The Arabat Spit (; ; ) or Arabat Arrow is a barrier spit that separates the large, shallow, salty Syvash lagoons from the

Sea of Azov The Sea of Azov is an inland Continental shelf#Shelf seas, 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 Ru ...

. The spit runs between the Henichesk Strait in the north and the north-eastern shores of

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

in the south. It is the largest of several

spits of the Sea of Azov Spit or Spits may refer to: Common uses * Spit (archaeology), a term for a unit of archaeological excavation * Spit (landform), a section of land that extends into a body of water * Spit or rotisserie, a rotating device used for cooking by roa ...

Name

The spit is commonly called the Arabat Arrow (, ''Arabatska strilka''; ; , ''Arabatskaya strelka'') in Russia and Ukraine. It has been called an "arrow" since at least the middle of the 19th century. The ''Arabat'' part of the name comes from the Arabat Fortress, a 17th-century Turkish fort at the southern end of the spit. "Arabat" derives from either Arabic "rabat" meaning a "military post" or Arabic "rabad" meaning a "suburb".

Geography and geology

The Arabat Arrow is long, and from wide. Its surface area is and thus the average width is . The spit is low and straight on the Azov Sea side, whereas its Sivash side is more convoluted. It contains two areas which are wide and have brown-clay hills. They are located and from the Henichesk Strait.Semenov, p.111 The top layers of other parts of the spit are formed by sand and shells washed by the flows of the Azov Sea. Its vegetation mostly consists of various weed grasses, thorn, festuce grasses, spear grass, crambe, salsola,

salicornia ''Salicornia'' is a genus of succulent, halophytic (salt tolerant) flowering plants in the family Amaranthaceae that grow in salt marshes, on beaches, and among mangroves. ''Salicornia'' species are native to North America, Europe, central Asia, ...

, Carex colchica,

tamarisk The genus ''Tamarix'' (tamarisk, salt cedar, taray) is composed of about 50–60 species of flowering plants in the family Tamaricaceae, native to drier areas of Eurasia and Africa. The generic name originated in Latin and may refer to the Tamb ...

rose hip The rose hip or rosehip, also called rose haw and rose hep, is the accessory fruit of the various species of rose plant. It is typically red to orange, but ranges from dark purple to black in some species. Rose hips begin to form after pollina ...

liquorice Liquorice ( Commonwealth English) or licorice (American English; see spelling differences; ) is the common name of ''Glycyrrhiza glabra'', a flowering plant of the bean family Fabaceae, from the root of which a sweet, aromatic flavouring is ...

, etc. Offshore water is shallow with the depth reaching only some from the shore. Its temperature is around in winter (near freezing), in spring and autumn, and in summer; air temperature is almost the same. The spit is very young and was created by sedimentation processes around 1100–1200 AD. The is located in the southern part of the spit and the adjacent area of Crimea, together with the adjacent aquatory.

History

The Arabat Arrow was wild until 1835 when a road and five stations at intervals were built along it for postal delivery. Later in the 19th century, 25 rural and 3 military settlements and one village named Arabat appeared on the spit. The rural population amounted to some 235 people whose occupation was mostly fishing, farming, and salt production. The latter activity is traditional for the region due to the vast areas of shallow and very saline water in the Sivash lagoons. Salt production in the 19th century was about on the Arabat Arrow alone. During the deportation of Crimean Tatars on May 18, 1944, most of the

Tatars Tatars ( )Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary are a group of Turkic peoples across Eas ...

were forcibly transported from Crimea to Central Asia in freight wagons. The Soviet authorities tried to drown the Crimean Tatars from the Arabat spit in the sea on a barge, and those who tried to swim ashore were shot. Nowadays, the spit is a health resort and its Azov Sea side is used as a beach. While the spit is geophysically part of the Crimean Peninsula, politically its northern half belongs to

Kherson Oblast Kherson Oblast (, ; ), also known as Khersonshchyna (, ), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in southern Ukraine. It is located just north of Crimea. Its administrative center is Kherson, on the northern or right bank ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

, while its southern portion is located within the boundaries of the

Autonomous Republic of Crimea The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is a ''de jure'' administrative division of Ukraine encompassing most of Crimea that was unilaterally annexed by Russia in 2014. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea occupies most of the peninsula,Russian military occupation in 2014. Since then, the

Russian Federation Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

administers the peninsula as the Republic of Crimea. The entirety of the spit was occupied during the annexation, although Russia withdrew its forces from the northern Kherson side in December 2014. The entire spit came under Russian control on 25 February 2022, one day after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Populated places

The rural communities of Henicheska Hirka, Shchaslyvtseve and Strilkove are located in the northern section of the spit, within the

. The village of is located in the southern part of the spit, administered as part of the Republic of Crimea.

Tourism

Arabat Spit is a popular place for summer vacation among Ukrainians because of the warm water of the Sea of Azov. There are a variety of hotels and guesthouses on the first line of the sea. Arabat Spit is popular among kitesurfers and windsurfers.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* *Shutov, Yu. "Арабатская стрелка" (in Russian) Tavria, 1983

External links

{{Authority control Spits of Crimea Spits of the Sea of Azov Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation Kherson Oblast in the Russo-Ukrainian War