Caspian Sea

Dead Kultuk is a shallow bay at the northeastern edge of the Caspian Sea, between the Buzachi peninsula and the dry lands below the Ustyurt plateau. The narrow Kaydak inlet extends eastward from it. The level of the Caspian has long shaped this low coast, alternately leaving shallow water and exposed flats. In 1834 the Russian fortress of Novoaleksandrovsk was established on the bay as a foothold on the eastern shore, near routes leading inland toward Khiva.