How It's Used

"Yet the country is caught on a critical fault-line, between the resurgent power of Russia, its one-time imperial ruler, and the western world to which it seeks to belong. Moscow has imposed a trade and transport embargo on its former colony, although it has scarcely dented the growth rate.

"Georgia occupies a vital geo-strategic position astride the principal energy transit routes from the oil and gas fields of the Caspian and central Asia to their European markets via the Black Sea and Turkey."

"Late last week the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which analyses the economies of eastern Europe and lends money to them, released its annual 'Transition Report' which provides a revealing snapshot of what is happening from the Black Sea to the Baltic and across the vast expanse of Russia and the former Soviet republics."

"'It's just like New York: a mix of different cultures,' said Mr. Gurs, who grew up in Stockholm before settling in Istanbul in 1996. His -- and Turkey's -- culinary influences span Armenia, Greece, the Middle East, the Black Sea region and beyond to create a cuisine that resembles all, but replicates none. 'Everything gets mixed up in Istanbul.'"

"Although several Eastern European countries agree with Bush about Ukraine and Georgia, key allies such as France and Germany do not, making it unlikely that the 26-member organization will reach a consensus in Bucharest. But by agreeing to go to Russia afterward, Bush may have made it harder for Putin to be too confrontational in Bucharest. And by going to the Russian presidential dacha in Sochi, the Black Sea resort, Bush is playing to one of Putin's top priorities by showcasing the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics."

"On Feb. 19, 1915, British warships attempted to force the heavy Turkish defenses of the Dardanelles, the entrance to the straits in northern Turkey that are the key link between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The British struck in search of an indirect approach to victory. World War I was in stalemate, the two sides locked into trench warfare in northern France. The hope was that a battle fleet appearing off Istanbul would compel Turkey's capitulation, secure a supply route to hard-pressed Russia, and inspire the Balkan states to join the Allied war effort and eventually to attack Austro-Hungary, thereby pressuring Germany."

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