Strait of Kerch
| Strait of Kerch | ||
|---|---|---|
.jpg) |
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| Connects waters | Sea of Azov | |
| with water | Black Sea | |
| Separates land mass | peninsula Crimea | |
| of land mass | Taman Peninsula | |
| Data | ||
| Geographical location | 45 ° 19 ′ N , 36 ° 34 ′ E | |
|
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| length | 40 km | |
| Smallest width | 4 km | |
| Greatest depth | 18 m | |
| Coastal towns | Kerch | |
| Islands | Tusla | |
The Kerch Strait ( called the Cimmerian Bosphorus by the ancient Greeks ) is a strait in Eastern Europe that connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov .
geography
The Kerch Strait separates the Crimean peninsula in the west from the Taman peninsula in the east, is around 40 km long and at its narrowest point 4 km wide.
Kerch is on the Crimean side , on the Taman side, at the narrowest point of the strait, is the port of Port Kawkas and, further south, the largest town, Stanitsa Taman .
As a shipping route, the depth was no longer sufficient, so that in several steps from 1874 a fairway was created, which is called the Kerch-Jenikalsker Canal (Russian Kerch-Jenikalski Canal ) after the name of the adjoining administrative unit at the time . Today this is 24.3 km long, 120 m wide and can be used for a fee for ships with a draft of 8 m and 252 m length. Since 2017, the construction of the Crimean Bridge has limited the passage height to 35 m.
history
On July 19, 1790, the sea battle at Kerch took place here , during which a Russian fleet under Admiral Fyodor Fyodorovich Ushakov prevented the landing of a Turkish invading army in the Crimea.
From 1874 to 1877 the shipping route was first deepened to 5.7 m, in 1903 to 6.4 m and in 1908 to 7.3 m. The length of the depression extended over 26.4 km.
From January to October 1943, the retreat of the German Caucasus Army / Army Group A took place over the Kerch Strait , which was covered by the 17th Army in the Kuban bridgehead on the Taman Peninsula. The retreat was carried out with a material ropeway built by the Organization Todt (OT) across the Strait of Kerch (daily output: 1,000 tons), but also by means of ferry frames at sea.
In April 1943, German soldiers and units of the OT began building a combined tram and field railway bridge over the Strait of Kerch made of iron parts of the war bridge, which continued until the autumn of that year. On September 1, 1943, the concentrated Soviet attacks on the remains of the bridgehead began, so that the German withdrawal was accelerated. At this point in time, the new bridge was not yet completed. Wehrmacht pioneers then blew up the already completed parts of the bridge. The bridge was rebuilt as a railway bridge by the Soviet Union within seven months. At the end of February 1945, however, it was largely destroyed by ice drifting from the Sea of Azov, as the pillars were not protected by icebreakers . In order not to hinder shipping, the debris was removed.
In 1969 and 1970 the canal was widened to 120 m wide and deepened to 9–9.75 m, the radius of the curves was also increased. In 1970 the maximum draft was determined to be 8 m.
A ferry connection was established in 1953, as was a train ferry . They were discontinued in 1993, but reopened for freight traffic at the end of 2004. In 2003 there was a dispute between Ukraine and Russia over the small Ukrainian-administered but controversial island of Tusla (200 m wide, 6 km long) in the middle of the Kerch Strait. Russia wanted to build a dam on the island of Tusla from the Taman Peninsula. a. would have changed the water currents in the Kerch Strait. In 2010 the dam was about 2/3 completed. At the same time, however, the rebuilding of a bridge was also considered. In 2010 Ukraine and Russia signed a letter of intent to build the bridge. A feasibility study was agreed in mid-February 2014. Even before the annexation of Crimea by Russia, the state road construction agency Avtodor was requested by decree in early March 2014 in the Russian Federation to establish a subsidiary to build the bridge. Construction of the Crimean Bridge began in 2016. Companies involved in the construction were placed on the US sanctions list as of September 2016. The bridge was officially opened in May 2018. The railway bridge was officially opened on December 23, 2019.
After a 25-year break, on August 1, 2014, a train again ran from Simferopol via the railway ferry to the Taman Peninsula and via Rostov-on-Don to Moscow instead of the route through Ukraine. Until the completion of the bridge project, traffic across the Kerch Strait was to be handled provisionally with rail and car ferries. Apart from the total overloading of the connections, the ferry traffic had to be temporarily suspended several times due to the weather conditions. In addition, a helicopter service was set up across the Kerch Strait.
On November 25, 2018, a military clash between Russia and Ukraine broke out in the Kerch Strait when Russian coastal defense ships fired at and boarded a tug and two patrol boats of the Ukrainian Navy and took the Ukrainian seamen into captivity (see Incident off Crimea 2018 ).
Use under the law of the sea
The use of the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov is regulated in the Russian-Ukrainian cooperation agreement of December 24, 2003. Both bodies of water are defined as jointly used territorial waters without a 12-mile zone . The treaty guarantees the ships, including military vessels, of both countries free passage in both waters without restriction or consent of the other country.
literature
- GA Koschelenko, WD Kuznetsov: Greek Colonization of the Bosporus . In: Gocha R. Tsetskhladze (Ed.): The Greek Colonization of the Black Sea Area. Historical Interpretation of Archeology (= Historia ). Individual publications 121. Steiner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-515-07302-7 , pp. 249-263 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Willi A. Boelcke : Germany's armament in the Second World War. Hitler's conferences with Albert Speer 1942–1945. Athenaion, Frankfurt am Main 1969, p. 274 and passim.
- ↑ Hans-Joachim Hoppe : The Kerch Bridge. In: Eurasisches Magazin , March 21, 2014.
- ↑ google-maps-excerpt with the partly completed dam
- ^ Green light for the bridge between Crimea and Russia , RIA November 26, 2010
- ↑ bridge between neighbors , Vedemosti.ru, February 14, 2014
- ^ Medvedev Signs Decree Creating Contractor for Kerch Strait Bridge Project The Moscow Times , March 4, 2014
- ↑ US imposes sanctions on 'Putin's bridge' to Crimea ; Reuters, September 1, 2016
- ^ Trains on the Crimean Bridge: Vladimir Putin releases rails ; Euronews, 23 December 2019
- ↑ Helicopter traffic through Kerch Strait to be launched this week, ticket price is 2500 rubles ( Memento of the original from November 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Krymedia.ru, June 24, 2015.
- ↑ Treaty between the Russian Federation and Ukraine on cooperation in the use of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait , Russian, ratified by the Russian Federation on April 22, 2004 N 23-ФЗ
- ↑ A smoldering conflict comes to the surface , NZZ , November 27, 2018, page 5
- ↑ The Crimean Conflict and the Law of the Sea in the Sea of Azov. www.faz.net, November 26, 2018, accessed November 27, 2018 .
- ↑ a b Mikhail Bushuev: Sea of Azov: Ukraine has the right, Russia control. Deutsche Welle, November 27, 2018, accessed on November 29, 2018 .
- ↑ Ukraine claims Russia 'rammed our tugboat' off Crimea . In: BBC , November 25, 2018.
- ↑ Incident in the Sea of Azov: Restraint and dialogue are the order of the day . Bundesregierung.de, November 28, 2018.
