Located at the latitude of southern France and northern Italy.
Crimean rivers
The main river is the Salgir. Her 232 -x kilometer channel begins in the area of the Angarsk Pass and is lost off the coast of the Sea of Azov. A total of approx. 150 rec. The most fertile and picturesque valleys are located between Bakhchisaray and Sevastopol. They are formed by the rivers Alma, Kacha, Belbek, Chernaya.
Being essentially an island, it has become a kind of reserve for some endemic (not found anywhere except in this area) representatives of flora and fauna. Flora and fauna.
Rare plants and animals, unique landscapes, which the peninsula is so rich in, are under protected protection. Their total area is about 700 square kilometers, that's over 2,5% from the territory, one of the highest indicators of reserved saturation for the CIS. Many of the protected sites are visited by tourists, here you are required to take special care of nature.
Look at the map of our Motherland. In the extreme south of the European part, a peninsula resembling an irregular quadrangle juts out deeply. He is small. Its area is only about 26 thousand square meters. km - 14 times less. In the north, narrow (up to 8 km), it is connected to the mainland, in the south and west it is washed by the waters of the Black Sea, in the northeast and east by the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait.
In the distant geological past, there were vast seas in the south: Sarmatian, Meotic and Pontic. The bottom of the Pontic sea-lake began to rise, and its waters finally gathered in two basins: the Black Sea and the Caspian, which were first connected by the Kumo-Manych Strait. They either connected with through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, then separated from it.
The modern Black Sea arose about 10 thousand years ago. It is one of the deepest seas in our country. Along its shores stretches a strip of coastal shallow water - with depths of up to 200 m. This shoal descends in several more or less steep ledges to the central part of the bottom. The maximum depth of the Black Sea is 2245 m.
The Black Sea is warm. In summer, surface waters in the open sea warm up to 24-25°, and in shallow coastal waters to 28-29°. In winter, the temperature of the surface waters of the open sea is 6-7°. The temperature of the coastal waters generally stays around 0°C with slight fluctuations. In this regard, in its coastal part, the sea freezes only in especially cold winters.
Located inside the mainland, desalinated by the rivers flowing into it, the Black Sea is a medium basin. The salinity of its surface waters is 16-18 ppm, that is, 16-18 weight parts of salt per 1000 weight parts of water. The deep waters of the Black Sea are saturated with hydrogen sulfide and therefore lifeless.
Its organic world is very peculiar. There are fish that previously inhabited the Pontic sea-lake - Pontic relics, which include beluga, sturgeon, stellate sturgeon, kilka, some types of gobies, etc. There are fish that, in the cold eras of the past, descended from the south, penetrated into the Mediterranean Sea, and from it to Black. Representatives of this so-called boreal-Atlantic group of fish are sprats, salmon, flounder-glossa, shark-katran, stingray - sea fox.
There are, although rarely, representatives of the Arctic fauna - seals. In 1934, a seal was seen near Batumi.
The most numerous and diverse fish of the Mediterranean fauna: mullet, mackerel, horse mackerel, red mullet, bonito, sea bass, crucian carp, flounder, stingray - sea cat.
Small fish also live: needlefish, seahorse, stickleback.
Two species of Mediterranean fish are poisonous. This is a sea ruff (scorpionfish) and a sea dragon. The ruff at the base of the second ray of the dorsal fin has a gland that produces a poisonous fluid that causes a painful inflammatory process.
A big and daring predator is the swordfish. In a state of irritation, she attacks not only fishing scows, but even passing ships.
The Crimean peninsula has long been called the natural pearl of Europe for a reason. Here, at the junction of subtropical and temperate latitudes, as if in focus, the characteristic features of their nature are concentrated in miniature: plains and mountains, modern mud hills and ancient volcanoes, lakes and seas, steppes and forests, landscapes of the semi-desert of the Sivash region and the Black Sea sub-Mediterranean.
The Crimean peninsula is located in southern Ukraine at the same latitude as southern France and northern Italy.
The outlines of the Crimea are very peculiar, some see them as a bunch of grapes, others - a flying bird, others - a heart. Each of us, looking at the map, immediately sees in the middle of the blue sea an irregular quadrangle with a wide ledge of the peninsula in the west and a long, narrower ledge of the Kerch Peninsula in the east. The Kerch Strait separates the Crimean Peninsula from the Taman Peninsula, the western tip of Russia.
The total length of the land borders of Crimea is more than 2500 km. Area - 27 thousand square meters. km.
Crimea is washed almost from all sides by the waters of the Black and Azov Seas. It could be an island, if not for the narrow, only 8 kilometers wide, Perekop Isthmus, connecting it with the mainland.
The maximum distance from north to south is 207 km, from west to east - 324 km.
Extreme points: in the north - the village of Perekop, in the south -, in the east -, in the west - Cape Kara-Mrun.
The waters of the Black Sea (area - 421 thousand square kilometers, volume - 537 thousand cubic kilometers) wash Crimea from the west and south. The largest bays are Karkinitsky, Kalamitsky and Feodosia. The shores of the peninsula are heavily indented by numerous coves and bays.
From the east and northeast, the peninsula is surrounded (width 4-5 km, length 41 km) and the Sea of Azov (area - 38 thousand sq. km, volume - 300 cubic km), which forms the Arabat, Kazantip, and Sivash bays.
The Crimean mountains divided the peninsula into two uneven parts: a large steppe and a smaller mountain. They stretched from the southwest to the northeast from the neighborhood to three almost parallel ridges separated by parallel green valleys. The Crimean Mountains are about 180 km long and 50 km wide.
The main ridge is the highest, here are the most famous Mountain peaks: - 1545 m, - 1525 m, - 1231 m. The southern slopes facing the sea are very steep, while the northern ones, on the contrary, are flat.
The peaks of the Crimean Mountains are treeless plateaus, which are called (translated from Turkic means "summer pasture"). Yayly combine the properties of both mountains and plains. They are connected by narrow lowered ridges, along which mountain passes pass. The paths from the steppe part of the Crimea to the Southern coast have long run here.
The highest yayls of Crimea: Ai-Petrinskaya (1320 m), Gurzufskaya (1540 m), Nikitskaya (1470 m), Yalta (1406 m). The limestone surface of the yayla has been dissolved for many centuries under the influence of rainwater, water flows have made numerous passages, mines, deep wells, amazingly beautiful caves in the thickness of the mountains.
The steppe occupies most of the territory of Crimea. It is the southern outskirts of the East European, or Russian, plain and slightly decreases to the north. The Kerch peninsula is divided by the Parpach ridge into two parts: the southwestern - flat and northeastern - hilly, which is characterized by the alternation of gentle depressions, ring-shaped limestone ridges, mud hills and coastal lake basins. However, mud volcanoes have nothing in common with real volcanoes, as they eject not hot lava, but cold mud.
On the flat part of the Crimea, varieties of carbonate and southern chernozems predominate, dark chestnut and meadow chestnut soils of dry forests and shrubs are less common, as well as brown mountain forest and mountain meadow chernozem-like soils (on yayla).
More than half of the territory of the peninsula is occupied by fields, about five percent - by gardens and vineyards. The remaining lands are predominantly pastures and forests.
The forest area is 340 thousand hectares. The slopes of the Crimean Mountains are covered mainly with oak forests (65% of the area of all forests), beech (14%), pine (13%) and hornbeam (8%). On the southern coast in the forests grow relict high juniper, pistachio tupolis, evergreen small-fruited strawberry, a number of evergreen shrubs - Crimean cistus, pontic needle, red pyracantha, shrub jasmine, etc.
The main source of river nutrition is rainwater - 44-50% of the annual runoff; snow nutrition provides 13-23% and groundwater - 28-36%. The average long-term surface and underground runoff of the Crimea is just over 1 billion cubic meters of water. This is almost three times less than the volume of water that annually enters the peninsula through the North Crimean Canal. The natural reserves of local waters are used to the limit (73% of the reserves are used). The main surface runoff has been regulated: a couple of hundred ponds and more than 20 large reservoirs have been built (on the Salgir river, Chernorechenskoye on the Chernaya river, Belogorskoye on the Biyuk-Karasu river, etc.).
Through the North Crimean Canal, 3.5 billion cubic meters of water are annually supplied to the peninsula, which made it possible to increase the area of irrigated land from 34.5 thousand hectares to 400 thousand hectares (since the 30s of the XX century).
In Crimea, mainly along the coasts, there are more than 50 lakes-estuaries with a total area of 5.3 thousand square meters. km used to obtain salts and therapeutic mud: Donuzlav, Bakal, Staroe, Krasnoe, Chokrakskoe, Uzunlarskoe, etc.
2016-11-08Crimea is not only an administrative and resort unit. First of all, it is a peninsula, a geographical unit. Consequently, in the lessons of geography of their native land, local students memorize extreme points Crimea - their coordinates, names and features.
Extreme northern point in Crimea
- Coordinates - 46.161050, 33.692249.
It is difficult to name a specific point for this tip of the peninsula - the northern cordon of Crimea runs across the Perekop isthmus. But where is his place? Theoretically right in the middle. Where is his middle?
As a result, geographers took the path of least resistance, issuing a conditional border, indicating that the nearest settlement to the northern point of Crimea was the village of Perekop. It is subordinate to the city council of Armyansk (the city is also located on the isthmus). The settlement was the result of an attempt to restore the town of the same name - it was destroyed during civil war. Now about 1000 people live in it, in fact it is a district. Next to it is the border area. But the village itself is not included in it.
As for, it has always been considered the most vulnerable and "responsible" part of the Crimea. It connects it to the mainland, while it is very narrow (no more than 9 km). When trying to attack Taurida from land, Perekop took the brunt of it - for this reason, even in ancient times, it was blocked by defensive structures called. Due to the narrowness of the perimeter, the defense could be held for a long time and reliably - this business was always entrusted to the best military leaders, and the reliable defense of Perekop greatly increased the overall security of Crimea (it is also not easy to take it from the sea).
Of the "warriors of Perekop", the Tatar Murza Tugay-bey (comrade-in-arms of B. Khmelnitsky) and M.V. Frunze, who in 1920 organized a unique military operation to defend the white army of Baron Wrangel.
Extreme point in the south of Crimea
- Coordinates - 44.386747, 33.777032.
With the south, everything is also not easy, the sources call two capes - and Nikolai (both - next to and next to each other).
In fact, the extreme southern point of the Crimea is still Cape Nikolai, but Sarych is 3 geographical minutes to the north. It's just that he is more famous, in particular, for the legendary battle of the Russian squadron with the Breslau and Goeben cruisers at the initial stage of the First World War.
Its name is associated with the name of N.N. Raevsky, general, hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, father-in-law of the Decembrist S.G. Volkonsky. For his military exploits, the commander was granted a country estate near the cape, and geographical feature named after the patron saint of himself and his father.
Now it is problematic to get to the ledge itself - there is a frontier post on it. Near it camp "Foros" is located.
Extreme point in the west of Crimea
- Coordinates - 45.390415, 32.480458.
The extreme western point of Crimea will not provide a comfortable rest - the shores of Cape Priboyny (the Tatar name Kara-Mrun is also common) are steep, there are no tolerable roads on its plateau.
But it is located in a romantic resort area - it is part of the Tarkhankut Peninsula. The nearest settlement to it is popular. Surfing delimits and . From the north, its neighbor is Ocheretai Bay, also known among tourists.
A geodetic sign has been installed on the cape. Its plateau is covered with the usual annual meadow herbs and, in principle, is not very interesting. Usually regulars wander here to take pictures "in the very west of Crimea."
Extreme eastern point in Crimea
- Coordinates - 45.382946, 36.644643.
But not all extreme points of Crimea are so mysterious or everyday. Its eastern end - - has a clear location on the map, a rich and, moreover, well-studied history, and no one disputes its right to be called the "border".
The cape is found on, near the outskirts of modern Kerch and marks the entrance to. For this reason, it has been marked by people since ancient times. Archaeologists have documented the existence of settlements of the Bronze Age and the ancient Greek settlement Parthenium on Lantern.
There is an active lighthouse on the cape. It appeared there in 1820, but now you can see only new buildings - the old ones were destroyed during the Great Patriotic War (the participants of the Kerch-Eltingen operation were disembarked here). The lighthouse complex still does not guarantee against crashes - in 1995, the cargo ship "Doja" under the Syrian flag sank abeam Lantern - the now abandoned ship is a bait
The geographical position of the Crimea.
The Crimean peninsula is located in the extreme south of the European part of Russia and stretches from north to south for 195 km, from west to east - for 325 km. The area of Crimea is 26 thousand square meters. km, population 1 million 600 thousand people.
The sea surrounds the peninsula from all sides, and only in the north is the narrow (up to 8 km) Perekop Isthmus connecting it with the mainland. From the west and south, Crimea is washed by the Black Sea, from the east by the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait.
The Crimean region was formed in June 1945. In February 1954, it became part of Ukraine. In 2014 it became part of the Russian Federation. The administrative center of the region is the city of Simferopol. The administrative map of Russia shows the borders of the Crimean region, settlements, communication paths.
Geological past of the Crimea.
The geological map and the geological profile introduce the geological past of the Crimea and its constituent rocks. In the geological periods of the sea, remote from us millions of years, replacing each other, now covered, then exposed the territory of the present Crimea. The distribution of rocks in the Crimea is mainly connected with their existence.
In the local history museum of the Crimea, you can see sandstones, shales, limestones and other rocks. There is also a collection of fossils and prints of the inhabitants of the ancient seas: mollusks and fish, cetacean animal citoterium prescum, sea turtle, etc.
During millions of years of the Tertiary period in Central and Southern Europe it was warm and humid, and mastodons, hipparions, and antelopes lived here. The glaciation that occurred in the Quaternary period changed the landscape, flora and fauna.
The glacier did not reach the Crimea, but the climate here was very severe. At that time, mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, giant and reindeer, cave bear, cave hyena were found in the Crimea.
Minerals in the Crimea.
About 200 deposits of various minerals, which are widely used in the national economy, have been discovered and studied in the Crimea. Kerch iron ores are of the most important industrial importance. Ores occur close to the surface and are mined in an open way, in quarries. Crimea is rich in chemical raw materials - salts of chlorine, sodium, potassium, bromine, magnesium, which are found in huge quantities in Sivash brine and numerous salt lakes. Gypsum, table salt, magnesium chloride, etc. are obtained from brine. The use of these salts opens up great prospects for the development of the chemical industry.
A variety of building materials are mined on the territory of Crimea. Some of them are very important and almost never found elsewhere in Russia. Diorite and andesite are used in road construction, for lining monuments and large buildings, and ground trass is added to cement to improve its properties. Marble-like limestones are used in the construction industry, are used in metallurgical plants as a flux.
Some Crimean minerals - rock crystal, chalcedony, carnelian, jasper are used as ornamental stones and are valued for their rich colorful range. Crimea is rich in resources mineral waters from hydrogen sulfide sources to Narzan and Borjomi.
The relief of the Crimea.
According to the nature of the surface, Crimea is divided into two parts: steppe and mountainous. In the north and in the central Crimea, a calm undulating plain extends. The steppe occupies about 2/3 of the entire area of the peninsula. In the west, it gradually passes into the ridges and uplands of Tarkhankut. An interesting feature of the eastern part - the slightly hilly Kerch Peninsula - are mud volcanoes, which have nothing to do with volcanism and spewing cold mud, and troughs - bowl-shaped depressions filled with iron ore. In the southern part of Crimea there are mountains consisting of three parallel ridges separated by narrow valleys. The mountains stretch from the southwest to the northeast, bending in a weak arc to the north - their length is 150 km, their width is 50 km. The most significant peak of the Crimean Mountains - Roman-Kosh (1545), is located in the Main (southern) ridge, in the Babugan mountain range. The Highlands of the Main Ridge consist of undulating plateau-yayl (pastures) - Ai-Petrinsky, Nikitskaya, Karabi, etc. In the east of Crimea, the main ridge is closed by the Kara-Dag mountain group, the most interesting monument of volcanic activity of the Jurassic geological era. The main ridge is largely composed of limestone, which, being exposed to atmospheric and groundwater, give vivid manifestations of karst processes (karst sinkholes, cavities and caves).
Flora of Crimea.
The flora of the Crimea is very rich, it is represented by more than two thousand plant species. The distribution of vegetation depends on the climate, topography and soils of the peninsula.
On the plain from north to south, zones of salt-tolerant vegetation inherent in the saline soils of the Sivash region (soleros, sarsazan, kermek and others), sagebrush and sagebrush-fescue steppes replace each other. Further to the south lie the feather grass steppes, and in the foothills there also appear shrub steppes with forb thyme (thyme), rocky alfalfa, and Tauric asphodelina. Currently, the virgin lands are plowed up. The third mountain range (foothill zone) is occupied by the forest-steppe, where groves of low oaks, maples, ash trees, as well as thickets of blackthorn, hawthorn, wild rose, and skumpia are especially common. The slopes of the mountains of the middle and main ridges are covered with oak, beech and pine forests. Yayla are treeless, covered with herbaceous vegetation. Lonely pines and beeches are bizarrely twisted by the wind and give the landscape a peculiar harsh flavor. Of great interest is the flora of the southern slope of the Main Ridge. The natural vegetation here is predominantly forest: pine, juniper, fluffy oak and Mediterranean species: pistachio, strawberry, yellow jasmine. But the typical landscape of the South Shore is created by decorative garden and park vegetation. As a result of human creative activity, exotic plants have become a permanent element of the landscape: Himalayan and Lebanese cedars, cypresses, magnolias, sequoias, ivy, Chinese wisteria. There are also endemic (inherent only in this area) plants in Crimea: Steven's maple (in the forests of the northern slope of the mountains), Biberstein's sapling ("Crimean edel-weiss", on high-altitude plateaus and yayls), Stankevich's pine, on seaside rocks from Balaklava to the cape Aya and near Sudak).
Crimean climate.
The Crimean peninsula lies on the southern border of the temperate zone. The climate of Crimea is distinguished by some features associated with its geographic location: great softness and moisture, considerable sunshine. But the variety of relief, the influence of the sea and mountains create great differences in the climate of the steppe, mountainous and southern coastal parts of the peninsula. The steppe Crimea has hot summers and relatively warm winters (July temperature 23-24°, February temperature 0.5-2°), annual precipitation is low. The mountainous Crimea is distinguished by more significant precipitation, less hot summers.
The southern coast provides the most favorable combination of climatic factors: mild winters, sunny hot summers (the average temperature in Yalta in February is 3.5°, in July 24°), summer breezes that moderate the heat, fresh breath of forests and parks. The climatic conditions of the Evpatoria region and the southeastern coast (Feodosia, Sudak, Planerskoye), as well as the mountainous Crimea (Stary Krym), are favorable.
Waters in the Crimea.
The waters of Crimea are divided into surface (rivers, streams, lakes) and underground (ground, artesian, karst). The rivers originate in the Main Ridge of the Crimean Mountains, they are short, shallow and characterized by a large uneven flow (they overflow in the spring and into downpours and dry up in the summer). The most significant river is the Salgir (length 232 km). The water problem in the Crimea is solved by the construction of artificial reservoirs and canals (reservoirs on Alma, Kacha, Salgir, Simferopol reservoir, which can hold up to 36 million cubic meters of water). Reservoirs are being built on the river. Belbek and laid through the main mountain range a tunnel about 7 km long to drain Belbek to Yalta.
The waters of the North Crimean Canal will water and irrigate the most arid regions of the Crimean steppe from Perekop to Kerch. The construction of this canal will make it possible to increase the yields of corn, wheat, rye, and tobacco, and to more intensively develop highly productive animal husbandry. The industrial centers and villages of the Crimea will be supplied with excellent Dnieper water.
Soils of the Crimea.
The nature of soils depends on soil-forming rocks, topography, climate, plant and animal organisms. The variety of physical and geographical conditions has created a very heterogeneous composition of soils in the regions. The predominant type are southern chernozems and dark chestnut soils occupying the central part of the steppe Crimea.
The soils of the foothill, mountainous Crimea and the Southern coast are varieties of chernozems: carbonate chernozems, brown mountain-forest soils, mountain-meadow subalpine chernozems, brown soils of forests and shrubs of the Southern coast. On these soils, tobacco, vegetables, ethereal plants, grapes, stone fruits, ornamental trees and shrubs are well cultivated. The main place in agriculture in the steppe Crimea belongs to grain crops, and of them - wheat and corn. In modern conditions, the progressive role of the tilled farming system, which significantly increases grain yields, is especially important.
Black Sea.
The Black Sea belongs to the so-called inland seas, since it is not directly connected to the ocean. In terms of its hydrobiological and hydrophysical properties, the Black Sea stands out sharply from other marine water bodies. Its feature is a sharp fluctuation in surface water temperatures (from one to twenty-eight degrees). The salinity of the Black Sea due to desalination by the waters of the Danube, Dniester and other rivers is relatively low: in the upper layers it is 17-18% (in 1 l - i 17-18 g of salt), at a depth it increases significantly, since the deep Bosphorus current brings masses of more salt water from the Sea of Marmara. The greatest depth of the Black Sea was determined at 2243 m. Oxygen is contained in the upper horizons, “and at a depth of 200 m and below, oxygen disappears and saturation with hydrogen sulfide increases.
The Black Sea is a source of fish wealth. The history of the formation of the Black Sea basin has several tens of millions of years, during which its outlines and hydrological regime have repeatedly changed. That is why the composition of its animal world is diverse. Three groups of fish are distinguished in the Black Sea: relict (residual, these include herring, sturgeon, many types of gobies), freshwater - in estuaries and estuaries (perch, perch, ram), Mediterranean invaders (anchovy, sprat, mullet, horse mackerel , mackerel, bonito, tuna and others, in total over 100 species of fish). Tuna is the largest commercial fish, its length can reach three meters, and its weight is five hundred kilograms.
Animal world of Crimea.
The fauna of the Crimea is distinguished by a number of features and has the so-called island character. Many species of animals living in the territories close to the Crimea are absent in Crimea, but endemic (local) forms of animals are found, the appearance of which is associated with a peculiar geological history of the peninsula (the geological age of the mountainous Crimea is older than the steppe part of the peninsula, and its fauna was formed much earlier and under other conditions). The steppe Crimea belongs to the European-Siberian zoogeographic subregion, and the mountainous one to the Mediterranean. On the territory of the peninsula, these subregions border along the line of foothills.
Crimean scorpion (poisonous), found in rock crevices on the southern coast, Crimean gecko, Crimean owl, black and long-tailed tit, goldfinch, linnet, mountain bunting and some others. The Mediterranean forms of animals are distinguished: phalanx, scolopendra, leopard snake, yellow belly (legless lizard, very useful, as it destroys harmful rodents). In the same showcase there is a rock lizard, a water snake, a marsh turtle; of amphibians, the crested newt, found in small mountain reservoirs, tree frog - an inhabitant of tree plantations near fresh water, as well as shrews, water shrews, bats, a protected beech forest with protected animals: Crimean deer, roe deer and mouflon. For many centuries, the Crimean forests and animals were mercilessly exterminated. Only after the Great October Socialist Revolution was an end put to the predatory extermination of the forests and animals of the Crimea.
For the protection of nature and its restoration in the central mountainous part of Crimea, the State Reserve was created in 1923, reorganized in 1957 into the Crimean State Reserve and Hunting Economy. The flora and fauna of the Crimean mountains on the territory of the economy has been largely restored. Many birds fly over the Crimea on their way to warm countries: the snail, the golden plover, the garnish, the white heron, the kite, the night heron, the golden eagle and others. These birds rest in the Crimea before their flight across the Black Sea, the birds that fly to the Crimea for wintering: tap dances, bullfinches, waxwings, siskins, bramblings, larks, Siberian buzzard and others.
