The name Volga is thought to derive from a Proto-Slavic word meaning what?
Wetness
Cognates survive in many Slavic languages, such as Czech vláha, meaning dampness.
Q 06By what name did the Turkic peoples living along the river formerly know the Volga?
Itil
Modern Tatar still calls it İdel and Turkish İdil.
Q 07Ptolemy called the lower Volga by what Scythian name in his Geography?
Rha
He wrongly believed the Don and the Volga shared the same upper branch flowing from the Hyperborean Mountains.
Q 08Herodotus recorded the Volga under which ancient Iranic name meaning 'broad'?
Oaros
The Huns' name for the Dnieper, Var, came from the same Scythian root.
Q 09In which upland area northwest of Moscow does the Volga rise?
The Valdai Hills
Its source is at the village of Volgoverkhov'e in Tver Oblast, only 225 metres above sea level.
Q 10The Volga reaches its sea at what elevation?
28 m under sea level
The Caspian's surface sits well below the level of the world's oceans.
Q 11Which of these is the Volga's most important tributary, joining it near Kazan?
The Kama
The Oka, Vetluga and Sura are the other major tributaries.
Q 12Approximately how many channels and smaller rivers make up the Volga Delta?
500
The delta stretches about 160 km and is the largest estuary in Europe.
Q 13The Volga Delta is the only place in Russia where you can find pelicans, flamingos and which flower?
Lotuses
The lotus is the motif of the flag of the neighbouring Buddhist Kalmyks.
Q 14For roughly how many months each year does the Volga freeze along most of its length?
Q 21Which historic town was completely submerged to create the Rybinsk Reservoir?
Mologa
Some 150,000 people were resettled and 663 villages disappeared under water.
Q 22When it was built, the Rybinsk Reservoir held what distinction?
World's largest man-made lake
Filling began on 14 April 1941, weeks before the German invasion, and continued until 1947.
Q 23The 1952 canal joining the river to the Don gives the Volga basin its shortest route to the oceans via which sea first?
Sea of Azov
From the Sea of Azov ships pass into the Black Sea and on to the Mediterranean.
Three
Navigation is nonetheless vital, with grain and oil among the biggest cargoes.
Q 15The Volga Delta's 1919 nature reserve is named after which nearby city?
Astrakhan
The delta drains into the Caspian about 60 km downstream from that city.
Q 16The Volga Delta is best known for which fish?
Sturgeon
Catfish and carp are also abundant; the delta's area grew from 3,222 sq km in 1880 to more than 27,000 sq km today.
Q 17The linear clay-sand ridges of the Volga Delta are named after which researcher?
Karl Ernst von Baer
The linear clay-sand ridges average about 8 metres high, and how they formed is still debated.
Q 18How many of Russia's ten largest cities lie in the Volga's drainage basin?
Five
They include the capital, Moscow, which is linked to the river by the Moscow Canal.
Q 19Which reservoir on the middle Volga is the continent's largest by surface area?
Kuybyshev
It covers 6,450 square kilometres and is informally called the Kuybyshev Sea.
Q 20Europe's largest reservoir, informally a 'sea' near Tolyatti, was created by the dam of which hydroelectric station?
Zhiguli
It was filled between 1955 and 1957, drowning the old fortress town of Stavropol-on-Volga, which was rebuilt as Tolyatti.
Q 24Which empire tried, and failed, to dig a Volga–Don canal in 1569?
The Ottomans
Most historians think about a third of the canal was dug before bad weather ended the attempt.
Q 25Which tsar ordered the first Russian attempts to link the Volga and Don after capturing Azov in 1696?
Peter the Great
His Petrov Val canal covered a gap of only 4 km but was abandoned in 1701.
Q 26Which medieval state flourished at the river's confluence with the Kama?
Volga Bulgaria
The Chuvash and Volga Tatars descend from its population.
Q 27Who is remembered as the founder of the Bulgar state on the Volga and Kama?
Kotrag
His brother Asparukh led other Bulgars west to the Danube, founding modern Bulgaria.
Q 28The Chuvash language, spoken along the middle Volga, is the only surviving language of which branch?
Oghuric Turkic
It is often considered an offshoot of the Volga Bulgar language.
Q 29The Mongols founded which state in the lower reaches of the Volga?
The Golden Horde
It later split into the Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan, both conquered by Russia in the 16th century.
Q 30Which 12th-century Russian epic is cited as the start of the Volga's presence in national literature?
The Lay of Igor's Campaign
Ostrovsky's dramas and Gorky's plays continued the tradition centuries later.