Aras River - Etymology and History

Etymology and History

In Armenian tradition, the river is named after Arast, a great-grandson of the legendary Armenian patriarch Haik. See Erasx for the etymology. The name was later Hellenized to Araxes and was applied to the Kura-Araxes culture, a prehistoric people which flourished in the valleys of the Kura and Aras. But many times it is the Volga River which is called Araxes especially in Herodotus' History 1.202. The river is also mentioned in the last chapter of the Aeneid VIII by Virgil, as "angry at the bridge", since the Romans built a bridge over it,so that it is thereby conquered. By some, the river Aras has been associated with the otherwise unidentified Gihon and Pishon rivers mentioned in the second chapter of the Bible.

In modern history, the Aras gained significance as a geographic political boundary. Under the terms of the Treaty of Gulistan and the Treaty of Turkmenchay, the river was chosen as the border limit between the Russian and Persian Empires. Iran and the Soviet Union later built the Aras Dam on the Aras in the Poldasht area creating the Aras Reservoir.

During the cold war some Iranian communists escaped to USSR using this river. Also Samad Behrangi, an Iranian author of children books, drowned in the River Aras.