On which continent is the Caspian Sea located? Caspian Sea: report. Rivers flowing into the Caspian Sea
The Caspian Lake is one of the most unique places on Earth. It keeps many secrets related to the history of the development of our planet.
Position on physical map
The Caspian Sea is an internal, drainless salt lake. The geographical location of the Caspian Lake is the continent of Eurasia at the junction of parts of the world (Europe and Asia).
The length of the lake shoreline ranges from 6500 km to 6700 km. Taking into account the islands, the length increases to 7000 km.
The coastal areas of the Caspian Lake are mostly low-lying. Their northern part is cut by the channels of the Volga and Ural. The river delta is rich in islands. The surface of the water in these areas is covered with thickets. Large areas of land are swampy.
The eastern coast of the Caspian Sea adjoins the On the shores of the lake there are significant deposits of limestone. The western and part of the eastern coasts are characterized by a winding coastline.
The Caspian Lake is represented on the map by its considerable size. The entire territory adjacent to it was called the Caspian region.
Some characteristics
The Caspian Lake has no equal on Earth in terms of its area and volume of water. It stretches from north to south for 1049 kilometers, and its longest length from west to east is 435 kilometers.
If we take into account the depth of the reservoirs, their area and volume of water, then the lake is comparable to the Yellow, Baltic and Black Seas. According to the same parameters, the Caspian Sea surpasses the Tyrrhenian, Aegean, Adriatic and other seas.
The volume of water available in the Caspian Lake is 44% of the supply of all lake waters on the planet.
Lake or sea?
Why is the Caspian Lake called a sea? Was it really the impressive size of the reservoir that became the reason for assigning such a “status”? More precisely, this became one of these reasons.
Others include the huge mass of water in the lake, the presence of large waves during stormy winds. All this is typical for real seas. It becomes clear why the Caspian Lake is called a sea.
But one of the main conditions that must exist in order for geographers to classify a body of water as a sea is not mentioned here. We are talking about a direct connection between the lake and the World Ocean. It is precisely this condition that the Caspian Sea does not meet.
Where the Caspian Lake is located, a depression was formed in the earth’s crust several tens of thousands of years ago. Today it is filled with the waters of the Caspian Sea. According to scientists, at the end of the 20th century, the water level in the Caspian Sea was 28 meters below the level of the World Ocean. The direct connection between the waters of the lake and the ocean ceased to exist approximately 6 thousand years ago. The conclusion from the above is that the Caspian Sea is a lake.
There is one more feature that distinguishes the Caspian Sea from the sea - the salinity of its water is almost 3 times lower than the salinity of the World Ocean. The explanation for this is that about 130 large and small rivers carry fresh water to the Caspian Sea. The Volga makes the most significant contribution to this work - it “gives” up to 80% of all water to the lake.
The river played another important role in the life of the Caspian Sea. It is she who will help find the answer to the question of why the Caspian Lake is called a sea. Now that man has built many canals, it has become a fact that the Volga connects the lake with the World Ocean.
History of the lake
The modern appearance and geographical position of the Caspian Lake are determined by continuous processes occurring on the surface of the Earth and in its depths. There were times when the Caspian was connected to the Sea of Azov, and through it to the Mediterranean and Black Sea. That is, tens of thousands of years ago the Caspian Lake was part of the World Ocean.
As a result of processes associated with the rise and fall of the earth's crust, mountains appeared that are located on the site of the modern Caucasus. They isolated a body of water that was part of a huge ancient ocean. Tens of thousands of years passed before the basins of the Black and Caspian Seas separated. But for a long time the connection between their waters was carried out through the strait, which was on the site of the Kuma-Manych depression.
Periodically, the narrow strait was either dried up or filled with water again. This happened due to fluctuations in the level of the World Ocean and changes in the appearance of the land.
In a word, the origin of the Caspian Lake is closely connected with the general history of the formation of the Earth's surface.
The lake received its modern name because of the Caspian tribes that inhabited the eastern parts of the Caucasus and the steppe zones of the Caspian territories. Throughout the history of its existence, the lake has had 70 different names.
Territorial division of the lake-sea
The depth of the Caspian Lake is very different in different places. Based on this, the entire water area of the lake-sea was conditionally divided into three parts: the Northern Caspian, the Middle and the Southern.
Shallow water is the northern part of the lake. The average depth of these places is 4.4 meters. The highest level is 27 meters. And on 20% of the entire area of the Northern Caspian the depth is only about a meter. It is clear that this part of the lake is of little use for navigation.
The Middle Caspian has the greatest depth of 788 meters. The deep-water part is occupied by lakes. The average depth here is 345 meters, and the greatest is 1026 meters.
Seasonal changes at sea
Due to the large extent of the reservoir from north to south, the climatic conditions on the coast of the lake are not the same. Seasonal changes in the areas adjacent to the reservoir also depend on this.
In winter, on the southern coast of the lake in Iran, the water temperature does not drop below 13 degrees. During the same period, in the northern part of the lake off the coast of Russia, the water temperature does not exceed 0 degrees. The Northern Caspian is covered with ice for 2-3 months of the year.
In summer, almost everywhere the Caspian Lake warms up to 25-30 degrees. Warm water, excellent sandy beaches, and sunny weather create excellent conditions for people to relax.
Caspian Sea on the political map of the world
There are five states on the shores of the Caspian Lake - Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
The western regions of the Northern and Middle Caspian Sea belong to the territory of Russia. Iran is located on the southern shores of the sea, it owns 15% of the entire coastline. The eastern coastline is shared by Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Azerbaijan is located in the southwestern territories of the Caspian region.
The issue of dividing the lake’s waters between the Caspian states has been the most pressing for many years. The heads of five states are trying to find a solution that would satisfy everyone's needs and requirements.
Natural resources of the lake
Since ancient times, the Caspian Sea has served as a water transport route for local residents.
The lake is famous for valuable fish species, in particular sturgeon. Their reserves account for up to 80% of the world's resources. The issue of preserving the sturgeon population is of international importance; it is being resolved at the level of the government of the Caspian states.
The Caspian seal is another mystery of the unique sea-lake. Scientists have still not fully unraveled the mystery of the appearance of this animal in the waters of the Caspian Sea, as well as other species of animals of northern latitudes.
In total, the Caspian Sea is home to 1,809 species of different groups of animals. There are 728 species of plants. Most of them are “indigenous inhabitants” of the lake. But there is a small group of plants that were brought here intentionally by humans.
Of the mineral resources, the main wealth of the Caspian Sea is oil and gas. Some information sources compare the oil reserves of the Caspian Lake fields with those of Kuwait. Industrial sea mining of black gold has been carried out on the lake since the end of the 19th century. The first well appeared on the Absheron shelf in 1820.
Today, governments unanimously believe that the region cannot be viewed only as a source of oil and gas, while leaving the ecology of the Caspian Sea without attention.
In addition to oil fields, in the Caspian region there are deposits of salt, stone, limestone, clay and sand. Their production also could not but affect the ecological situation of the region.
Sea level fluctuations
The water level in the Caspian Lake is not constant. This is evidenced by evidence dating back to the 4th century BC. The ancient Greeks, who explored the sea, discovered a large bay at the confluence of the Volga. The existence of a shallow strait between the Caspian and the Sea of Azov was also discovered by them.
There are other data on the water level in the Caspian Lake. The facts suggest that the level was much lower than what exists now. The proof is provided by ancient architectural structures discovered on the seabed. The buildings date back to the 7th-13th centuries. Now the depth of their flooding ranges from 2 to 7 meters.
In 1930, the water level in the lake began to decline catastrophically. The process continued for almost fifty years. This caused great concern among people, since all economic activity in the Caspian region is adapted to the previously established water level.
From 1978 the level began to rise again. Today he has become more than 2 meters higher. This is also an undesirable phenomenon for people living on the coast of the lake-sea.
The main reason affecting fluctuations in the lake is climate change. This entails an increase in the volume of river water entering the Caspian Sea, the amount of precipitation, and a decrease in the intensity of water evaporation.
However, it cannot be said that this is the only opinion that explains the fluctuation in water level in the Caspian Lake. There are others, no less plausible.
Human activities and environmental issues
The area of the Caspian Lake's drainage basin is 10 times larger than the surface of the reservoir itself. Therefore, all changes occurring in such a vast territory in one way or another affect the ecology of the Caspian Sea.
Human activity plays an important role in changing the environmental situation in the Caspian Lake region. For example, pollution of a reservoir with harmful and dangerous substances occurs along with the influx of fresh water. This is directly related to industrial production, mining and other human activities in the watershed.
The state of the environment of the Caspian Sea and adjacent territories is of general concern to the governments of the countries located here. Therefore, the discussion of measures aimed at preserving the unique lake, its flora and fauna has become traditional.
Each state has an understanding that only through joint efforts can the ecology of the Caspian Sea be improved.
How the Caspian Sea came into being and its name
Since ancient times, the Caspian Sea has attracted the attention of people - both enlightened explorers, unenlightened conquerors, and merchants. What is the history of the Caspian Sea - the largest lake in the world, what happened to the area occupied by the Caspian Sea for about two hundred million years?
Scientists have found that in the Triassic period - the earliest period of the formation of the cooled mass of the earth - now the Caspian Sea spread out in the form of a giant bay of some eastern ocean. This basin was located on the territory of the modern mountain ranges of the Caucasus, Pamir, Himalayas and Alps, and previously the huge Mediterranean Sea, called Tethys by geologists, stretched in a wide strip from Spain to the Sunda archipelago. This is evidenced by finds of marine mollusks, characteristic of that period, in Transcaucasia and Kuban.
During the Jurassic period following the Triassic, which lasted approximately twenty-five million years, that is, as long as the Triassic, no significant changes occurred in the Caspian region, occupied, as before, by the sea basin.
During the second half of the Jurassic period and during the Cretaceous time, that is, for the next sixty million years, the Tethys Sea continues to encircle Europe and Asia. During this period, almost the entire European part of the USSR and Western Europe, which previously represented land, was conquered by the water element.
At the beginning of the Cretaceous period in the waters of Tethys, huge layers of sediment - clayey silts, sands and limestones, accumulated over tens of millions of years due to compression of the earth's shell, began to swell, forming folds, and emerged from the water. Archipelagos of islands appeared. These were the first harbingers of one of the most powerful mountain-building cycles that engulfed our land a little later - in the Tertiary period, which, together with the Quaternary, makes up the Cenozoic era.
Scientists rightly assume that by the Tertiary period, a number of islands or one large island already existed on the site of the Main Caucasus Range, gradually increasing in size due to the new rise of the land.
In the early epoch of the Tertiary period, the entire south of the USSR was still flooded with the waters of Tethys. Among the water spaces in the form of islands were the Caucasus Range and Crimea. However, all the progressive mountain-building movements continued their struggle with the sea and raised more and more new land areas from the bottom. Around the middle of the Tertiary period (that is, in the Miocene era), the region now occupied by the Black and Caspian Seas was separated from Tethys by mountain ranges that arose in the south. On a vast territory from Vienna to the Aral Sea, a closed basin was formed, called the Sarmatian Sea. This giant, desalinated by many rivers descending from the Russian Plain and Central Europe, was the ancestor of the modern Caspian Sea.
As a result of mountain-building processes, the Caucasian Island merged with the previously formed Transcaucasian land. From that moment on, the Black and Caspian Seas, which represented a single basin, were divided into two independent bodies of water, connected by a wide strait in the area of the Manych-Sal steppes.
In the second half of the Pliocene period, drained new areas, previously occupied by the sea, completely isolated the Caspian basin from the Black Sea. The area north of the Absheron Peninsula also turns into land. Only in the south does the large South Caspian Sea remain. Large rivers carried their waters here. A large, high-water river, a distant ancestor of the Volga, descended from the north. From the west, the ancient Kura flowed into the lake, and from the east, a river that originated among the ridges of Central Asia and made its way into the Caspian Sea long before the legendary Uzboy.
At the end of the Pliocene period, the Caspian Sea again turned from a small closed basin into a vast sea, stretching from Iran to the city of Kuibyshev. This basin was again connected to the Black Sea by a narrow strait. This transformation occurred due to the immersion of large areas in the Middle and Northern Caspian Sea. Now in the area of the Absheron Peninsula, where the delta of the Paleo-Volga (that is, the ancient Volga) spilled among the sands, the deep Akchagyl Sea spread out.
Many thousands of years later, as a result of a strong contraction of the Akchagyl basin, a new basin appeared - the Absheron. Its outlines are very close to the modern Caspian Sea. This is how the history of the Caspian Sea developed until the turn of the Quaternary period, during which the Ice Age began on earth. Epochs of cooling were followed by eras of warming. During warming, snow began to melt, while cooling led to the expansion of the ice sheet. In the Caspian Sea, these changes caused level fluctuations. During thawing, the flow of meltwater increased, and during cooling it decreased. As a result, the Caspian Sea was twice connected to the Black Sea through a strait.
But the outlines of the Caspian Sea changed not only as a result of the influx of meltwater. Its contours also changed due to the continued rise of the Caucasus mountain range. And now along the coast there are often traces of recent coastlines in the form of terraces, which indicate that even today the level of the Caspian Sea continues to fluctuate, although not to the same extent as in earlier eras.
This, in short, is the history of the emergence of the Caspian Sea.
No less interesting is the history of the origin of the name of the sea.
None of the seas on the globe, including the seas washing the shores of the historically most cultural and economically developed countries, had as many names as the Caspian Sea.
In most cases, the Caspian Sea was named after states, principalities, regions located on its shores, or after the peoples inhabiting its coast, and sometimes according to real or imaginary properties.
Ignorance of the true nature of the Caspian Sea led to incorrect and sometimes fantastic ideas about it. There are no written documents left that could be used to establish the degree of knowledge of this sea by the peoples who lived on its shores in the era before the ancient explorers of Iran, Greece, Rome and others visited the Caspian countries.
The first name of the sea can be found in the sacred books of the Avesta, dated by various authors to approximately 1100–1200 BC. Thus, in the translation of one of the books of the Avesta, made by Wolf in 1910 from the Middle Pahlavi language into German, it says: “Like the sea Vouru Kasha is a gathering place of waters...”, where “Vouru Kasha”, according to the assumption of some scientists, means “vast pool” , “vast body of water.” By this they meant the current Caspian Sea, for the author of these verses, as researchers suggest, lived in Bactria, located in the southeast of the Caspian Sea.
It can be assumed that when the semi-legendary hero Homer in his poems speaks of the “pond of the sun”, where the daylight “goes to rest” every day, then by “pond of the sun” he means the area of the present Caspian Sea, that is, a place in the east of Greece and Asia Minor, where Homer lived.
According to Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions of the 8th–7th centuries BC - the first documentary data known to researchers - the sea was called Eastern.
The most common names for the sea in ancient reports are Hyrcanian, Ircanian - after the name of the region Hyrcania, which means “country of wolves”. The first name “Caspian,” as some researchers believe, was given to the sea by Herodotus, the great ancient historian and geographer, after the peoples of the Caspian Sea who once lived on its southwestern shore. Pliny Secundus called it Albanian in honor of the Albanian people. Horace Phlox - Stormy. Medieval writers Ibn Khordable, Ibn Yaqub - Jurdansky, Masudi Istakhri, Kazvini - Khazar; later, also according to the names of the province, places, regions - Khvalynsky, Saransky, Khorosansky, Tabaristansky, Gilyansky, Derbentsky, Turkmensky. One of the researchers studying this issue cites fifty-eight names given to the sea over many centuries by scientists, poets, and peoples. He believes that this, however, is far from a complete list of its names. Only the beginning of systematic hydrographic development of the sea established the name “Caspian”, which exists to this day.
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Is it correct to call the Caspian Sea a sea?
It is known that the sea is part of the World Ocean. From this geographically correct point of view, the Caspian Sea cannot in any way be considered a sea, since it is separated from the ocean by huge land masses. The shortest distance from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea, the closest of the seas included in the World Ocean system, is 500 kilometers. Therefore, it would be more correct to talk about the Caspian Sea as a lake. This largest lake in the world is often called simply the Caspian or lake-sea.
The Caspian Sea has a number of characteristics of a sea: its water is salty (however, there are other salty lakes), its area is not much inferior to the area of such seas as the Black, Baltic, Red, Northern and even exceeds the area of the Azov and some others (however, the Canadian Lake Superior also has a huge area , like the three Seas of Azov). In the Caspian Sea there are often fierce storm winds and huge waves (and this is not uncommon on Lake Baikal).
So, after all, the Caspian Sea is a lake? That's Wikipedia says it And the Great Soviet Encyclopedia answers that no one has yet been able to give an exact definition of this issue - “There is no generally accepted classification.”
Do you know why this is very important and fundamental? And here's why...
The lake belongs to internal waters - the sovereign territories of coastal states, to which the international regime does not apply (the UN principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states). But the sea area is divided differently, and the rights of coastal states here are completely different.
Due to its geographical location, the Caspian Sea itself, unlike the land territories surrounding it, has not been the object of any targeted attention from the coastal states for many centuries. Only at the beginning of the 19th century. the first treaties were concluded between Russia and Persia: Gulistan (1813) 4 and Turkmanchay (1828), summing up the results of the Russian-Persian war, as a result of which Russia annexed a number of Transcaucasian territories and received the exclusive right to maintain a military fleet in the Caspian sea. Russian and Persian merchants were allowed to trade freely on the territory of both states and use the Caspian Sea to transport goods. The Turkmanchay Treaty confirmed all these provisions and became the basis for maintaining international relations between the parties until 1917.
After the October Revolution of 1917, in a note dated January 14, 1918, the new Russian government that came to power renounced its exclusive military presence in the Caspian Sea. The treaty between the RSFSR and Persia of February 26, 1921 declared invalid all agreements concluded before it by the tsarist government. The Caspian Sea became a body of water for the common use of the parties: both states were granted equal rights of free navigation, with the exception of cases when the crews of Iranian ships could include citizens of third countries using the service for unfriendly purposes (Article 7). The 1921 agreement did not provide for a maritime border between the parties.
In August 1935, the following agreement was signed, the parties to which were new subjects of international law - the Soviet Union and Iran, which acted under a new name. The parties confirmed the provisions of the 1921 agreement, but introduced into the agreement a new concept for the Caspian Sea - a 10-mile fishing zone, which limited the spatial limits of this fishery for its participants. This was done in order to control and preserve the living resources of the reservoir.
In the context of the outbreak of World War II, unleashed by Germany, an urgent need arose to conclude a new agreement between the USSR and Iran on trade and navigation in the Caspian Sea. The reason for this was the concern of the Soviet side, caused by Germany's interest in intensifying its trade ties with Iran and the danger of using the Caspian Sea as one of the stages of the transit route. The agreement between the USSR and Iran 10 signed in 1940 protected the Caspian Sea from such a prospect: it repeated the main provisions of previous agreements, which provided for the presence in its waters of ships of only these two Caspian states. It also included a provision for its indefinite validity.
The collapse of the Soviet Union radically changed the regional situation in the former Soviet space, in particular in the Caspian region. Among a large number of new problems, the problem of the Caspian Sea arose. Instead of two states - the USSR and Iran, which previously bilaterally resolved all emerging issues of maritime navigation, fishing and the use of other living and non-living resources, now there are five of them. Of the former, only Iran remained, Russia took the place of the USSR as successor, the other three are new states: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan. They had access to the Caspian Sea before, but only as republics of the USSR, and not as independent states. Now, having become independent and sovereign, they have the opportunity to participate on equal terms with Russia and Iran in discussions and decision-making in considering all the issues mentioned above. This was also reflected in the attitude of these states towards the Caspian Sea, since all five states that had access to it showed equal interest in using its living and non-living resources. And this is logical, and most importantly, justified: the Caspian Sea is rich in natural resources, both fish stocks and black gold - oil and blue fuel - gas. Exploration and production of the last two resources became the subject of the most heated and protracted negotiations for a long time. But not only them.
In addition to the presence of rich mineral resources, the waters of the Caspian Sea are home to about 120 species and subspecies of fish; here is the global gene pool of sturgeon, the catch of which until recently accounted for 90% of the total world catch.
Due to its location, the Caspian Sea has traditionally and long been widely used for shipping, acting as a kind of transport artery between the peoples of the coastal states. Along its shores are located such large seaports as the Russian Astrakhan, the capital of Azerbaijan Baku, the Turkmen Turkmenbashi, the Iranian Anzeli and the Kazakh Aktau, between which routes for trade, cargo and passenger maritime transport have long been laid.
And yet, the main object of attention of the Caspian states is its mineral resources - oil and natural gas, which each of them can lay claim to within the boundaries that must be determined by them collectively on the basis of international law. And to do this, they will have to divide between themselves both the waters of the Caspian Sea and its bottom, in the depths of which its oil and gas are hidden, and develop rules for their extraction with minimal damage to a very fragile environment, primarily the marine environment and its living inhabitants.
The main obstacle in resolving the issue of starting widespread mining of Caspian mineral resources for the Caspian states continues to be its international legal status: should it be considered a sea or a lake? The complexity of the issue lies in the fact that these states themselves must resolve it, and there is no agreement yet among their ranks. But at the same time, each of them strives to quickly begin production of Caspian oil and natural gas and make their sale abroad a constant source of funds to form their budget.
Therefore, oil companies of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, without waiting for the end of the settlement of existing disagreements over the territorial division of the Caspian Sea, have already begun active production of its oil, in the hope of ceasing to be dependent on Russia, turning their countries into oil-producing countries and, in this capacity, starting to build their own long-term trade relations with neighbors.
However, the issue of the status of the Caspian Sea remains unresolved. Regardless of whether the Caspian states agree to consider it a “sea” or a “lake”, they will have to apply the principles corresponding to the choice made to the territorial division of its water area and bottom or develop their own for this case.
Kazakhstan advocated recognition of the Caspian Sea by the sea. Such recognition will make it possible to apply the provisions of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea on Internal Waters, the Territorial Sea, the Exclusive Economic Zone, and the Continental Shelf to the division of the Caspian Sea. This would allow coastal states to gain sovereignty over the subsoil of the territorial sea (Article 2) and exclusive rights to the exploration and development of resources on the continental shelf (Article 77). But the Caspian Sea cannot be called a sea from the standpoint of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, since this body of water is closed and has no natural connection with the world ocean.
In this case, the option of sharing its water area and bottom resources is also excluded.
In the agreements between the USSR and Iran, the Caspian Sea was considered as a border lake. With the Caspian Sea being given the legal status of a “lake”, it is expected to be divided into sectors, as is done in relation to border lakes. But there is no norm in international law obliging states to do exactly this: division into sectors is an established practice.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly made statements that the Caspian Sea is a lake, and its waters and subsoil are the common property of the coastal states. Iran also, from a position enshrined in treaties with the USSR, considers the Caspian Sea to be a lake. The country's government believes that this status implies the creation of a consortium for unified management of the production and use of its resources by the Caspian states. Some authors also share this opinion, for example, R. Mamedov believes that with this status, the extraction of hydrocarbon resources in the Caspian Sea by these states should be carried out jointly.
In the literature, a proposal was made to give the Caspian Sea the status of a “sui generis” lake, and in this case we are talking about the special international legal status of such a lake and its special regime. A regime implies the joint development by states of their own rules for the use of its resources.
Thus, recognition of the Caspian Sea as a lake does not require its obligatory division into sectors - each coastal state has its own part. In addition, in international law there are no rules at all on the division of lakes between states: this is their good will, behind which certain internal interests may be hidden.
Currently, all Caspian states recognize that the modern legal regime was established by the established practice of its use, but now the Caspian Sea is in actual common use not by two, but by five states. Even at a meeting of foreign ministers held in Ashgabat on November 12, 1996, the Caspian states confirmed that the status of the Caspian Sea can be changed only with the consent of all five coastal states. This was later also confirmed by Russia and Azerbaijan in a joint statement dated January 9, 2001 on the principles of cooperation, as well as in the Declaration on Cooperation in the Caspian Sea signed between Kazakhstan and Russia dated October 9, 2000.
But during numerous Caspian negotiations, conferences and four summits of the Caspian states (Ashgabat summit on April 23-24, 2002, Tehran summit on October 16, 2007, Baku summit on November 18, 2010 and Astrakhan on September 29, 2014) agreement was reached by the Caspian countries failed to achieve this.
So far, cooperation at the bilateral and trilateral level has proven to be more productive. Back in May 2003, Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan entered into an agreement on the junction point of the demarcation lines of adjacent sections of the Caspian Sea bottom, which was based on previous bilateral agreements. In the current situation, Russia, by its participation in these agreements, seemed to confirm that the agreements between the USSR and Iran are outdated and do not correspond to existing realities.
In the Agreement of July 6, 1998 between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan on the delimitation of the bottom of the northern part of the Caspian Sea in order to exercise sovereign rights to subsoil use, it was announced that the seabed would be delimited between adjacent and opposite parties along a modified median line based on the principle of fairness and agreement of the parties. At the bottom of the site, states have sovereign rights, but their common use of the water surface is preserved.
Iran perceived this agreement as separate and in violation of previous Treaties with the USSR in 1921 and 1940. However, it should be noted that in the preamble of the 1998 agreement, to which Russia and Kazakhstan were parties, the agreement was considered as a temporary measure pending the signing of the convention by all Caspian states.
Later, on July 19 of the same year, Iran and Russia made a joint statement in which they proposed three possible scenarios for the delimitation of the Caspian Sea. First: the sea should be shared on the basis of the condominium principle. The second scenario comes down to dividing the water area, waters, bottom and subsoil into national sectors. The third scenario, which is a compromise between the first and second options, involves dividing only the bottom between the coastal states, and considering the water surface to be common and open to all coastal countries.
The existing options for delimiting the Caspian Sea, including those mentioned above, are possible only if there is good political will of the parties. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have clearly expressed their position from the very beginning of the multilateral consultation process. Azerbaijan considers the Caspian Sea to be a lake and therefore should be divided. Kazakhstan proposes to consider the Caspian Sea a closed sea, citing the 1982 UN Convention (Articles 122, 123), and, accordingly, advocates its division in the spirit of the Convention. Turkmenistan has long supported the idea of joint management and use of the Caspian Sea, but foreign companies already developing resources off the coast of Turkmenistan influenced the policies of its president, who began to object to the establishment of a condominium regime, supporting the position of dividing the sea.
The first of the Caspian states to begin to use the hydrocarbon riches of the Caspian Sea under new conditions was Azerbaijan. After the conclusion of the “Deal of the Century” in September 1994, Baku expressed a desire to declare the adjacent sector an integral part of its territory. This provision was enshrined in the Constitution of Azerbaijan, adopted in order to exercise sovereign rights to subsoil use, Moscow, July 6, 1998, at a referendum on November 12, 1995 (Article 11). But such a radical position from the very beginning did not correspond to the interests of all other coastal states, especially Russia, which has expressed fears that this would open access to the Caspian Sea to countries in other regions. Azerbaijan agreed to a compromise. The 2002 Agreement between the Russian Federation and Azerbaijan on the delimitation of adjacent areas of the Caspian Sea established a provision in which the division of the bottom was carried out using the median line, and the water area of the reservoir remained in joint use.
Unlike Azerbaijan, which has expressed a desire to completely divide the Caspian Sea, Iran proposes to leave its subsoil and water for joint use, but does not object to the option of dividing the Caspian Sea into 5 equal parts. Accordingly, each member of the Caspian Five would be allocated 20 percent of the total territory of the reservoir.
Russia's point of view was changing. Moscow has long insisted on establishing a condominium, but wanting to build a long-term policy with its neighbors, who were not interested in considering the Caspian Sea as the property of five coastal states, it changed its position. This then prompted the states to begin a new stage of negotiations, at the end of which the above Agreement was signed in 1998, where Russia stated that it was “ripe” for the division of the Caspian Sea. Its main principle was the position “common water - divide the bottom.”
Taking into account the fact that some Caspian states, namely Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia, have reached agreements on the conditional delimitation of spaces in the Caspian Sea, we can conclude that they are actually satisfied with the already established regime with the division of its bottom along a modified median line and the joint use of the surface reservoir for navigation and fishing.
However, the lack of complete clarity and unity in the position of all coastal countries prevents the Caspian states themselves from developing oil production. And oil is of key importance to them. There is no clear data regarding their reserves in the Caspian Sea. According to the US Energy Information Agency in 2003, the Caspian Sea ranked second in oil reserves and third in gas reserves. The data from the Russian side is different: they speak of an artificial overestimation by Western experts of the energy resources of the Caspian Sea. Differences in assessments are due to the political and economic interests of regional and external players. The geopolitical significance of the region, which is associated with the foreign policy plans of the US and the EU, became a factor in the distortion of the data. Zbigniew Brzezinski expressed the opinion back in 1997 that this region is the “Eurasian Balkans”.
Expert answerOn Sunday, August 12, in Aktau, Kazakhstan, the presidents of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. Previously, its status was regulated by Soviet-Iranian treaties, in which the Caspian Sea was defined as a closed (inland) sea, and each Caspian state had sovereign rights to a 10-mile zone and equal rights to the rest of the sea.
Now, according to the new convention, each country is assigned its own territorial waters (zones 15 miles wide). In addition, the provisions of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea will not apply to the Caspian Sea, the seabed will be delimited into sectors, as is done by neighboring seas, and sovereignty over the water column will be established on the basis of the principle that it is a lake.
Why is the Caspian considered neither a lake nor a sea?
To be considered a sea, the Caspian Sea must have access to the ocean; this is one of the most important conditions for which a body of water can be called a sea. But the Caspian Sea has no access to the ocean, so it is considered a closed body of water not connected to the World Ocean.
The second feature that distinguishes sea waters from lake waters is their high salinity. The water in the Caspian Sea is indeed salty, but in its salt composition it occupies an intermediate position between the river and the ocean. In addition, in the Caspian Sea, salinity increases towards the south. The Volga delta contains 0.3‰ salts, and in the eastern regions of the Southern and Middle Caspian Sea the salinity reaches 13-14‰. And if we talk about the salinity of the World Ocean, it averages 34.7 ‰.
Due to its specific geographical and hydrological characteristics, the reservoir received a special legal status. The summit participants decided that the Caspian Sea is an inland body of water that does not have a direct connection with the World Ocean, and therefore cannot be considered a sea, and at the same time, due to its size, water composition and bottom features, cannot be considered a lake.
What has been achieved since the signing of the Convention?
The new treaty expands opportunities for cooperation between countries and also involves limiting any military presence of third countries. According to political scientist, director of the Institute of Modern States Alexey Martynov, the main achievement of the last summit is that its participants managed to stop any talk about the possible construction of military bases and NATO infrastructure facilities in the Caspian Sea.
“The most important thing that was achieved was to fix that the Caspian Sea will be demilitarized for all Caspian states. There will be no other military personnel there except those representing the countries that signed the Caspian Agreement. This is a fundamental and main question that was important to fix. Everything else, what is divided proportionally into zones of influence, zones of extraction of biological resources, zones of extraction of shelf resources, was not so important. As we remember, in the last twenty years the military has been actively seeking to enter the region. The United States even wanted to build its own military base there,” says Martynov.
In addition to the distribution of each country's shares in the oil and gas fields of the Caspian basin, the Convention also provides for the construction of pipelines. As stated in the document, the rules for laying them provide for the consent of only neighboring countries, and not all countries of the Caspian Sea. After signing the agreement, Turkmenistan, in particular, stated that it was ready to lay pipelines along the bottom of the Caspian Sea, which would allow it to export its gas through Azerbaijan to Europe. The consent of Russia, which previously insisted that the project could only be implemented with the permission of all five Caspian states, is now no longer required. They plan to subsequently connect the gas pipeline to the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline, through which natural gas will flow through the territory of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to Greece.
“Turkmenistan is not a foreign country to us, but our partner, a country that we consider very important for us in the post-Soviet space. We cannot be against them receiving an additional impetus for development through such pipeline projects. Gas has long been coming from Turkmenistan and other countries through another pipeline system, somewhere it is even mixed with Russian gas, and there is nothing wrong with that. If this project works, everyone will benefit, including Russia. Under no circumstances should the project be considered as some kind of competition. The European market is so large and insatiable, I mean the energy market, that there is enough room for everyone,” says Martynov.
Today, almost all Turkmen gas is supplied to China, where Russia also intends to supply blue fuel. For this purpose, in particular, a large-scale project for the construction of the Power of Siberia gas pipeline is being implemented. Thus, the geography of gas supplies for both countries can expand - Turkmenistan will gain access to the European market, and Russia will be able to increase its gas supplies to China.
The Caspian Sea is remarkable in that its western shore belongs to Europe, and its eastern shore is located in Asia. This is a huge body of salt water. It is called a sea, but, in fact, it is a lake, since it has no connection with the World Ocean. Therefore, it can be considered the largest lake in the world.
The area of the water giant is 371 thousand square meters. km. As for the depth, the northern part of the sea is quite shallow, and the southern part is deep. The average depth is 208 meters, but it does not give any idea of the thickness of the water mass. The entire reservoir is divided into three parts. These are the Northern, Middle and Southern Caspian. The northern one is a sea shelf. It accounts for only 1% of the total volume of water. This part ends behind the Kizlyar Bay near the island of Chechen. The average depth in these places is 5-6 meters.
In the Middle Caspian, the seabed noticeably decreases, and the average depth reaches 190 meters. The maximum is 788 meters. This part of the sea contains 33% of the total volume of water. And the South Caspian is considered the deepest. It absorbs 66% of the total water mass. The maximum depth is noted in the South Caspian depression. She is equal 1025 meters and is considered the official maximum depth of the sea today. The Middle and Southern Caspian Seas are approximately equal in area and occupy a total of 75% of the area of the entire reservoir.
The maximum length is 1030 km, and the corresponding width is 435 km. The minimum width is 195 km. The average figure corresponds to 317 km. That is, the reservoir has an impressive size and is rightfully called a sea. The length of the coastline together with the islands reaches almost 7 thousand km. As for the water level, it is 28 meters below the level of the World Ocean.
The most interesting thing is that the level of the Caspian Sea is subject to cyclicity. The water rises and falls. Water level measurements have been carried out since 1837. According to experts, over the last thousand years the level has fluctuated within 15 meters. This is a very large number. And they associate it with geological and anthropogenic (human impact on the environment) processes. However, it has been noted that since the beginning of the 21st century, the level of the huge reservoir has been steadily rising.
The Caspian Sea is surrounded by 5 countries. These are Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Azerbaijan. Moreover, Kazakhstan has the longest coastline. Russia is in 2nd place. But the length of the coastline of Azerbaijan reaches only 800 km, but in this place there is the largest port in the Caspian Sea. This is, of course, Baku. The city is home to 2 million people, and the population of the entire Absheron Peninsula is 2.5 million people.
"Oil Rocks" - a city in the sea
These are 200 platforms with a total length of 350 kilometers
Notable is the oil workers' village, which is called " Oil Rocks". It is located 42 km east of Absheron in the sea and is a creation of human hands. All residential and industrial buildings are built on metal overpasses. People service drilling rigs that pump oil from the bowels of the earth. Naturally, there are no permanent residents in this village.
In addition to Baku, there are other large cities along the shores of the salty reservoir. At the southern tip is the Iranian city of Anzali with a population of 111 thousand people. This is the largest Iranian port on the Caspian Sea. Kazakhstan owns the city of Aktau with a population of 178 thousand people. And in the northern part, directly on the Ural River, is the city of Atyrau. It is inhabited by 183 thousand people.
The Russian city of Astrakhan also has the status of a seaside city, although it is 60 km from the coast and is located in the Volga River delta. This is a regional center with a population of more than 500 thousand people. Directly on the seashore there are such Russian cities as Makhachkala, Kaspiysk, Derbent. The latter is one of the oldest cities in the world. People have been living in this place for more than 5 thousand years.
Many rivers flow into the Caspian Sea. There are about 130 of them. The largest of them are the Volga, Terek, Ural, Kura, Atrek, Emba, Sulak. It is rivers, not precipitation, that feed the huge reservoir. They give him up to 95% of water per year. The basin of the reservoir is 3.626 million square meters. km. These are all rivers with their tributaries flowing into the Caspian Sea. The territory is huge, it includes Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay.
It would be more correct to call this bay a lagoon. It means a shallow body of water separated from the sea by a sandbar or reefs. There is such a spit in the Caspian Sea. And the strait through which water flows from the sea is 200 km wide. True, people, with their restless and ill-considered activities, almost destroyed Kara-Bogaz-Gol. They fenced off the lagoon with a dam, and its level dropped sharply. But after 12 years the mistake was corrected and the strait was restored.
The Caspian Sea has always been shipping is developed. In the Middle Ages, merchants brought exotic spices and snow leopard skins from Persia to Rus' by sea. Nowadays, the reservoir connects the cities located on its banks. Ferry crossings are practiced. There is a water connection with the Black and Baltic Seas through rivers and canals.
Caspian Sea on the map
The body of water is also important from the point of view fisheries, because sturgeon live in large numbers there and provide caviar. But today the number of sturgeon has decreased significantly. Environmentalists propose to ban the fishing of this valuable fish until the population recovers. But this issue has not yet been resolved. The number of tuna, bream, and pike perch also decreased. Here you need to take into account the fact that poaching is highly developed at sea. The reason for this is the difficult economic situation of the region.
And, of course, I need to say a few words about oil. The extraction of “black gold” at sea began in 1873. The areas adjacent to Baku have become a real gold mine. There were more than 2 thousand wells here, and oil production and refining was carried out on an industrial scale. At the beginning of the 20th century it was the center of the international oil industry. In 1920, Azerbaijan was captured by the Bolsheviks. Oil wells and factories were requisitioned. The entire oil industry came under the control of the USSR. In 1941, Azerbaijan supplied 72% of all oil produced in the socialist state.
In 1994, the “Contract of the Century” was signed. He marked the beginning of the international development of the Baku oil fields. The main Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline allows Azerbaijani oil to flow directly to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. It was put into operation in 2006. Today, oil reserves are estimated at 12 trillion. US dollars.
Thus, it is clear that the Caspian Sea is one of the most important economic regions of the world. The political situation in the Caspian region is quite complicated. For a long time, there have been disputes about the maritime borders between Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iran. There were many inconsistencies and disagreements, which negatively affected the development of the region.
This came to an end on August 12, 2018. On this day, the states of the “Caspian Five” signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. This document delimited the bottom and subsoil, and each of the five countries (Russia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan) received its share in the Caspian basin. Rules for navigation, fishing, scientific research, and pipeline laying were also approved. The boundaries of territorial waters received state status.
Yuri Syromyatnikov