The Dnieper is customarily divided into three parts: the upper Dnieper as far as Kiev, the middle D.... dnieper river

The Dnieper is customarily divided into three parts: the upper Dnieper as far as Kiev, the middle Dnieper from Kiev to Zaporizhzhya (Ukraine), and the lower Dnieper from Zaporizhzhya to the mouth. From Orsha to Shklow, Belarus, the Dnieper flows between raised, sometimes steep banks overgrown with woods; the left bank becomes lower, whereas the right remains high as far as the confluence with the Sozh River (where the Dnieper enters Ukraine). The width of the river from Orsha to the confluence with the Sozh ranges from 260 to 1,300 feet, and from the mouth of the Sozh to the mouth of the Pripet River it is from 1,600 to 2,000 feet. Marked asymmetry of the river valley is characteristic of the middle Dnieper. The steep, high right bank (up to 260 feet above the river) forms the escarpment of the , which stretches along the entire middle course of the river. On the southern portion of the middle Dnieper, the river cuts through the Ukrainian crystalline massif and flows for 56 ! miles in a narrow, almost unterraced valley bounded by high, rocky banks. The rapids were flooded by the backwaters of the Dnieper hydroelectric power station dam, above Zaporizhzhya, which raised the level of the river by 130 feet, backed its waters up to Dnipropetrovsk, and formed the Dnieper Reservoir. dnieper river