Sarych ( uk, Са́рич; russian: Са́рыч; crh, Sarıç) is a headland (russian: Мыс, translit=mys; ) located on the shore of the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean 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 bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...

on the

Crimean peninsula Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a po ...

. About five kilometers from the Sarych headland is the resort town of Foros. The city of

Sevastopol Sevastopol (; uk, Севасто́поль, Sevastópolʹ, ; gkm, Σεβαστούπολις, Sevastoúpolis, ; crh, Акъя́р, Aqyár, ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea, and a major port on the Black Sea ...

is located about 30 km away and

Yalta Yalta (: Я́лта) is a resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea. It serves as the administrative center of Yalta Municipality, one of the regions within Crimea. Yalta, along with the rest of Crimea ...

about 40 km. The distance from Sarych to the Kerempe headland of the Black Sea coast of

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

is 229 km (142 miles), 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'' ( grc, Κριοῦ μέτωπον), which means "ram's forehead" in Greek.

Battle of Cape Sarych

On 18 November 1914, a Russian and Turkish naval force fought a battle off the coast of Cape Sarych. The latter consisted of the formerly German battle-cruiser

SMS Goeben SMS was the second of two s of the Imperial German Navy, launched in 1911 and named after the German Franco-Prussian War veteran General August Karl von Goeben. Along with her SMS Moltke, sister ship, was similar to the previous German battlecr ...

and the light cruiser

SMS Breslau SMS ''Breslau'' was a of the Imperial German Navy, built in the early 1910s and named after the Lower Silesian city of Breslau. Following her commissioning, ''Breslau'' and the battlecruiser were assigned to the ''Mittelmeerdivision'' (Medit ...

. 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 between the mid- to late- 1880s and 1905, before the launch of in 1906. The pre-dreadnought ships replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s. Built from steel, prote ...

s. During the fight only a few salvoes were exchanged. The forces inflicted minor damage upon each other, but the commanding Turkish admiral

Wilhelm Souchon Wilhelm Anton Souchon (; 2 June 1864 – 13 January 1946) was a German admiral in World War I. Souchon commanded the ''Kaiserliche Marine''s Mediterranean squadron in the early days of the war. His initiatives played a major part in the entry o ...

broke off the action after Goeben took a hit in one of her 15cm casemates. Wilhelm 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 lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

on the headland has been occupied by the

Russian Army The Russian Ground Forces (russian: Сухопутные войска �В Sukhoputnyye voyska V, also known as the Russian Army (, ), are the Army, land forces of the Russian Armed Forces. The primary responsibilities of the Russian Gro ...

. The Government Court in

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. As a military object, the territory around the Sarych headland is closed to trespassers with

barbed wire A close-up view of a barbed wire Roll of modern agricultural barbed wire Barbed wire, also known as barb wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands. Its primary use is t ...

with the

Russian flag The national flag of Russia (russian: Флаг России, Flag Rossii), also known as the ''State Flag of the Russian Federation'' (russian: Государственный флаг Российской Федерации, Gosudarstvenny fla ...

flying above Sarych. The issue has since become a part of the broader

2014 Crimean crisis In February and March 2014, Russia invaded and subsequently annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. This event took place in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity and is part of the wider Russo-Ukrainian War. The Revolution of Dign ...

References

External links

Photographs of Sarych
* * {{cite web, url=http://www.kyivpost.com/top/26226/ , title=Ukraine's Foreign Ministry calls on Russia to return Crimean lighthouses , date=March 6, 2007 , work=Kyiv Post Headlands of Crimea Headlands of Ukraine Russia–Ukraine border