Skip to content

← Home

Water Supply of Crimea in the Post-War Decade (1944–1954)

After World War II, Crimea found itself in a state of acute water crisis: a destroyed water supply network, the absence of sewerage, and a catastrophic shortage of drinking water in cities and on the Southern Coast. Despite a resolution of the Union government in 1949, the russian federation failed to resolve the problem over the ten post-war years, and only after the transfer of Crimean Oblast to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 did Ukraine undertake the systematic revival of the peninsula's water economy, including the construction of the North Crimean Canal.

Overview

In the extremely arid Crimea (300–400 mm of precipitation per year), every ethnic group that inhabited the peninsula over millennia always valued water as the main precondition of life. Rivers, streams, and springs were regarded as sacred, carefully tended, and protected. Despite the high population density of the region, no global humanitarian catastrophe related to drought was recorded on the peninsula's territory throughout the millennia.

After World War II, however, as a result of wartime destruction and the deportation, the water supply network was destroyed, most of the rural population used water from shallow dug wells of poor quality, and the boreholes in cities could not satisfy the needs of either the population or industry. To solve the problem of supplying the Black Sea Fleet, the resorts, and the cultivation of defense raw materials — cotton — the Soviet government in 1950 approved the construction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Complex and the North Crimean Canal.

Key Details / Subtopics

Simferopol

  • The city's daily requirement (~140,000 residents) was 42,000 m³, while the city reservoir supplied only 26,000 m³ (50–60%).
  • The city had a water reserve for only 14 days.
  • The districts of "Chervona Hirka", "Serhiivka", and "Ukrainka" were completely waterless; residents used water from dug wells unsuitable for drinking, which dried up in summer.
  • Only 5% of households had sewage drainage; 75% of sewage (9,000 m³) was discharged into the Salhyr River, which dried up in summer and turned into a "fetid cloaca".
  • Only 16% of the city's roads had hard surfacing; 42 streets had no electric lighting.
  • After rains the city was covered with a layer of silt up to 35 cm; more than 700 houses were affected by flooding.

Ukrainian specialists proposed limiting Simferopol's population to 150–170 thousand, but Communist Party officials resisted, wishing to settle the city with retired military personnel. Ukraine accelerated the construction of the Simferopol Reservoir and the discharge collector.

Southern Coast of Crimea

  • The sanatorium-resort complex (111 institutions, ~16,500 beds) suffered annually from water shortages, especially in summer.
  • Municipal water mains existed only in Yalta, Alushta, and Alupka; the rest were local and departmental, often in unsatisfactory condition.
  • The Alushta district accounted for 33% of springs, the Yalta district only 14%; other districts periodically suffered from shortages.
  • No deep-water sewage outfall existed; effluents were discharged into the sea without treatment, polluting the beaches.
  • To cover the deficit, the Chornorichenske (4.6 million m³) and Alminske (7.3 million m³) reservoirs were planned.

Steppe and Eastern Crimea (Kerch, Feodosia)

  • A traditionally waterless region suffering from a deficit of both drinking and industrial water.
  • On January 26, 1954 (a few weeks before the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine), the USSR Council of Ministers adopted Resolution No. 140 on the water supply of Kerch and Feodosia — Moscow shifted the unresolved problem onto Ukraine.
  • On March 15, 1954, the Ukrainian government responded swiftly with Resolution No. 38 "On the Construction of the North Crimean Canal".

Sevastopol

  • Over the 10 post-war years, no city sewage treatment station was built.
  • Over three months of 1955, 32,600 m³ of garbage and sewage were removed from the city.
  • There were no replaceable garbage bins; after Ukraine's intervention 286 were installed, with another 500 promised by the end of the year.
  • 75 public toilets were promised to be opened — until then the heroic Sevastopol residents had managed without them.
  • A residential area for 15,000 people had no sewerage; the "Severnaya storona" (Northern Side) also lacked a sewerage network (technical documentation was planned for completion only in 1958).

The Role of Ukraine in Resolving the Crisis

After the transfer of Crimean Oblast to the Ukrainian SSR (1954), it was Ukraine that took on the burden of reviving the peninsula's water economy: - Acceleration of the construction of the Simferopol, Chornorichenske, and Alminske reservoirs. - Construction of the North Crimean Canal (work in southern Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts, had begun as early as the early 1950s). - Development of sewerage networks in Simferopol, Sevastopol, and the Southern Coast. - Bringing the sanitary condition of the cities into order.