The Bolshaya (Russian: Большая,[1] upstream from its confluence with the Plotnikova: Быстрая Bystraya)[2] is a river in the western Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia.

This is joined from the left by the Plotnikova at 58 kilometres (36 mi) from the river mouth to form the Bolshaya.

The mountains of the upper basin have exposed crystalline rocks, while lower down, the land is mostly covered in peat.

[4] An 1870 account said that it received the river Apatcha above the town of Bolsheretsk[a] and then ran for 20 miles (32 km) to the Sea of Okhotsk.

He said it had five or six huts and 15 sheds, on the bank of the Bystraya, surrounded by high mountains, with a hot spring nearby.

[11] In the late 1920s, the people of that village on the islands decided to relocate to a more convenient location on the Kavalerskaya channel six miles down the river.

Until 1990, it was called the Bolsheretsky state farm (Russian: Большерецкий совхоз) after its location on the right bank of the Bolshaya.

[13] Russian explorers led by Vladimir Atlasov reached the river at the end of the 17th century, and the first map of the region was based on their accounts.

The Cossack geographer Semyon Remezov mentioned the river at the start of the 18th century, calling it "Kiksha".

[6] The German geologist and traveler Karl von Dietmar, who visited the region in the middle of the 19th century, noted that the mouth of the river had been relocated to the north by the local people before the Russians arrived so that the fish would follow a route that made them easier to catch.

There were a number of shipwrecks at the mouth of the river in the 18th century, including the galliot Okhotsk and the flotilla of three ships commanded by Lieutenant V.