The Sea of Azov is an inland shelf sea in Eastern Europe connected to the Black Sea by the narrow (about ) Strait of Kerch, and sometimes regarded as a northern extension of the Black Sea. The sea is bounded by Russia on the east, and by Ukraine on the northwest and southwest (the parts of Ukraine bordering the sea have been under Russian occupation ). It is an important access route for Central Asia, from the Caspian Sea via the Volga–Don Canal.
The sea is largely affected by the inflow of the Don, Kuban, and other rivers, which bring sand, silt, and shells, which in turn form numerous bays, limans, and narrow spits. Because of these deposits, the sea bottom is relatively smooth and flat, with the depth gradually increasing toward the middle. Because of the river inflow, water in the sea has low salinity and a high amount of biomass (such as green algae) that affects the water colour. Abundant plankton result in unusually high fish productivity. The sea shores and spits are low; they are rich in vegetation and bird colonies. The Sea of Azov is the shallowest sea in the world, with the depth varying between . There is a constant outflow of water from the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea.
Names The name is likely to derive from the settlement of an area around Azov, whose name comes from the Kipchak Turkish asak or azaq 'lowlands'. A Russian pseudo-etymology, however, instead derives it from an eponymous Cuman prince named "Azum" or "Asuf", said to have been killed defending his town in 1067. A formerly common spelling of the name in English was the .
In antiquity, the sea was known as the Maeotis Swamp (, Lexicon Nominum Locorum: Supplementum referens nomina Latina vulgaria (1985), p. 42. hē Maiōtis límnē; ),"Et hoc mare est palus Maeotis famosissima..." (The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon, vol. 1, p. 357); Hofmann, vol. 3, p. 542. from the marshlands to its northeast. It remains unclear whether it was named for the nearby Maeotians or viceversa if that name was an exonym, broadly applied to various peoples who happened to live beside it. Other names included or Maeotius ( or );Pliny the Elder. Naturalis Historiæ ["Natural History"], iv.24 & vi.6. the Maeotian or ( or );Avienus. v.32. ; Gaius Valerius Flaccus. Argonautica. iv.720. the Cimmerian or (Claud. in Eutrop. i.249. or );Publius Ovidius Naso. Her. vi.107. & Trist. iii.4.49. and the Cimmerian or ( or ).Gell. xvii.8 The Maeotians themselves were said by Pliny to call the sea Temarunda (alternative spellings Temarenda and Temerinda), meaning "Mother of Waters".Pliny the Elder. Naturalis Historiæ ["Natural History"], vi.7.20.
The medieval Russians knew it as the after the adjacent city now known as Sudak. It was known in Ottoman Turkish as the Balük-Denis ("Fish Sea") from its high productivity.
History Prehistory
There are traces of Neolithic settlement in the area now covered by the sea.
In 1997, William Ryan and Walter Pitman of Columbia University published a theory that a massive flood through the Bosporus occurred in ancient times. They claim that the Black and Caspian Seas were vast freshwater lakes, but in about the Mediterranean spilled over a rocky sill at the Bosporus, creating the current link between the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Subsequent work has been done both to support and to discredit this theory, and archaeologists still debate it. This has led some to associate this catastrophe with prehistoric flood myths.
Antiquity
The Maeotian marshes around the mouth of the Tanais River (the present-day Don) were famous in antiquity, as they served as an important check on the migration of nomadic people from the Eurasian steppelands. The Maeotians themselves lived by fishing and farming, but were avid warriors able to defend themselves against invaders.Strabo. Geographica, xi. . Misled by its strong currents, ancient geographers had only a vague idea of the extent of the sea, whose fresh water caused them to typically label it a "swamp" or a "lake". Herodotus (5th century BC) judged it as large as the Black Sea, while the Pseudo-Scylax (4th century BC) thought it about half as large.
It was long believed to provide direct communication with the Arctic Ocean. Polybius (2nd century BC) confidently expected that the strait to the Sea of Azov would close in the near future, due to ongoing deposition of sediments from rivers.Polybius. [Historíai, The Histories], iv.39. In the 1st century, Strabo reckoned the distance from the Cimmerian Bosporus (the Strait of Kerch) to the mouth of the Tanais at , a roughly correct figure, but did not know that its width continuously narrows.
Milesian colonization began in the 7th century BC. The Bosporan Kingdom was named for the Cimmerian Bosporus rather than for the more famous Bosporus at the other end of the Black Sea. Briefly annexed by Pontus from the late 2nd century BC, it stretched along both southern shores of the Sea of Azov from the time of Greek colonization to the end of the Roman Empire, serving as a client kingdom which exported wheat, fish, and slaves in exchange for Greek and Roman manufactures and luxuries. Its later history is uncertain but probably the Huns, after defeating the Alans people who had settled in the region from central Asia, overran it in the late 4th century.
Azov campaigns of 1695–96 and 1736–37
The Sea of Azov was frequently the scene of military conflicts between Russia, pursuing naval expansion to the south, and the major power in the region, Turkey. During the Russo-Turkish War (1686–1700), there were two campaigns in 1695–96 to capture the then Turkish fortress of Azov defended by a garrison of 7,000. The campaigns were headed by Peter I and aimed to gain Russian access to the Sea of Azov and Black Sea. The first campaign began in the spring of 1695. The Russian army consisted of 31 thousand men and 170 cannons and included selected trained regiments and Cossacks. It reached Azov on 27–28 June and besieged it by land by 5 July. After two unsuccessful assaults on 5 August and 25 September, the siege was lifted.
The second campaign involved both ground forces and the Azov fleet, which was built in Moscow Oblast, Voronezh, Bryansk and other regions between winter 1695 and spring 1696. In April 1696, the army of 75,000 headed by Aleksei Shein moved to Azov by land and by ship via the Don River to Taganrog. In early May, they were joined by another fleet led by Peter I. On 27 May, the Russian fleet blocked Azov by sea. On 14 June, the Turkish fleet tried to break the blockade but, after losing two ships, retreated to the sea. After intensive bombardment of the fortress from land and sea, on 17 July the Russian army broke the defense lines and occupied parts of the wall. After heavy fighting, the garrison surrendered on 17 July. After the war, the Russian fleet base was moved to Taganrog and Azov, and 215 ships were built there between 1696 and 1711. In 1711, as a result of the Russo-Turkish War (1710–1711) and the Treaty of the Pruth, Azov was returned to Turkey and the Russian Azov fleet was destroyed. The city was recaptured by Russia in 1737 during the Russo-Austrian-Turkish War (1735–1739). However, as a result of the consequent Treaty of Niš, Russia was not allowed to keep the fortress and military fleet.
Crimean War 1853–1856
Another major military campaign on the Sea of Azov took place during the Crimean War of 1853–56. A naval and ground campaign pitting the allied navies of Britain and France against Russia took place between May and November 1855. The British and French forces besieged Taganrog, aiming to disrupt Russian supplies to Crimea. Capturing Taganrog would also result in an attack on Rostov, which was a strategic city for Russian support of their Caucasian operations. On 12 May 1855, the allied forces easily captured Kerch and gained access to the Sea of Azov, and on 22 May they attacked Taganrog. The attack failed and was followed by a siege. Despite the vast superiority of the allied forces (about 16,000 soldiers against fewer than 2,000), the city withstood all attempts to capture it, which ended around August 1855 with the retreat of the allied army. Individual coastal attacks continued without success and ceased in October 1855.
21st century In December 2003, Ukraine and the Russian Federation agreed in a treaty to treat the sea and the Kerch Strait as shared internal waters.
In September 2018, Ukraine announced the intention to add navy ships and further ground forces along the coast of the Sea of Azov, with the ships based at Berdiansk. The military posturing was exacerbated following the construction of the Crimean Bridge, which is too low to allow passage of Panamax ships into Ukraine's port.Ukraine and Russia Take Their Conflict to the Sea, Stratfor, 2018-09-24 Late that September, two Ukrainian vessels departed from the Black Sea port Odesa, passed under the Crimean Bridge, and arrived in Mariupol.Dmytro Kovalenko, commander of the Ukrainian Navy move to Azov Sea, Ukrinform (4 October 2018) Tensions increased further after the Kerch Strait incident in November 2018, when Russia seized three Ukrainian Navy vessels attempting to enter the Sea of Azov.
Control of the western shore of the Sea is vital to the economy of Ukraine but it is also of immense strategic importance to Russia, as a land route to Crimea as well as it is for passage by Russian marine traffic.Russian dominance in the Black Sea: The Sea of Azov, Middle East Institute, Luke Coffey, September 25, 2020. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
On December 10, 2021, the Ukrainian Navy announced that Russia had blocked off nearly 70 percent of the Sea of Azov, issuing navigation warnings, ostensibly to conduct artillery fire exercises on the sea ..."near Mariupol, Berdyansk and Henichesk."Ukraine Says Russia Blocking Most Of Sea Of Azov As Tensions Mount Between Kyiv And Moscow, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, December 11, 2021. Retrieved March 26, 2022. It raised apprehension regarding a potential Russian invasion since it had begun amassing tens of thousands of troops near the southeast Ukraine border and had begun a propaganda war against the Kyiv government. The Russians seized three Ukrainian military vessel as the boats were trying to cross the strait, and captured 24 sailors who were finally released after months of negotiations.
On February 24, 2022, Russian forces began shelling Mariupol at the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.Ukraine Crisis: Protecting civilians 'Priority Number One'; Guterres releases $20M for humanitarian support. UN News. 24 February 2022. By May, with the end of the siege of Mariupol, Russia fully captured the city and blocked off Ukraine's access to the sea by controlling the entire north Pryazovia.
Geology and bathymetry
The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limit of the Sea of Azov in the Kertch Strait as "The limit of the Black Sea", which is itself defined as "A line joining Cape Takil and Cape Panaghia (45°02'N)".
The sea is considered an internal sea of Russia and Ukraine, and its use is governed by an agreement between these countries ratified in 2003.Treaty between the Russian Federation and Ukraine on cooperation in the use of the Sea of Azov and Kerch Strait, December 24, 2003, kremlin.ru The sea is long and wide and has an area of ; it is the smallest sea within the countries of the former Soviet Union. The main rivers flowing into it are the Don and Kuban; they ensure that the waters of the sea have comparatively low salinity and are almost fresh in places, and also bring in huge volumes of silt and sand. Accumulation of sand and shells results in a smooth and low coastline, as well as in numerous spits and sandbanks.