BLACK SEA - Pontus Euxinus

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About BLACK SEA - Pontus Euxinus

Please add your pictures of the Black Sea and its immediate onshore to the group. These could be of any of the neighbouring countries: Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan. Pictures of seaports and sea resorts, of cities and of great rivers (Danube, Dnyper, Donetz and mountains (Crimea, Caucasus), the Sea of Azov the Danube Delta

HISTORY BACKGROUND:
This is a group about the Black Sea, the Old Pontus Euxinus of the ancient Greeks, Romans and Byzantines or Genovese, rich in myths and the legends of argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece.
After the fall of Constantinople the Black sea became an Ottoman internal Sea of Kara Deniz for 350 years. By the 18th century Russia's imperial dreams of Peter the Great and Catherine witnessed the Slav thrust of access to a warm sea. This caused the Black Sea to be the theatre of naval battles which took the international dimensions during the Crimean War of 1854-1856.
The Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 saw the diminishing of the Ottoman empire, with Russia still in ascendency and the creation of new independent nation states - Bulgaria and Romania. The Caucasus fell to Russia which was seeking expansion further into Asia.
Turkey receded further to become, by WWI a dimished republic and Russia a Soviet communist republic. Yet the communist empire was still reflected the Tzar's expansionist aim, as Russia increased its influence after WWII. This made the Black Sea a theatre of the Cold War.
The centrifugal diesintegration of communist Russia after 1990 gave the chance of Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan to become independent.
At the beginning of the new millenium Bulgaria and Romania gained membership of NATO and of the European Union respectively, which made the Black Sea a focal point of economic and stratigic interest.

Yet peace and democracy is not fully restored in countries bordering the Black Sea. Focal points of conflict remain in Transnistria, Chechnya, Abkhazia and elsewhere in the Caucasus.