Sarych (; ; ) is a

headland A headland, also known as a head, is a coastal landform, a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water. It is a type of promontory. A headland of considerable size often is called a cape.Whittow, Jo ...

located on the shore of the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

at the southern extremity of the Crimean Peninsula. About five kilometers east of the Sarych headland lies the resort town of Foros. The city of Sevastopol is located about away to the north-west, and Yalta about away to the east. The distance from Sarych to the Kerempe headland of the Black Sea coast of

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

is , making it the narrowest passage of the Black Sea.

History

Ancient

The area presently known as Sarych was first referenced as ''Kriou metopon'' or ''Criu metopon'' (), which means "ram's forehead" in Greek.

Battle of Cape Sarych

On November 18, 1914, elements of the Russian and Turkish navies fought a battle off the coast of Cape Sarych. The Turkish force consisted of the German-manned battle-cruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau. Both ships were purchased by the Ottoman Empire and renamed as Yavuz and Midilli, although they retained their German crews. The Russian force consisted of five

pre-dreadnought battleship Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built from the mid- to late- 1880s to the early 1900s. Their designs were conceived before the appearance of in 1906 and their classification as "pre-dreadnought" is retrospectively appli ...

s. During the fight only a few salvoes were exchanged. The ships inflicted minor damage upon each other, but the commanding German admiral Wilhelm Souchon broke off the action after Goeben took a hit in one of her 15 cm casemates. Souchon felt the need to protect the Goeben, as the Ottoman Empire didn't provide facilities for repairing a modern ship like the Goeben.

Russia-Ukraine territorial dispute

Since August 3, 2005, a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

on the headland has been occupied by the Russian Army. The Government Court in Sevastopol ruled the lighthouse needed to be returned to Ukraine, however Russian military officials said they were only subordinate to the chief of the Russian Navy. Ukrainian public activists said that Sarych was illegally occupied by the

Russian Navy The Russian Navy is the Navy, naval arm of the Russian Armed Forces. It has existed in various forms since 1696. Its present iteration was formed in January 1992 when it succeeded the Navy of the Commonwealth of Independent States (which had i ...

. The territory around the Sarych headland is closed to trespassers with barbed wire with the Russian flag flying above Sarych. The issue has since become a part of the broader 2014 Crimean crisis.

References

External links