The Syvash or Sivash ( Russian and Ukrainian: ; ,

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

: Сываш, "dirt"), also known as the or (, ''Gniloye More''; , ''Hnyle More''; ), is a large area of shallow

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...

s on the western edge of 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 ...

. Separated from the sea by the narrow

Arabat Spit The Arabat Spit (; ; ) or Arabat Arrow is a spit (landform), barrier spit that separates the large, shallow, salty Syvash lagoons from the Sea of Azov. The spit runs between the Henichesk Strait in the north and the north-eastern shores of Crim ...

, the water of the Syvash covers an area of around and the entire area spreads over about . The Henichesk Strait is its eastern connection to the Sea of Azov. The Syvash borders the northeastern coast of the main

Crimean Peninsula 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 Ukrai ...

. The central and eastern Syvash were registered as wetlands of

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 ...

under the

Ramsar Convention The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of Ramsar site, Ramsar sites (wetlands). It is also known as the Convention on We ...

. Since the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, the entire Syvash has been occupied by

Russia 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 ...

Overview

The Syvash nearly cuts the Crimean Peninsula off from the mainland, serving as a natural border between the Kherson region and 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,Arabat Spit The Arabat Spit (; ; ) or Arabat Arrow is a spit (landform), barrier spit that separates the large, shallow, salty Syvash lagoons from the Sea of Azov. The spit runs between the Henichesk Strait in the north and the north-eastern shores of Crim ...

runs to its east, separating it from the

. The two bodies are connected in the north at the Henichesk Strait beside the port of Henichesk. To its west, the Isthmus of Perekop separates it from 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 ...

and connects Crimea to the mainland. The Syvash is extremely shallow. The deepest place is about , with most areas between deep. The bottom is covered with

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension (chemistry), suspension with water. Silt usually ...

up to thick. Being very shallow, the waters in the Syvash heat up in the summer and produce a putrid smell. The wide area for evaporation also leaves the water extremely salty. The amount of various salts is estimated at 200 million

metric ton The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the sh ...

s. Several industrial plants harvest the mineral resources of Syvash. The Syvash area is a

wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

of international importance. The shores are low, slightly sloping, swampy and salty. In summer, the water level of Syvash decreases significantly, revealing barren solonets soils called "syvashes" by locals. The Syvash is sometimes divided into the Western Syvash and Eastern Syvash. These are connected to each other by the Chongar Strait.

History

During the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

, the Syvash became famous for a surprise crossing by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

during the Perekop-Chongar Operation in November 1920.

Flora

The Syvash may appear red in color due to the salt-tolerant micro-alga ''

Dunaliella salina ''Dunaliella salina'' is a type of halophile unicellular green algae especially found in hypersaline environments, such as salt lakes and salt evaporation ponds. Known for its antioxidant activity because of its ability to create a large amoun ...

''. The eastern parts of the Syvash contain less salt and are home to reeds and other wetland vegetation. The large islands in the Central Syvash are mainly covered with

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without closed forests except near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the tropical and subtropica ...

s consisting of feather grass,

tulip Tulips are spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes in the ''Tulipa'' genus. Their flowers are usually large, showy, and brightly coloured, generally red, orange, pink, yellow, or white. They often have a different colour ...

s, tauric wormwood (''Artemisia taurica''), sage, crested wheat grass,

fescue ''Festuca'' (fescue) is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the grass family Poaceae (subfamily Pooideae). They are evergreen or herbaceous perennial tufted grasses with a height range of and a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on every ...

. The shores of the Syvash contain a large number of salt-tolerant vegetation, including glasswort, '' Tripolium'', plantains, sea lavender (''Limonium caspium''), saltbush (''Atriplex aucheri'').

Gallery

File:Karte der Krim.png, Crimea File:CASTELNAU(1827) p3.162 VUE DES LACS SALES.jpg, The Salinas (c. 1820) File:Sivash.jpg, Soviet soldiers crossing the Syvash in late 1943 File:Сиваш.jpg, Illustration of the shallowness of water in the Syvash File:Rosa Sole des Siwaschsees im westlichen Teil.jpg, Syvash waters turned reddish by ''

'' microalgae File:Flying above the Pink planet.jpg, View of Lake Lemuria, one of the bodies of water tinted by algae

References

External links

CC4 satellite photo
{{Authority control Bodies of water of Crimea Bodies of water of the Sea of Azov Lagoons of Ukraine Ramsar sites in Ukraine Wetlands of Ukraine