Costa

Costa belongs to the northeastern shore of the Black Sea around Tuapse, where forested mountains descend to a subtropical coast. Warm summers, cool winters and rain throughout the year support dense vegetation and give this stretch a different climate from the steppe farther inland. The coast also forms a long north–south route, with sea transport complementing difficult movement through the mountains and linking the shoreline with inland settlements.

The wider district was a major centre of the Shapsug Circassians, whose homeland stretched through parts of Circassia. The Adyghe name of Tuapse literally means “two waters,” a reminder of the streams and watersheds that structure the local geography. The coast was nominally Ottoman, but its mountain communities largely governed themselves, and Russia claimed the shore under the 1829 Treaty of Adrianople, a claim the local peoples did not accept.