That is more water than the Nile, Congo, Ganges, Yangtze, St Lawrence, Mississippi, Mekong, Volga, Danube, and rhine rivers all combined by a long shot.
With Vladimir's conversion and marriage to the Byzantine emperor's sister, as well as continued trade along the Volga route, the relationship between the two civilizations deepened.
To set out from Simbirsk from the right bank of the Volga and to return, having circumnavigated the globe, to the Volga's left bank, had been Goncharov's childhood dream.