CRIMEAN PENINSULA

Russian Krymsky Poluostrov, Krymsky also spelled Krimskii, or Krymskij, peninsula coterminous with Crimea republic, Ukraine, lying between the Black Sea and Sea of Azov and having an area of 10,400 square miles (27,000 square km). The Crimean Peninsula is linked to the mainland by the narrow Perekop Isthmus; Sivash lies between the mainland and peninsula and is separated from the Sea of Azov by a long sandspit, the Tonka of Arabat. The brines of Sivash are used to supply a chemical complex at Krasnoperekopsk on the Perekop Isthmus. The northern and central part of the Crimean Peninsula (some 75 percent of its total area) is a level plain of dry steppe with little surface water. In the south are the three parallel, thickly forested ranges of the Crimean Mountains, flat-topped limestone blocks culminating in Mount Roman-Kosh (5,069 feet ). The narrow southern coastal plain has a warm climate and is a major health and holiday resort region. Sevastopol, one of the best harbours in Ukraine, was long a Russian naval base. The Crimean Peninsula, which in antiquity was known as the Tauric Chersonese, was settled by Greek colonists from the 6th century BC onward, and Scythians occupied the interior. Later it came under the kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus, which eventually collapsed under the barbarian invasions. Long the home of the Crimean Tatars, with Bakhchisaray as their capital, the peninsula was annexed by Russia in 1783. The Tatar Crimean A.S.S.R. was abolished in 1944 for alleged collaboration with the Nazis, and an estimated population of 350,000 Tatars was exiled (1945) to central Asia and Siberia. Although legally rehabilitated in 1967, they were not allowed to return to the Crimea. In the late 1980s and early '90s, as the Soviet Union disintegrated, many Tatars resettled in the Crimea.