Curonian Spit
Template:Short description Template:Infobox UNESCO World Heritage Site The Curonian Spit, sometimes called Courish Split (Template:Langx; Template:Langx), is a Template:Convert long, thin, curved sand-dune spit that separates the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site shared by Lithuania and Russia. Its southern portion lies within Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, and its northern within southwestern Klaipėda County of Lithuania.
GeographyEdit
The Curonian Spit stretches from the Sambia Peninsula on the south to its northern tip next to a narrow strait, across which is the port city of Klaipėda on the Lithuanian mainland. The northern Template:Convert long stretch of the Curonian Spit peninsula lies in Klaipėda County, Lithuania, while the rest is part of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia. The width of the spit varies from a minimum of Template:Convert in Russia (near the village of Lesnoy) to a maximum of Template:Convert in Lithuania (just north of Nida).
Geologic historyEdit
The Curonian Spit was formed about 3rd millennium BC.<ref name="nationalpark">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A glacial moraine served as its foundation; winds and sea currents later contributed enough sand to raise and keep the formation above sea level.<ref name=nationalpark />
The existence of this narrow shoal is inherently threatened by the natural processes that govern shoreline features.<ref name="unesco">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It depends on a dynamic balance between sand transport and deposition. Geologically it is an ephemeral coast element. The most likely development is that the shallow bay inside the Curonian Spit will eventually fill up with sediment, thus creating new land.
Human historyEdit
MythologyEdit
According to folk etymology for the name of Neringa Municipality, there was a giantess girl named Template:AnchorNeringa, who formed the Curonian Spit and helped fishermen.<ref>Gitana Kazimieraitienė, Legendos pasakoja. Lietuvos geografiniai objektai, Kaunas, „Šviesa“, 2008, Template:ISBN (online)</ref>
Medieval periodEdit
From c. 800 to 1016, the Spit was the location of Kaup, a major pagan trading centre which has not yetTemplate:When? been excavated. The Teutonic Knights occupied the area in the 13th century, building their castles at Memel (1252), Neuhausen (1283), and at Rossitten (1372). After the Thirteen Years' War (1454–1466), the spit became part of a Polish fief held by the Teutonic Knights. The spit may have been the home of the last living speakers of now-extinct Old Prussian, one of the Baltic languages.<ref name="Krickus-2002">Template:Cite book </ref>
Kursenieki habitationEdit
Significant human impacts on the area began in the 16th century.<ref name=nationalpark /> From the 18th century, it was part of the Kingdom of Prussia. Deforestation of the spit due to overgrazing, timber harvesting, and building of boats for the Battle of Gross-Jägersdorf in 1757 led to the dunes taking over the spit and burying entire villages. Alarmed by these problems, the Prussian government sponsored large-scale revegetation and reforestation efforts, which started in 1825. Template:Citation needed Owing to these efforts, much of the spit is now covered with forests.
In the 19th century the Curonian Spit was inhabited primarily by Kursenieki, with a significant German minority in the south and a Lithuanian minority in the north. The population of Kursenieki eventually dwindled due to assimilation and other reasons; it is close to non-existent these days.Template:Citation needed
Artists' colonyEdit
From the late 19th century, the dune landscape around Nidden (Nida) became popular with landscape and animal painters from the Kunstakademie Königsberg arts school. The local inn of Herman Blode was the nucleus of the expressionist artists' colony (Künstlerkolonie Nidden). Lovis Corinth stayed here in 1890, followed by artists such as Max Pechstein, Alfred Lichtwark, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Alfred Partikel.<ref name="W159">Weise, p. 159</ref> Painters from Königsberg such as Julius Freymuth visited the area, as did poets like Ernst Wiechert and Carl Zuckmayer.<ref name="W159" /> Other guests included Ernst Kirchner, and Franz Domscheit.
20th centuryEdit
From 1901 to 1946 the village of Rossitten, now Rybachy, became the site of the Rossitten Bird Observatory, founded by German ornithologist Johannes Thienemann there because of the Spit's importance as a bird migration corridor.
After World War I, Nidden, together with the northern half of the Curonian Spit became part of the Klaipėda Region according to the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and was annexed by Lithuania in 1923. Officially renamed Nida, the village nevertheless remained a German-majority settlement – the border with the remaining East Prussian half of the Spit lay only a few kilometres to the south.
In 1929 Nobel Prize-winning writer Thomas Mann visited Nida while on holiday in nearby Rauschen and decided to have a summer house erected on a hill above the Lagoon, mocked as Uncle Tom's Cabin (Onkel Toms Hütte) by locals. He and his family spent the summers of 1930–1932 in the thatched cottage; parts of the novel Joseph and His Brothers (Joseph und seine Brüder) were written here. Threatened by the Nazis, Mann left Germany after Hitler's Machtergreifung in 1933 and never returned to Nida. After the Klaipėda Region was again annexed by Nazi Germany in 1939, his house was seized at the behest of Hermann Göring and served as a recreation home for Luftwaffe officers.
Following World War II, the Memelland and its part of the spit was restored to Lithuania, while the remainder fell to Russia. The German population was expelled after the war by the occupying Soviet forces in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. Like elsewhere in present-day Kaliningrad Oblast, the assimilation of the territory and colonization by Russian settlers was completed by changing the historic German toponyms to Russian ones throughout the Russian-controlled part of the Spit.
TodayEdit
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, tourism flourished; many Germans, mostly the descendants of the inhabitants of the area, choose the Curonian Spit (especially Nida, as no visas are needed for Germans in Lithuania) as their holiday destination. In 2019 the making of Curonian Lagoon Boats’ Weathervanes was inscribed into The Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory of Lithuania as a form of folk art, traditional craftsmanship or agricultural activities.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
KurseniekiEdit
Template:Further While today the Kursenieki, also known as Kuršininkai, are a nearly extinct Baltic ethnic group living along the Curonian Spit, in 1649 Kuršininkai settlement spanned from Memel (Klaipėda) to Gdańsk. The Kuršininkai were eventually assimilated by the Germans, except along the Curonian Spit where some still live. The Kuršininkai were considered Latvians until after World War I, when Latvia gained independence from the Russian Empire, a consideration based on linguistic arguments. This was the rationale for Latvian claims over the Curonian Spit, Memel and other territories of Prussia, which would be later dropped.
- Kurenwimpel aus Nidden (2004).JPG
Curonian pennant, Nida
- Krikstas.jpg
Krikštas burial marker
- Old cemetery in Nida.jpg
Old cemetery in Nida
- Viesbutis, Kavine in Nida.jpg
Small inn and cafe in Nida
- EŠERINĖ, svetainė (9617446912).jpg
Fish restaurant in Nida
Current stateEdit
The Curonian Spit is home to the highest moving (drifting) sand dunes in Europe. Their average height is Template:Convert, but some attain a height of Template:Convert. Several ecological communities are present on and near the Spit, from its outer beaches to dune ridges, wetlands, meadows, and forests.<ref name="eco">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Its location on the East Atlantic Flyway means it is frequently visited by migratory waterfowl. Between 10 and 20 million birds fly over the feature during spring and autumn migrations, and many pause to rest or breed there.<ref name=eco />
Both the Russian and Lithuanian parts of the spit are national parks.
The settlements of the Curonian Spit (from north to south) are:
The first six are on the Lithuanian side, while the last three are on the Russian side. The Russian side of the Curonian Spit belongs to Zelenogradsky District of the Kaliningrad Oblast, while the Lithuanian side is partitioned among Klaipėda city municipality and Neringa municipality in Klaipėda County.
There is a single road that traverses the whole length of the Curonian Spit. Car ferries provide a transportation link between Smiltynė, located on the spit, and the port town of Klaipėda.
Since 2000, the Curonian Spit has been on UNESCO's World Heritage List under cultural criterion "V" ("an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture [...], or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change").
As of March 2012, there was a demand to demolish a number of homes on the Curonian Spit. These homes are owned by people who were given permits to build by corrupt local governmentTemplate:Specify officials. The demand to demolish the homes is due to the Spit being a UN World Heritage Site, and the only structures that were to be allowed outside official settlements were fishing huts.<ref name="Controversy">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
TourismEdit
The largest town on the spit is Nida in Lithuania, a holiday resort, mostly frequented by Lithuanian and German tourists.
Parnidis dune and sundialEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Parnidis sand dune, subjected to drift by harsh winds, is rising up to Template:Convert above sea level. Local residents believe that the name Parnidis comes from the phrase meaning "passed across Nida", because this wind-blown dune has several times passed through the village of Nida. Scientists estimated that each person climbing or descending on the steep dune slopes moves several tons of sand, so hikers are allowed to climb only in designated paths.
There is a granite sundial built on Parnidis dune in 1995 that accurately shows the time. The sundial was rebuilt in 2011 following storm damage. The sundial is a stone pillar Template:Convert high and weighing Template:Convert. It consists in small steps covered with granite slabs, carved with hour and half-hour notches, as well as one notch for each month, and four additional notches for solstices and equinoxes. From the astronomical point of view Parnidis dune is an ideal place for the sundial in Lithuania.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Environmental concernsEdit
There are environmental concerns related to the Curonian Spit, which is often promoted as a refuge of clean nature.
Due to the importance of tourism and fishing for the regional economy, pollution of sea and coastlines may have disastrous effects for the area as the unique nature and the economy would be damaged.
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The construction of an offshore drilling facility (the Kravtsovskoye (D-6) oilfield) in the territorial waters of Russia, Template:Convert from the coastline of the Curonian Spit raised concerns over possible oil spills. Between 2002 and 2005 local environmentalists in Kaliningrad Oblast<ref>[1] Template:Webarchive</ref> and Lithuania<ref>[2] Template:Webarchive</ref> protested against Lukoil's plans to exploit the oilfield, objecting to the possible great damage to the environment and tourism (a vital source of income in the area) in case of oil leakage. These concerns did not engender support in the government of Russia. They were, however, supported by the government of Lithuania. The oilfield is about Template:Convert from the boundary of Lithuanian territorial waters; the prevailing northward currents means that the Lithuanian coastlines would receive much potential damage in case of leakage. Opposition to the operation of D-6 met little international support, and the oil platform was opened in 2004. During the first decade of the 21st century the two states agreed to a joint environmental impact assessment of the D-6 project, including plans for oil spill mitigation.<ref name="eia">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The assessment and mitigation project had not been completed as of 2010.<ref name=eia />
Another concern is that increased tourism destroys the very nature that attracts it. For this reason, protective measures have been taken, such as banning tourists from hiking in certain areas of the spit.
Natural hazards are more dangerous in the Curonian Spit than elsewhere in Lithuania or the Kaliningrad Oblast. For example, storms tend to be stronger there. Due to the importance of trees in preventing soil erosion, forest fires that happen in summer are more dangerous to the ecology.
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
Template:Wikivoyage Template:Sister project
- UNESCO World Heritage Site Curonian Spit
- Kursiu Nerija National Park (in Lithuania) Template:Webarchive
- National Park Kurshskaya Kosa (in Russia)
- Rybachy Biological Station, Russian Academy of Sciences
- Curonian Spit at Natural Heritage Protection Fund
Template:World Heritage Sites in Lithuania Template:World Heritage Sites in Russia Template:Authority control