Chara River

The Chara Sands, a “desert” in Siberia, near the Chara River. The Kodar Mountains are in the background.

The Chara River (Russian: Чара) is an 851 kilometres (529 mi) long tributary of the Olyokma in Eastern Siberia, Russia.

Course

The Chara begains as an outflow of the Bolshoye Leprindo lake in the Kodar Mountains, in the northern Zabaykalsky Krai. It flows through the Chara Basin between the Kodar and Kalar Mountains, passing the Chara Sands, a 37 square kilometres (14 sq mi) area of sand dunes. The region is famous of a peculiar mountain where a purple mineral charoite is/ was mined for decades. This mineral is only found here. The mineral was found when a rail link tunnel was constructed. Part of Russian governmental debt was paid in charoite and slabs of this now expensive ornamental material was stored in basements of houses of the capital city, Budapest.