Krymsk

Town in Krasnodar kray (region), kray subordination, rayon (sector) centre, 87 km west of Krasnodar. Located on the Kuban-Priazov Lowland, on the Adagum River (tributary of the Kuban), 100 km from the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Railway junction (the station of Krymskaya) in the line to Krasnodar, Novorossiysk, Kerch, Timashevskaya. The town is crossed by the Krasnodar - Novorossiysk and Krymsk - Port - Caucasus highways. Population (1992 est.) 52 thousand, (1979 est.) 47.5 thousand.

Founded in 1862 as a Russian fortified post on the Adagum River. Soldiers of the Crimean infantry regiment moved here. Later, Cossacks from other stanitsas (Cossack villages) of Kuban, migrants from the Ukraine, southern and central areas of Russia arrived in the stanitsa of Krymskaya. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, the stanitsa of Krymskaya was an important line of defence in the way Nazi troops transgressed the Northern Caucasus. More than 18 thousand Red Army men perished liberating the stanitsa and the Crimean area (5 thousand were buried in the stanitsa of Krymskaya). The town of Krymsk since 1958.

Present Krymsk is an agricultural centre specialising in processing of food and agricultural raw materials: the Krymsky cannery, a winery, a dairy, etc.; production of building materials; a feed factory. Experimental selection station of the N.I. Vavilov Plant Growing Institute, branch of the Research Institute of Chemical Protection of Plants. Museum of local lore.

Within the town, on the left bank of the Adagum River, there is the burial mound of Karagodeuashkh, the burial of a Maeotae leader dating back to the last quarter of the IV century (explored by Y.D. Felitsyn in 1888). Golden ornaments, silver vessels, black varnish ceramics, amphorae, etc. found in the tomb are kept in the Hermitage.