Features (not including available for Russia and CIS only)

Sevastopol. Ukraine

Fyodor Savintsev

Published on 08/08/11

© Fyodor Savintsev

The port city of Sevastopol was foun­ded by Cath­er­ine the Great as a naval base in 1783.
The Black Sea Fleet’s pres­ence stands as the epi­tome of Russia’s mil­it­ary glory  with the epic battles of the Crimean War  and World War Two.
Crimea remained a part of Rus­sia until 1954, when then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev incor­por­ated the region into Ukrain­ian ter­rit­ory as a gift to com­mem­or­ate friendly rela­tions between the two coun­tries. How­ever, the col­lapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 meant that Crimea’s major­ity Rus­sian pop­u­la­tion and the headquar­ters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet were now leg­ally a part of newly inde­pend­ent Ukraine, whereby each coun­try was left with con­flict­ing interests in Crimea. The unique geo­graphic loc­a­tion and nav­ig­a­tion con­di­tions of the city’s har­bours make Sevastopol a stra­tegic­ally import­ant. It is also a pop­u­lar sea­side resort and tour­ist destination.

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