The sea area off the east coast of the Black Sea is an area where often pronounced local winds are encountered. The most prominent one is the Novorossiyskaya bora, which is a strong wind blowing from the coastal mountains onto the Black Sea, which can attain speeds of up to 40 ms-1. But also katabatic winds and foehn winds are often encountered in this area. We have analyzed seven coastal wind events by using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images acquired by the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) onboard the European Envisat satellite. The winds modify the sea surface roughness and thus they become visible on SAR images. Information on the spatial extent and the fine-scale structure of the coastal wind fields can be obtained from these images. In particular, SAR images can be used to study 1) wind jets, wakes, and atmospheric eddies generated by the interaction of winds with coastal topography, 2) boundaries between the local and ambient wind fields, and 3) atmospheric gravity waves (AGWs). Quantitative information on the near-surface wind field is derived from the SAR images by using the CMOD4 wind scatterometer model for converting radar backscatter values into wind speeds. It is argued that the east coast of the Black Sea is an ideal test area for validating meso-scale atmospheric models.