Перевал находится после развилки.

Находится is the 3rd person singular of находиться, which means to be located, to be situated, or to be found somewhere.

So Перевал находится после развилки literally means something like:

• The pass is located after the fork.

In location sentences, находиться is very common and sounds natural.

Because после requires the genitive case.

• dictionary form: развилка
• genitive singular: развилки

So:

• после развилки = after the fork

This is a very important pattern in Russian: certain prepositions always force a specific case, and после takes the genitive.

Перевал is in the nominative singular.

It is the subject of the sentence:

• перевал = the pass

Since it is the thing being talked about, it stays in its basic dictionary form here.

После usually means after.

It can be used:

• temporally: after dinner
• spatially: after the fork / beyond the fork

In this sentence, it is being used in the spatial sense: the pass is farther along the route, after you go past the fork.

Russian has no articles, so there is no separate word for the or a/an.

So перевал can mean:

• a pass
• the pass

Which one is meant depends on context. In a sentence like this, English often uses the, but Russian simply does not need it.

Sometimes yes, but it would be less explicit.

• Перевал находится после развилки = clear, neutral, natural for giving location
• Перевал после развилки = shorter, but can sound more like a label, note, or compressed spoken style

Russian often omits to be in the present tense, but with location, находится is often used when you want to sound complete and natural.

Not exactly.

Развилка is a fork or split in the road/path, where one route divides into two directions.

Перекрёсток is an intersection or crossroads, where roads cross.

So if the road branches, развилка is the right word.

Yes. Russian word order is fairly flexible.

The neutral order here is:

• Перевал находится после развилки.

But you could also say:

• После развилки находится перевал.

That version puts more emphasis on after the fork or sounds a bit more descriptive, as if guiding someone along a route.

Both are grammatical, but the original sentence is the most straightforward.

The stress is:

• перева́л
• нахо́дится
• по́сле
• разви́лки

So the sentence is pronounced approximately:

• pere-VAHL na-HO-dit-sya POS-le raz-VEEL-kee

The most useful thing to remember is that Russian stress is important and can move, so it is best to learn each word together with its stressed syllable.

Yes, they are related, but the meanings are different.

• находить / найти = to find
• находиться = to be located, to be situated

So although they look connected, in this sentence находится does not mean finds itself in any normal English sense. It simply means is located.

Yes, very natural.

It sounds like something you might hear in:

• travel directions
• hiking instructions
• map descriptions
• route explanations

For example, someone could say:

• Перевал находится после развилки, справа от тропы.
  The pass is after the fork, to the right of the trail.

So the sentence is perfectly normal Russian for describing location.