Dnieper river

The Dnieper river is the fourth longest river in Europe after the rivers Volga, Danube, and Ural. Many river dump their waters into the Dnieper. It is the third ranked amongst water catchers in Europe after the Volga and Danube.

The Dnieper is also the Dniepr river (Russian)  and the Dnipro river ( Ukrainian ) and the Dniapro ( Belarussian ). It begins in the marshlands above Smolensk in Russia. The waters of the marshes and the glacial springs pour through a forested area of the Valdai Hills which is about midway between St Petersburg and Moscow.

Mostly the Dnieper river flows in a southerly direction through Russia, Belarus ( once part of Russia ), and the Ukraine and drains into the Black sea. The boggy area above Smolensk would not have been much use for agriculture but as Dniepe waters run through the steppes better land becomes available.
This is recorded in artifacts dated to the Middle Dnieper culture. Middle means somewhere where Belarus and North Ukraine are situated. Tribes living along the forest steppes of the Dnieper can be identified as early as 3500 BC or so. 

The Dnieper river is very navigable therefore would have been used extensively as a trade route. It runs west-southernly or as the Russian would have it; Austru.

Any Goth life along the Dnieper would likely extend into its adjoining rivers : Pripyat, Desna........

If the theory of Goth division which claims that the Ostro-goths moved towards the right side of the Dnieper while the Visi-Goths stayed on the left is true then the right and left side tributaries that fall into the Dnieper must be considered as possible strongholds of either Goth tribal culture evolution.

The right side Dnieper tributaries.

• Drut
• Berezina
• Prypiat
• Teteriv
• Irpin
• Stuhna
• Ros
• Tiasmyn
• Bazavluk
• Inhulets

The left side tributary rivers that flow into the Dnieper.

• Sozh
• Desna
• Trubizh
• Supiy
• Sula
• Psel
• Vorskla
• Samara
• Konka
• Bilozerka

Another Ukraine ( frontier ) river with Goth implications is called the Dneister and this river is considered to be the marker of the end of the Eurasian steppes ( Mongolia to Hungary ). Remarkably the cultural heritage along this river is older than the Middle Dneiper culture. Dneister artifacts date back to the Trypillian culture and some 8000 years ago. The Dneister was originally called the Tyras by the Greeks. Tyras refers to rapid ( water ???).

Could the Tyras have any correlation to the Tyr and Thyrranean stories ? Austria is related to Tyrol.