Every year on the first Saturday of July, since 2003, International Dnieper Day — is celebrated, an environmental holiday dedicated to one of the calmest and most majestic lowland rivers, which ranks fourth in Europe in terms of length and basin area after the Volga, Danube and Urals. It was established in 2002 during the International Dnieper Forum of Public Environmental Organizations of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
It is with the Dnieper that the history of the development of the Slavic peoples — is connected from source to mouth; this river flows through the territory of three Slavic states at once: Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. In its natural state, the length of the Dnieper was 2285 km. Now that a cascade of reservoirs has been built on it, and the river fairway has been straightened in many places, the length has been reduced to 2201 km. The total area of the Dnieper basin is — 504 thousand square kilometers.
Most of the Dnieper's route flows through the territory of Ukraine — the length of its channel within the borders of this country is 1121 kilometers, the basin area — is 291.4 thousand square kilometers. There are 26 cities on the Ukrainian section of the Dnieper, including Kyiv, the — capital of Ukraine. On the territory of Belarus, the length of the Dnieper is 595 kilometers, on the territory of Russia — is 485 kilometers.
International Dnieper Day is not officially established at the legislative level, but the tradition of celebrating it with various actions and events on the first weekend of July has already taken hold in all three «Dnepr» countries.
The purpose of this holiday, according to the organizers, should be to attract public attention to modern problems of the Dnieper basin, as well as disseminate information about methods for solving these problems and determine future areas of cooperation at different levels.