Lake Koyashskoye

Since Soviet times, Crimea has been a location beloved by cinematographers. This is because it has everything: from endless dry steppes to bright, snowy mountains; from ancient cave cities and caverns to cliff-lined coastlines as fine as any in Portugal; from pink-hued, saline lakes to the stormy sea riven by deep fall colors – immortalized in the paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky.

One of the many wonders of the Crimean Peninsula, indeed of the world, is Lake Koyashskoye.

The lake sits at sea level, separated from the Black Sea by just a narrow strip of dry land. It is in effect a lagoon that forms when the sea floods the valley. The lake is constantly replenished by the sea, yet because it is so shallow, the heat of the sun fuels an intensive evaporation of the seawater, leading to a very high salt concentration.

To the touch, the water feels oily and dense. And the hypersaline water (called рапa in Russian) has a pinkish hue (even ranging to scarlet in the right light), thanks to the presence of microscopic Dunaliella algae that thrive in salt water.

The lake’s special beauty is best witnessed at the peak of summer, from the end of July to the middle of August. As a rule, the hotter it is, the more intense is the lake’s pink-to-red hue. Yet in particularly dry periods the saline lake water entirely evaporates, leaving behind a snow-white saline crust. While it is rather smooth at the lake’s edge, toward the center the salt crystals become larger and sharper, so that eventually it is impossible to walk across the surface of the dried-up lake. At times like this the lake reminds of the Uyuni salt flats, located some 3,650 meters above sea level, far away in the southwestern corner of Bolivia.

Here, as there, branches of shrubs blown in by the wind, and the occasional tree, become trapped and encased in salt, transformed into something like beautiful corals. Spend a day here, and you will be transfixed by a landscape that changes all day long: the sun sweeps across it, continually revealing new colors and shadows.

Aside from the unbelievable beauty of this place, beneath the salty crust there is an endless supply of healing mud, ranging in color from grey-blue to black. It is said that everything from the saline water to the mud has healing powers for various bone ailments.

And the beauty of this location extends beyond the lake to its surroundings. The narrow strip of dry land that separates the lake from the Black Sea offers up its own surprise: a beach that is comprised not of sand or pebbles, but shells that have washed up from the sea. The land drops off very quickly from the shore, so that the sea is very deep and also – due to the lack of sand – very clean and translucent, more like a wayward ocean than a sea.

Koyashskoye Lake is located in the peninsula’s huge Opuksky Natural Park. It is free to visitors and open to all. And yet visitors mostly find that they have the lake all to themselves. For now.