Between Port and Resort

At its session last week the Crimean parliament upheld the proposal of Atlantic Caspian Resources pls. (Great Britain) to create a Donuzlav sea transport and industrial complex, essentially a seaport for cargo vessels. The new seaport is to be created on Donuzlav Lake, while the whole complex is expected to occupy an area of over 6,000 hectares of the territory subordinated to several village councils.

The Crimean government has already planned preparatory steps for the implementation of this project. To coordinate the actions aimed at the comprehensive development of Donuzlav area, Crimean lawmakers and government representatives have formed a task force headed by Volodymyr Klychnykov, chairman of the permanent parliamentary commission on local self-government and administrative and territorial issues. The task force has been charged with studying the prospects for the development of Donuzlav area and preparing drafts of the relevant enactments. Further, the Crimean Ministry of the Economy has been instructed to plan until April 25 measures aimed at the comprehensive development of Donuzlav area.

Yet it would be premature to call it the best possible way to develop Donuzlav area. Ukraine’s Transport Ministry plans to build here a state port with budget money to be further transferred to Ukrmorport state association. At the same time, the Crimean transport authorities plan to involve private capital in the construction of what would become Ukraine’s first privately owned port. In any case, the idea is to make the Donuzlav Port second only to the Illichivsk Port. However, such plans have not been well-received by the local population, who have repeatedly protested the ill-advised industrial development of an environmentally safe area, which seeks resort status. On their initiative another project for Donuzlav area development has been proposed: the Crimeans want to build here a big international yachting port. Experts do not rule out a compromise. Thirteen miles long and two miles wide, the lake has one of Ukraine’s deepest bays and is intersected by virtually all traffic routes of the Black Sea. Thus, it could easily accommodate both a major trade port and a yachting bay.

Meanwhile, the present condition of Donuzlav causes legitimate concern. In the past decade no dredging operations have been performed in the lake, which has become silted. The lake is presently nine or ten meters deep, while it should be between fifteen and 21 meters deep for cargo vessels to pass. Moreover, Donuzlav lake has been always famous for its sand deposits. In the 1980s, 4.5 million tons of sand were processed here annually. Yet volume has shrunk considerably, and the Kerch Sea Port alone extracts sand today.