Tuzla Island
| Native name: острів Тузла | |
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Landsat satellite photo of the Strait of Kerch with the Kosa Tuzla Island in the middle.
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| Geography | |
| Location | Strait of Kerch |
| Coordinates | 45°16′N 36°33′E / 45.267°N 36.550°E |
| Area | 2.1 km2 (0.81 sq mi) |
| Administration | |
| Population | (2012) |
Tuzla Island (Ukrainian: Тузла; Russian: Тузла; Crimean Tatar: Tuzla) (from Turkish "tuzluk" - saturated solution of salt in water for salting fish) - is a sandy islet in the form of a spit located in the middle of the Strait of Kerch between the Kerch Peninsula in the west and the Taman Peninsula in the east. Administratively, it is part of Kerch city in eastern Crimea.
Officially, the island does not have a permanent settlement. However, there was a border station of the Border Service of Ukraine, a small fishing settlement, some private garden lots, and two vacation resorts, "Middle spit" and "Two Seas". The island's electricity is supplied by two diesel power stations. There also is a pier and a helicopter pad. A second pier, located near the fishing settlement, is in critical condition and is not in use. Two concrete surface roads run along the island. From May through October, a store is operational at the "Two Seas" resort.
Tuzla Island was formed when the spit that continued the Taman peninsula suffered from massive erosion during a major storm in 1925. In ancient times (2,500 years ago) the sea level was 4 meters below the present, which meant that at the site of modern Tuzla was quite an extensive area of land, which was the part of the Taman Peninsula. Taman Peninsula itself at that time was part of the Kuban delta, and was separated from the rest of the land by river channels, which fell into the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. Some historians identify Tuzla as the island of Alopeka, mentioned among the ancient authors, located in the waters of Cimmerian Bosporus, and when the island periodically joined to the Asian shore of the Bosporus, the resulting braid was used as the entrance to the passage through the narrowest part of the Cimmerian Bosporus, which is located between Alopekoy and the European shore of the Bosporus [4]. Other historians and geologists reject such a hypothesis, believing that neither the island nor the Tuzla Spit existed in ancient times.
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Wikipedia