Tsemes Bay
The Tsemes Bay (also "Tsemess Bay" and "Novorossiysk Bay"; Russian: Цемесская бухта, "Tsemesskaya bukhta") is an ice-free bay located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, in Krasnodar Krai of Russia. It takes its name from the which flows into the bay. The depth of the sea varies from 21 to 27 meters. The length of the bay is 15 kilometers; its maximum width is 9 kilometers. It is delimited by the and by . Although navigation is affected by strong autumn and winter bora winds (up to 220 kilometers per hour), ancient Greek navigators frequented the  bay and established the colony of Bata on the shore. Michael Rostovtzeff explained this by the fact that there are no other decent harbours along the coastline all the way south to Batumi. During the Middle Ages the Ghisolfi merchant family of Genoa controlled the coast. Novorossiysk, founded by Russians in 1838 as a military facility, is the chief port on the bay. The Russian Navy scuttled several ships of the Black Sea Fleet in the bay to avoid their capture by the Germans in 1918. Several notable shipwrecks occurred in Tsemes bay, including that of SS "Admiral Nakhimov" in  1986. Following the 1992 establishment of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, the Commercial Seaport of Novorossiysk has emerged as the busiest oil terminal in the Black Sea. The southern portion of the bay, with the minor resort of , is administered from Gelendzhik (see Gelendzhik Bay).