Black Sea

The Black Sea is a sea between Southeastern Europe and Western Asia. It is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus, and drains through the Mediterranean into the Atlantic Ocean, via the Aegean Sea and various straits. The Bosphorus Strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the Strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean Sea region of the Mediterranean. These waters separate eastern Europe and western Asia. The Black Sea is also connected to the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch.

The Black Sea has an area of 436,400 km² (168,500 sq mi) (not including the Sea of Azov), a maximum depth of 2,212 m (7,257 ft), and a volume of 547,000 km³ (131,000 cu mi). The Black Sea forms in an east-west trending elliptical depression which lies between Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It is constrained by the Pontic Mountains to the south and by the Caucasus Mountains to the east, and features a wide shelf to the northwest. The longest east-west extent is about 1,175 km (730 mi).

Black Sea (film)

Black Sea is a 2014 American-British adventure thriller film directed by Kevin Macdonald, written by Dennis Kelly, and starring Jude Law. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 5 December 2014 and in the United States on 23 January 2015.

Plot

Robinson (Jude Law), a veteran captain of under-sea salvage who is recently divorced and estranged from his young son, receives news that he is to be made redundant. He receives £8,000 for his services and is asked to clean his desk and leave the premises.

Later, while having a drink with some former colleagues, Robinson meets up with his friend Kurston and a Russian called Blackie (Konstantin Khabensky). Kurston informs the duo of a surefire way to make money. He tells them about a German Type VIICU-boat from World War II that sank off the coast of the country of Georgia with a cargo of gold worth millions and how their former employer found the U-boat's location but was unable to salvage it due to the Russo-Georgian War. He also informs them both of a plan he has been working on to secretly recover the gold. After meeting with Kurston, Robinson agrees to meet with an unknown backer called Lewis.

Black Sea Region

The Black Sea Region (Turkish: Karadeniz Bölgesi) is a geographical region of Turkey.

It is bordered by the Marmara Region to the west, the Central Anatolia Region to the south, the Eastern Anatolia Region to the southeast, the Republic of Georgia to the northeast, and the Black Sea to the north.

Subdivision

Russian wine

Russian wine refers to wine made in the Russian Federation and to some extent wines made in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics though this later referencing is an inaccurate representation of wines from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine. The phrase Russian wine more properly refers to wine made in the southern part of the Russian Federation-including the areas around Dagestan, Chechnya, Kabardino-Balkaria, Krasnodar Krai, Rostov, and Stavropol Krai. Russia currently has the following controlled appellations that correspond to the sorts of grapes: Sibirkovy (Сибирьковый), Tsimlyanski Cherny (Цимлянский чёрный), Plechistik (Плечистик),Narma (Нарма), and Güliabi Dagestanski (Гюляби Дагестанский).

History

Wild grape vines have grown around the Caspian, Black and Azov seas for thousands of years with evidence of viticulture and cultivation for trade with the Ancient Greeks found along the shores of the Black Sea at Phanagoria and Gorgippia. It is claimed that the Black Sea area is the world's oldest wine region.

Arktika-class icebreaker

The Arktika class is a Russian (former Soviet) class of nuclear-powered icebreakers; they are the largest and most powerful icebreakers ever constructed. Ships of the Arktika class are owned by the federal government, but were operated by the Murmansk Shipping Company (MSCO) until 2008, when they were transferred to the fully government-owned operator Atomflot. Of the ten civilian nuclear-powered vessels built by Russia (and the Soviet Union), six have been of this type. They are used for escorting merchant ships in the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia as well as for scientific and recreational expeditions to the Arctic.

History

On July 3, 1971, construction began on a conceptual design of a larger nuclear icebreaker, dubbed Arktika, in the Baltic Shipyard in then Leningrad. Four years later, on December 17, 1975, Moscow and Leningrad received radio messages informing them that sea trials had been completed successfully. The newest and largest nuclear icebreaker at the time was ready for the Arctic.

Belarus

Coordinates: 53°N 23°E / 53°N 23°E / 53; 23

Belarus (ⁱ/bɛləˈruːs/ bel-ə-ROOSS; Belarusian: Белару́сь, tr. Bielaruś, IPA: [bʲɛlaˈrusʲ]; Russian: Белоруссия, tr. Byelorussiya; IPA: [bʲɪloˈrussɪʲɐ]), officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe bordered by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Hrodna (Grodno), Homiel (Gomel), Mahilioŭ (Mogilev) and Vitsebsk (Vitebsk). Over 40% of its 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) is forested. Its strongest economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing.

Until the 20th century, different states at various times controlled the lands of modern-day Belarus: for example: the Principality of Polotsk (11th to 14th centuries), the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire. In the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Belarus declared independence as the Belarusian People's Republic, succeeded by the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia, which became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922 and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (Byelorussian SSR). Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland after the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1921. Much of the borders of Belarus took their modern shape in 1939 when some lands of the Second Polish Republic were reintegrated into it after the Soviet invasion of Poland and were finalized after World War II. During World War II, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years. In 1945 Belarus became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR.