Arabat Spit
The Arabat Arrow (Ukrainian: Арабатська стрілка, Arabatska strilka; Crimean Tatar: Arabat beli; Russian: Арабатская стрелка, Arabatskaya strelka) or Arabat Spit (Ukrainian: Арабатська коса, Russian: Араба́тская коса́) is a spit (narrow strip of land) which separates a large, shallow and very salty system of lagoons named Syvash from the Sea of Azov. The spit is located between the Henichesk Strait to the north and the north-eastern shores of Crimea to the south.
Name
"Arrow" is not an idiomatic Russian or Ukrainian name for "spit", rather this peninsula is called the Arabat Arrow for unknown reasons, perhaps because it is very long and thin and rather straight.
Geography and geology
The Arabat Arrow is 112 km long, and from 270 m to 8 km wide; its surface area is 395 km2 and thus the average width is 3.5 km. The spit is low and straight on the Azov Sea side, whereas its Sivash side is more convoluted. It contains two areas which are 7–8 km wide and have brown-clay hills; they are located 7.5 km and 32 km from the Henichesk Strait. 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, Carex colchica, tamarisk, rose hip, liquorice, etc. Offshore water is shallow with the depth reaching 2 meters only some 100–200 meters from the shore. Its temperature is around 0 °C in winter (near freezing), 10–15 °C in spring and autumn, and 25–30 °C in summer; air temperature is almost the same.
Podcasts:
