Das Schwarze Meer - Brennpunkt zwischen Donau & Kaukasus

For centuries, the Black Sea was a "blind spot" for geostrategists. The marginal sea "far to the east" attracted European attention only sporadically. Protracted and bloody Russian-Turkish wars over these warm waters eventually convinced transatlantic powers to move cautiously in the region. However, this attitude of Europeans toward the European Sea, into which three major European rivers - the Danube, Dnipro, and Don - flow, is a perspective of modern times. The Black Sea was the engine of European civilization for centuries. The most important civilizing impulse of ancient Greece, colonization during the archaic period, spread on the sea side of Pontus Euxinus (from Latin: "hospitable sea") in the size of up to a hundred colonies, although the "black waters" with their stormy weather and rough currents did not offer hospitality after all.