Geographic position and natural resources of the Adygey Republic

The Adygey Republic borders with Krasnodar Territory, from which it separated in 1991.

The territory of the Adygey Republic is crossed with railroad lines: Krasnodar - Novorossisk, Armavir - Tuapse, with the total length within Adygey of 90 km. Motorways and cart roads (673 km): Maykop - Neftegorsk, Maykop - Krasnodar, Maykop - Tuapse, etc. Krasnodar water-storage basin is located in the northwest.

By relief the territory of Adygey is divided into two parts: lowlands in the north and foothills in the south. The smaller southern area is occupied by picturesque slopes of the Main Caucasian range and divided by river valleys. In the north the foothills smoothly change with fertile Kuban plain. The climate is moderately warm. Average temperature in January -2?C, July +22 ?C. Annual precipitation is over 700 mm (in the area of Maykop). The main rivers - Laba and Belaya - tributaries of the Kuban river. A lot of high quality mineral sources (such as matsestin, etc.).

About 2/3 of the territory is chernozem, especially powerful on the plain; approximately 2% is occupied by moors (partial swamps, including around Adygeysk, caused by construction of water-storage basins). Northern part of the territory is occupied by fertile steppe area. Agricultural climate conditions contribute to the development of agriculture: wheat, corn, rape, rice, barley, sunflower, aromatic plants are grown. Major crop is tea (Kubansky blend). Agricultural lands constitute 47% of all territory.

About 40% of the territory is covered with forests. Woodlands in the mountains consist of valuable broad-leaved species ? oak, beech, hornbeam, ash, maple. Timber of valuable species ? important natural resource ? is used as raw material for furniture and woodworking industry in North Caucasia. Besides, due to natural climate features Adygey has excellent conditions for recreation and tourism. One of the most beautiful places that could become a centre of international tourism is Lago-Naki, where mountaineering, speleology tourism and mountain-skiing can be developed simultaneously.

Reserves of oil, gas condensate and natural gas have industrial value as mineral resources. Oil and gas bearing are both foothill and plain part of the Adygey territory. The reserves of natural gas are estimated as 40 billion cubic metres. Three fields are exploited, the maximum volume of output reached 600 million cubic metres per year. Three fields of gas condensate are explored, its reserves are 37.8 billion cubic metres. Many gas wells in the republic already exhausted and abandoned, but the forecasts of the specialists show that in case of usage of new technologies a number of them can be reanimated and used for mining for 15 ? 20 years. The known reserves of gas allow to double the production in 10 years and triple it in 15 years in case of relevant investments. Two oil fields, in Maykop and Koshekhabl, are now exploited, the annual output is 12 thousand tons. Geologic reserves of oil are estimated approximately as 170 thousand tons. Oil production can be increased to 30 ? 50 thousand tons. This would be enough to satisfy the needs of Adygey in fuel and petroleum.

In the highland part of the republic considerable reserves of building raw materials are found for production of cement, lime, glass, fields of building, coating and ornamental stones, building gypsum. The famous Maykop clay is used for production of tile, glazed tile, ceramic sewer pipes, faience, etc.

The republic has a source of raw materials for production in high quantities of ecologically safe and high quality mineral fertilisers ? phosphorites and glauconites. Forecast resources of glauconites ? ready for use ? are practically inexhaustible, and the reserves of phosphorites are estimated as 180 thousand tons. In the highland part of Adygey the ore of many non-ferrous metals, gold and silver is found. However the estimation of the industrial significance of these fields is not performed by geologic services.