It was also important to the caliphates in modern day Baghdad.................at least to establish a relationship with the Rus......................


The ancient scholar Ptolemy of Alexandria mentioned the Volga in his Geography. The river basin played an important role in the great movements of people from Asia to Europe. A powerful Bulgarian empire once flourished where the Kama river joins the Volga. Also, Volga passed through the Khazar khaganate.

Volgograd witnessed the Battle of Stalingrad, the major victory of the Soviet Union over Germany in World War II. The Russian people's deep feeling for the Volga often finds echoes in their songs and literature.

The Volga region is also home to a large German minority group, the Volga Germans. Under the Soviet Union a large slice of the region was turned into the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to house the Volga Germans.