The Nogay pastoral nomads north of the Black Sea were nominally subject to the Crimean Khan. They were divided into the following groups: Budjak (from the Danube to the Dniester), Yedisan (from the Dniester to the Bug), Jamboyluk (Bug to Crimea), Yedickul (north of Crimea) and Kuban.


Internally, the khanate territory was divided among the beys, and beneath the beys were mirzas from noble families. The relationship of peasants or herdsmen to their mirzas was not feudal. They were free and the Islamic law protected them from losing their rights. Apportioned by village, the land was worked in common and taxes were assigned to the whole village. The tax was one tenth of an agricultural product, one twentieth of a herd animal, and a variable amount of unpaid labor. During the reforms by the last khan Şahin Giray, the internal structure was changed following the Turkish pattern: the nobles' landholdings were proclaimed the domain of the khan and reorganized into "qadılıqs" (provinces governed by representatives of the khan).


Crimean law was based on Tatar law, Islamic law, and, in limited matters, Ottoman law. The leader of the Muslim establishment was the mufti, who was selected from among the local Muslim clergy. His major duty was neither judicial nor theological, but financial. The mufti's administration controlled all of the vakif lands and their enormous revenues. Another Muslim official, appointed not by the clergy but the Ottoman sultan, was the kadıasker, the overseer of the khanate's judicial districts, each under jurisdiction of a kadi. In theory, kadis answered to the kadiaskers, but in practice they answered to the clan leaders and the khan. The kadis determined the day to day legal behavior of Muslims in the khanate.


Substantial non-Muslim minorities - Greeks, Armenians, Crimean Goths, Adyghe (Circassians), Venetians, Genoese, Crimean Karaites and Qırımçaq Jews - lived principally in the cities, mostly in separate districts or suburbs. Under the "millet" system, they had their own religious and judicial institutions. They were subject to extra taxes in exchange for exemption from military service, living like Crimean Tatars and speaking dialects of Crimean Tatar. Mikhail Kizilov writes: "According to Marcin Broniewski (1578), the Tatars seldom cultivated the soil themselves, with most of their land tilled by the Polish, Ruthenian, Russian, and Walachian (Moldavian) slaves."


The Jewish population was concentrated in Çufut Kale ('Jewish Fortress'), a separate town near Bahçeseray that was the Khan's original capital. As other minorities, they spoke a Turkic language. Crimean law granted them special financial and political rights as a reward, according to local folklore, for historic services rendered to an "uluhane" (first wife of a Khan). The capitation tax on Jews in Crimea was levied by the office of the uluhane in Bahçeseray. Much like the Christian population of Crimea, the Jews were actively involved in the slave trade. Both Christians and Jews also often redeemed Christian and Jewish captives of Tatar raids in Eastern Europe.


The slave trade (15th-17th century) in captured Ukrainians and Russians was one of the major sources of income of Crimean Tartar and Nogay nobility. In this process, known as "harvesting the steppe", raiding parties would go out and capture, and then enslave the local Christian peasants living in the countryside. In spite of the dangers, Polish and Russian serfs were attracted to the freedom offered by the empty steppes of Ukraine. The slave raids entered Russian and Cossack folklore and many "dumy" were written elegising the victims' fates. This contributed to a hatred for the Khanate that transcended political or military concerns. But in fact, there were always small raids committed by both Tatars and Cossacks, in both directions.


The last recorded major Crimean raid, before those in the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) took place during the reign of Peter I (1682–1725).


The Selim II Giray fountain, built in 1747, is considered one of the masterpieces of Crimean Khanate's hydraulic engineering designs and is still marveled in modern times. It consists of small ceramic pipes, boxed in an underground stone tunnel, stretching back to the spring source more than away. It was one of the finest sources of water in Bakhchisaray.


One of the notable constructors of Crimean art and architecture was Qırım Giray, who in 1764 commissioned the fountain master Omer the Persian to construct the Bakhchisaray Fountain. The Bakhchisaray Fountain or "Fountain of Tears" is a real case of life imitating art. The fountain is known as the embodiment of love of one of the last Crimean Khans, Khan Qırım Giray for his young wife, and his grief after her early death. The Khan was said to have fallen in love with a Polish girl in his harem. Despite his battle-hardened harshness, he was grievous and wept when she died, astonishing all those who knew him. He commissioned a marble fountain to be made, so that the rock would weep, like him, forever.


The peninsula itself was divided by the khan's family and several "beys". The estates controlled by beys were called "beylik". Beys in the khanate were as important as the Polish "Magnats". Directly to the khan belonged Cufut-Qale, Bakhchisaray, and Staryi Krym (Eski Qirim). The khan also possessed all the salt lakes and the villages around them, as well as the woods around the rivers Alma, Kacha, and Salgir. Part of his own estate included the wastelands with their newly created settlements.


Part of the main khan's estates were the lands of the "Kalha-sultan" (Qalğa) who was next in the line of succession of the khan's family. He usually administered the eastern portion of the peninsula. Kalha also was Chief Commander of the Crimean Army in the absence of the Khan. The next hereditary administrative position, called "Nureddin," was also assigned to the khan's family. He administrated the western region of the peninsula. There also was a specifically assigned position for the khan's mother or sister — "Ana-beim" — which was similar to the Ottomans' Valide Sultan. The senior wife of the Khan carried a rank of "Ulu-beim" and was next in importance to the Nureddin.


By the end of the khanate regional offices of the "kaimakans", who administered smaller regions of the Crimean Khanate, were created.


The Jewish Steppe is a 2001 documentary about a group of Russian Jews who, suffering as a result of prejudice and fearful of pogroms, left their homeland to farm the Crimean Peninsula. Established in the 1920s, their Soviet agrarian commune was destroyed.


"Why should the Jewish people go to Palestine where the land is less productive and requires big investments?" a Jewish newspaper asked at the time of the settlement, "Who go so far if the fertile Crimean land is beckoning to the Jewish people?"


At the turn of the twentieth century, antisemitism was common in Russia. Legislation was passed that limited Jews to working only in retail and handicrafts. When these laws were lifted, around the time the Russian Revolution of 1917, pogroms broke out. Approximately 30,000 Jews left for the Crimean Peninsula. Rare pictures and film footage from the Russian State Film and Photo Archive are narrated in "The Jewish Steppe" to explain how they lived there.


One newspaper wrote that everyone on the steppe was competing with each other to work harder. When, in 1931, famine occurred in Russia, the Jewish settlements continued to have an abundant harvest that helped feed the rest of the nation during its grain shortage.


Two years after it was settled, the area was recognized as the Soviet Union's first Jewish district. They went on to establish schools and two colleges.


"As a result of healthy life and labor," a local farmer commented in a newspaper, "peace of mind is replacing the nervousness typical for Jewish people, movements have become measured, and faces have become calm." He went on to say that these changes were particularly noticeable in the younger generation.


Under Joseph Stalin, the commune was destroyed, leaving only archival footage and documents.


Other documentaries about Jews of the Diaspora:


Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Crimea


The Declaration of Independence of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol was a joint resolution adopted on March 11, 2014 by the dissolved Supreme Council of Crimea and the Sevastopol City Council that proclaimed the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol a sovereign state — the Republic of Crimea. The decision was based on the results of an referendum that was held on March 16, 2014 after Russian troops took over Crimea and seized the region's parliament. The declaration of independence and the referendum following it was not internationally recognised by most countries.


According to the Declaration, the newly formed state has the right to apply to Russia for the inclusion of the territory in the federation as a separate subject.


In Ukraine's constitution, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol are recognised as integral parts of Ukraine, and changes to the territory of Ukraine is possible only after the relevant result of an All-Ukrainian referendum.


Russia recognised the Republic of Crimea's declaration of independence and agreed to incorporate the Republic into the Russian Federation following a referendum. However, the referendum was condemned as "illegal" by the European Union and countries such as the United States. US President Barack Obama said that Russian actions were a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and that the referendum would "violate the Ukrainian constitution and international law". On 27 March 2014, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the "Territorial Integrity of Ukraine" Resolution, which recognised Crimea as part of Ukraine.


Crimean speech of President Vladimir Putin, refers to a speech by the Russian president Vladimir Putin on March 18, 2014 to both chambers of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation in connection with the request for admission by the Crimean parliament of the republic in the Russian Federation. He spoke in the St. George Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace in the Moscow Kremlin.


In the same place, Putin delivered another speech on December 4, 2014 that also picked out the Crimea as a central theme.


In the beginning of his speech, Putin said that a referendum was held in full compliance with democratic procedures and rules of international law, and that the numbers support the entry of Crimea in Russia were very convincing.


Putin recalled the ancient Chersonesos where Prince Vladimir was baptized, on the graves of Russian soldiers on Sevastopol — the home of the Black Sea Fleet. Noted that the Crimean Tatars suffered cruel injustice in Soviet times, together with the other peoples, including the Russian people. After the Crimean Tatars have returned to their land, new solutions for a complete rehabilitation of the Crimean Tatar people are required. He proposed three equal official languages for Crimea - Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar.


The President stressed that in the heart of the Crimean people, Crimea has always been an integral part of Russia. Bolsheviks included a significant amount of the historical Russian southern land into the Ukrainian SSR without taking into account the national composition of its population. Further, in 1954, the Crimea and Sevastopol in the Ukrainian SSR passed. This decision was taken in violation of constitutional norms, behind the scenes, in a totalitarian state residents of Crimea and Sevastopol nothing asked. That decision was seen as a formality, since the territory transferred within the same country.


Putin assured that Russia will not seek confrontation with the West and the East, and stressed that Russia and Ukraine — are one people. Ukraine will continue to live millions of Russian citizens, which means that Russia will always defend their interests.


Putin's speech lasted 45 minutes. During the speech, Putin used the term "natsional-predateli" ("national-traitors") which is a calque from the German term "Nationalverräter". The refusal to accept the new Ukrainian government he explained in the unlawful events on Euromaidan: Groups "wanted to seize power and would stop short of nothing. They resorted to terror, murder and pogroms. Nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites executed this coup. They continue to set the tone in Ukraine to this day." Nevertheless, he expressed appreciation to those protesting peacefully against corruption, inefficient state management and poverty.


The audience has been applauding Putin for over 5 minutes at the beginning of the speech and at least 2–3 minutes thereafter. Many were shedding tears.


Glenn Kessler from "The Washington Post" reported that several of Putin's statements were "dubious and false." In particular, he disputed Putin's claims that the referendum was legal and unrigged and that the Supreme Soviet had no authority to transfer Crimea from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR. He also accused Putin of making a false equivalency between the annexation and the United States's support of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia.


Daisy Sindelar of Radio Free Europe criticized Putin for minimizing historic and current Soviet and Russian persecution of ethnic minorities, denying the legitimacy of Viktor Yushchenko's government after the Orange Revolution, and falsely stating that Ukraine was planning to join NATO before the annexation.


Bob Dreyfuss of "The Nation" noted the speech's "aggrieved evocation of Russia's history and its religious, Russian Orthodox overtones" and that "by annexing Crimea, Putin is almost certainly fueling the fire of the most extreme nationalist elements in Kiev. Unless the situation changes soon, what had been a dangerous minority of radical-right elements in the new Kiev government could gain huge new momentum, making Putin's inflated claims a self-fulfilling prophecy"


In a BBC News article, Bridget Kendall called Putin's pledge to protect Russian minorities in the former Union republics "A veiled reminder for other former Soviet republics with Russian-speaking minorities to send a message that, as in Ukraine, Mr Putin views Russian compatriots there as part of a single Russian nation - and therefore conceivably might make moves to ensure their protection too, if he felt they needed it," citing Transnistria and the Baltic States as specific examples.


In an interview with Tamara Zamyatina on ITAR-TASS, Colonel-General Valery Manilov praised Putin's speech, saying "Vladimir Putin in a dignified manner rebuffed the cravings of our opponents from the US and Western countries to misrepresent the results of the Crimean referendum. Particularly convincing was his criticism of the EU officials who recalled the existence of international law in connection with referendum, although they more than once encroached on its provisions in Serbia, Iraq and Libya."


The British government's response to points made by President Putin lists 7 points, among them the Crimean "referendum", the accusation of terror, pogrom and murder as well as the legal status of the Ukrainian government; " (...) Parliament (...) remained unchanged and was elected in a free vote of the people in Ukraine. The interim government was approved by an overwhelming majority in a free vote in the Ukrainian Parliament, including representatives of Yanukovych's Party of the Regions."


Hillary Clinton has compared events in Crimea to the Czech Crisis of 1938 and has directly compared Russia's Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler. Other politicians and journalists have done the same and have compared Crimean speech of Vladimir Putin to Hitler's speech.


Barack Obama gave a speech on March 26, 2014 to counter many of the arguments made by Putin. Obama stated that the historical relations between Ukraine and Russia did not give Russia the right to dictate Ukraine's future. He also denied Putin's claim that the Russian minority in Ukraine was in danger and argued that the Russians actions against Ukraine were undemocratic and constituted brute force.


Future President Donald Trump criticized the Obama administration after Putin's speech on a "Today" interview, saying that "Putin has eaten Obama's lunch, therefore our lunch, for a long period of time" and expressed concern that Obama would "do something very foolish and very stupid to show his manhood."


In a CNN article, Newt Gingrich called the address "a very serious speech by a very determined national security professional who has spent his entire adult life trying to defend Great Russian nationalism. He is clearly determined to unify and rebuild the Russian Empire as quickly as he can." However, he also opposed sanctions against Russia as meaningless "symbolic liberalism" that would cause a Second Cold War or World War III and proposed a foreign policy "based on a realistic sense of what America can accomplish in a multipolar world in which there are many powers who fear the United States a lot more than they fear Putin."


Russian historian Andrey Piontkovsky compared the speech to Hitler's speech on Sudetenland from 1939 as using "the same arguments and vision of history". According to him, this speech played key role in starting the war in Donbass.


The Kerch Polytechnic College massacre was a school shooting and bomb attack that occurred in Kerch, Crimea, on 17 October 2018. 18-year-old student Vladislav Roslyakov shot and killed 20 people and wounded 70 others before committing suicide. The attack was the greatest loss of life in school violence in the former Soviet Union since the 2004 Beslan school siege.


Vladislav Roslyakov purchased a shotgun on 8 September and bought 150 rounds legally at a gun shop on 13 October. He entered the grounds of Kerch Polytechnic College on 17 October at about 11:45 a.m. and shortly after began shooting. A survivor of the incident said that the shooting lasted for more than 15 minutes.


Several witnesses described a lone gunman walking up and down the halls at Kerch Polytechnic College and firing randomly at classmates and teachers. He also fired at computer monitors, locked doors and fire extinguishers. A large nail-bomb was detonated during the attack, and local police said that they deactivated more explosives on the campus. Student witnesses described the explosion as blasting out the windows, and that people running to escape were shot at point blank range. However, there was initially variation in survivors' accounts of the incident, with some claiming that a large bomb exploded and others describing only gunfire and the use of grenades.


The town website claimed that the explosion occurred on the first floor although the shooting occurred on the second. CNN reported that state television channel Russia-24 said that 200 military personnel had been sent to the location. Eyewitness accounts differ about the time it took for law enforcement to respond, as times differ between 10 and 15 minutes, even though a police station is across the street, within 300 meters (approx. 990 feet) of the college. The massacre ended when the gunman committed suicide in the college's library.


Graphic video footage of the attack was captured by school surveillance cameras and later posted on both the news programme "Vesti.Krym"'s YouTube channel and on its website. This footage was later removed from both sites shortly afterwards.


Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee said that most of the victims were teenagers. Fifteen students and five teachers died and according to the Investigative Committee, all died of gunshot wounds.


The Kerch Deputy Mayor, Dilyaver Melgaziyev, initially clarified rumors on 18 October that six of the deceased were under the age of 18. This figure was later revised to eleven. Crimean authorities have published a list of the initial 20 victims who were killed.


The Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova told reporters that a total of 70 people were wounded, 10 of whom were described as being in a "critical" condition, including five in comas.


In the days immediately following the massacre, investigators researched Roslyakov's background in attempts to establish his precise motive. These investigators also revealed that, ultimately, they were treating the incident as a calculated school shooting. Officials are investigating concerns in the case, such as where Roslyakov got the 30,000–40,000 rubles (about $450–600 USD) for the weapon, and where he learned to use those weapons. It was discovered Roslyakov obtained a weapon permit in 2018 and owned the gun legally, after completing a legally required training on weapon security and presenting all required documents, including medical report. He periodically attended a shooting club. Shortly before the shooting he legally purchased 150 rounds of ammunition.


The Investigative Committee ordered a psychiatric evaluation of Roslyakov postmortem. Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov stated on 18 October that it was possible the perpetrator had an accomplice, and police were searching for the individual "who was coaching" Roslyakov for the crime. However, on 9 November 2018, the Investigative Committee came to the conclusion that Roslyakov had acted alone.


The attack was perpetrated by a fourth-year student of the college, 18-year-old Vladislav Igorevich Roslyakov ().


A friend has claimed that Roslyakov "hated the polytechnic very much" and had vowed revenge on his teachers. There were also reports that he may have been bullied. According to an ex-girlfriend, Roslyakov had informed her he had lost faith in people when his classmates started to ridicule him for being different. In the days before the attack he discussed ignorance by others, the lack of purpose in his life, mass shootings and suicide on social media. Roslyakov was in a number of online communities dedicated to serial killers.


Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov announced that there would be three days of mourning. Crimean State Council speaker Vladimir Konstantinov announced that the victims' families would receive financial compensation, with preliminary discussions suggesting that the payments would be 1 million rubles (USD ) from the Russian federal budget and 1 million rubles from the local budget. He also said that it was impossible to conceive that 18-year-old suspect Vladislav Roslyakov had prepared the attack by himself saying "On the ground, he acted alone, that is already known and established, but in my opinion and in the opinion of my colleagues this reprobate could not have carried out the preparations."


Russia's Investigative Committee initially classified the attack as terrorism but later changed it to mass murder.


After the first reports of an alleged terrorist attack in Kerch, many Russian politicians and mass media suggested that the events were the activities of "Ukrainian saboteurs" and that the Ukrainian government was responsible, but changed their views after more information emerged, while others questioned whether Roslyakov was sufficiently checked before being allowed to purchase a gun and ammunition, which Roslyakov legally did. Sergei Mikhailovich Smirnov, deputy head of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), said the security services needed to have greater control over the Internet.


Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi that the attack appeared to be the result of globalisation, social media and the internet, and that "everything started with the tragic events in schools in the US...we're not creating healthy (Internet) content for young people...which leads to tragedies of this kind." Some saw the remarks to be a part of Russians blaming the West for the attack and a linkage with his past as head of the Kremlin and FSB before becoming president which "The Irish Times" said are "suspicious of the internet and social media, seeing them as western-dominated technologies that can be used to stir up dissent and street protests."


Russian political analyst Sergey Mikheyev on Russian state TV blamed the attack on "Western subculture," claiming that it "builds its matrix on the cult of violence...the one who has a weapon in his hands is right. This is a purely American approach to the matter." Some media saw the remarks to be a part of Russians blaming the West for the attack.


Leaders of several countries expressed their condolences to the victims of the attack, including Armenia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Thailand, the UK, and Venezuela. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko expressed condolences to the victims, whom he described as Ukrainian citizens, stating that the Prosecutor General's Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea had initiated criminal proceedings under the article "act of terrorism". The Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjørn Jagland and Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres also expressed condolences.


Some newspapers described the attack as "Russia's Columbine", a reference to the 1999 US high school massacre. Steven Rosenberg said the attack should not be surprising as he noted there had already been five attacks in schools in Russia in 2018 where a number of children were injured. A "Telegraph" article also claimed there had been half a dozen school attacks in Russia in 2018, although claiming the previous incidents involved knives and traumatic pistols rather than high-powered firearms.


Students returned to studies 23 October, with checkpoints at the entrances at which the students’ identities are confirmed. A spokesperson for the Rostov Region Directorate of the Russian Emergency Ministry, told reporters: "An examination has been carried out. According to the preliminary information, there is no danger of [the building's] collapse."


On 28 May 2019, a student in Volsk, Saratov Region, Russia committed an attack. The attacker, 15-year-old Daniil Pulkin, was obsessed with Roslyakov.


According to a 25 February 2020 statement made by FSB, two adolescent fans of Roslyakov had planned to target two schools in Kerch.


Throughout Russia and other countries, hundreds of people gathered for memorials for the victims. In Moscow the memorial of Kerch in the Alexander Garden was decorated with flowers. A makeshift memorial was created outside of the school, for residents and survivors to bring flowers and toys.


An open memorial and funeral for the victims was held in the central square of Kerch, with a speech by Sergey Aksyonov, who told the crowd; "We don't want to talk, we want to weep. The history of Crimea will be divided in two — before and after 17 October. We need to be strong we need to be brave." Around 20,000 people were estimated to have attended the public funeral in Kerch.


Chufut-Kale (; Russian and Ukrainian: Чуфут-Кале - "Chufut-Kale"; ; Karaim: Кала - קלעה - "Kala") is a medieval city-fortress in the Crimean Mountains that now lies in ruins. It is a national monument of Crimean Karaites culture just east of Bakhchisaray.


Its name is Crimean Tatar and Turkish for "Jewish Fortress" ("çufut/çıfıt" - Jew, "qale/kale" - fortress), while Crimean Karaites refer to it simply as "Fortress", considering the place as historical center for the Crimean Karaite community. In the Middle Ages the fortress was known as "Qırq Yer" (Place of Forty) and as Karaites to which sect the greater part of its inhabitants belong, "Sela' ha-Yehudim" (The Rock of the Jews).


In the 15th century the first Crimean Khan, Hadji-Girei, realizing the fortress’ advantages, turned the old section of the town into his fortified residence. After the defeat of the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate became considerably stronger. The significance of Kyrk-Or as a stronghold declined, and the Crimean Khan, Menglis-Girei, moved his capital to Bakhchisarai. The old town remained a citadel of Bakhchisarai and a place of incarceration for aristocratic prisoners. In the mid-17th century Tatars left Kyrk-Or. Only Karaites and several Krymchak families remained living there due to anti-Jewish restrictions on stays in other towns of the Crimean Khanate. Tatars considered Karaites to be Jews, hence the town gradually acquired the name of Chufut-Kale, which in Turkic meant "Jewish fortress" with negative and scornful meaning.


After the Crimea's conquest and its inclusion into the Russian empire, the fortress inhabitants were permitted to live anywhere in the Crimea. From that time on, Chufut-Kale was deserted. By the mid-19th century the town ceased to exist.


There are many legends concerning the place. According to one, it was called "Qırq Yer" because the khans Meñli Giray or Tokhtamysh, the founders of the city, brought with them forty Karaite families, and in their honor called it the "Place of Forty".


"Chufutkale" is mentioned (and also transliterated as "Chew-Foot-Calais") in Vladimir Nabokov's 1968 masterpiece, "Ada", page 338. The novel uses the site for the death of a minor character, Percy de Prey, during an imaginary Second Crimean War in 1888.


It is also mentioned in Jonathan Littel's great book "The kindly Ones" (2006) page 232 and is used to emphasize the regions intricate history.


Adam Mickiewicz wrote a sonnet "Droga nad przepaścią w Czufut-Kale" ("The Pass Across the Abyss in Czufut-Kale"), published in 1826.


Mount Sapun or Sapun Ridge (, , ) is a 240 m high ridge to the southeast of Sevastopol, situated on the disputed Crimean peninsula.


It became the site of heavy fighting during the siege of Sevastopol (1941-1942), and also during its recapture in 1944.


When defending Sevastopol the Soviet troops held the Sapun Ridge and could observe German movements to the city from the south.


It took Wehrmacht nearly 2 weeks of desperate fighting to take control over these positions in late June 1942. As a consequence, Soviet troops had to evacuate from Crimea.


In 2 years, on the final stage of the Crimean Offensive the assault of Sapun-gora on 7 May 1944 was successful for Red Army. On 9 May 1944, just over one month after the start of the battle, Sevastopol fell. German forces were evacuated from Sevastopol to Constanța.


Later in 1944 the first monuments to the Soviet warriors on this place were erected, in 1959 the diorama showing the assault of the German fortifications was opened.


In 1921 the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created. This republic was dissolved in 1945, and the Crimea became an oblast first of the Russian SSR (1945–1954) and then the Ukrainian SSR (1954–1991). From 1991 the territory was covered by the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol City within independent Ukraine. However, during the 2014 Crimean crisis, the peninsula was taken over by Russia and a referendum on whether to rejoin Russia was held. Shortly after the result in favour of joining Russia was announced, Crimea was annexed by the Russian Federation as two federal subjects: the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol.


Archaeological evidence of human settlement in Crimea dates back to the Middle Paleolithic. Neanderthal remains found at Kiyik-Koba Cave have been dated to about 80,000 BP. Late Neanderthal occupations have also been found at Starosele (c. 46,000 BP) and Buran Kaya III (c. 30,000 BP).


Archaeologists have found some of the earliest anatomically modern human remains in Europe in the Buran-Kaya caves in the Crimean Mountains (east of Simferopol). The fossils are about 32,000 years old, with the artifacts linked to the Gravettian culture.


During the Last Glacial Maximum, along with the northern coast of the Black Sea in general, Crimea was an important refuge from which north-central Europe was re-populated after the end of the Ice Age. The East European Plain during this time was generally occupied by periglacial loess-steppe environments, although the climate was slightly warmer during several brief interstadials and began to warm significantly after the beginning of the Late Glacial Maximum. Human site occupation density was relatively high in the Crimean region and increased as early as c. 16,000 years before the present.


Proponents of the Black Sea deluge hypothesis believe Crimea did not become a peninsula until relatively recently, with the rising of the Black Sea level in the 6th millennium BC.


The beginning of the Neolithic in Crimea is not associated with agriculture, but instead with the beginning of pottery production, changes in flint tool-making technologies, and local domestication of pigs. The earliest evidence of domesticated wheat in the Crimean peninsula is from the Chalcolithic Ardych-Burun site, dating to the middle of the 4th millennium BC


By the 3rd millennium BC, Crimea had been reached by the Yamna or "pit grave" culture, assumed to correspond to a late phase of Proto-Indo-European culture in the Kurgan hypothesis.


In the early Iron Age, Crimea was settled by two groups: the Tauri (or Scythotauri) in southern Crimea, and the East Iranian-speaking Scythians north of the Crimean Mountains.


Taurians intermixed with the Scythians starting from the end of 3rd century BC were mentioned as  Tauroscythians and Scythotaurians in the works of ancient Greek writers.


The origins of the Tauri, from which the classical name of Crimea as "Taurica" arose, are unclear. They are possibly a remnant of the Cimmerians displaced by the Scythians. Alternative theories relate them to the Abkhaz and Adyghe peoples, which at that time resided much farther west than today.


The Greeks, who eventually established colonies in Crimea during the Archaic Period, regarded the Tauri as a savage, warlike people. Even after centuries of Greek and Roman settlement, the Tauri were not pacified and continued to engage in piracy on the Black Sea. By the 2nd century BC they had become subject-allies of the Scythian king Scilurus.


The Crimean Peninsula north of the Crimean Mountains was occupied by Scythian tribes. Their center was the city of Scythian Neapolis on the outskirts of present-day Simferopol. The town ruled over a small kingdom covering the lands between the lower Dnieper River and northern Crimea. In the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, Scythian Neapolis was a city "with a mixed Scythian-Greek population, strong defensive walls and large public buildings constructed using the orders of Greek architecture". The city was eventually destroyed in the mid-3rd century AD by the Goths.


The ancient Greeks were the first to name the region "Taurica" after the Tauri. As the Tauri inhabited only mountainous regions of southern Crimea, at first the name Taurica was used only to this southern part, but later it was extended to name the whole peninsula.


Greek city-states began establishing colonies along the Black Sea coast of Crimea in the 7th or 6th century BC. Feodosiya and Panticapaeum were established by Milesians. In the 5th century BC, Dorians from Heraclea Pontica founded the sea port of Chersonesos (in modern Sevastopol).


In 438 BC, the Archon (ruler) of Panticapaeum assumed the title of the King of Cimmerian Bosporus, a state that maintained close relations with Athens, supplying the city with wheat, honey and other commodities. The last of that line of kings, Paerisades V, being hard-pressed by the Scythians, put himself under the protection of Mithridates VI, the king of Pontus, in 114 BC. After the death of this sovereign, his son, Pharnaces II, was invested by Pompey with the Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus in 63 BC as a reward for the assistance rendered to the Romans in their war against his father. In 15 BC, it was once again restored to the king of Pontus, but from then ranked as a tributary state of Rome.


In the 2nd century BC, the eastern part of Taurica became part of the Bosporan Kingdom, before being incorporated into the Roman Empire in the 1st century BC.


During the AD 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries, Taurica was host to Roman legions and colonists in Charax, Crimea. The Charax colony was founded under Vespasian with the intention of protecting Chersonesos and other Bosporean trade emporiums from the Scythians. The Roman colony was protected by a vexillatio of the Legio I Italica; it also hosted a detachment of the Legio XI Claudia at the end of the 2nd century. The camp was abandoned by the Romans in the mid-3rd century. This de facto province would have been controlled by the legatus of one of the Legions stationed in Charax.


Throughout the later centuries, Crimea was invaded or occupied successively by the Goths (AD 250), the Huns (376), the Bulgars (4th–8th century), the Khazars (8th century).


Crimean Gothic, an East Germanic language, was spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea until the late 18th century.


In the mid-10th century, the eastern area of Crimea was conquered by Prince Sviatoslav I of Kiev and became part of the Kievan Rus' principality of Tmutarakan. In 988, Prince Vladimir I of Kiev also captured the Byzantine town of Chersonesos (presently part of Sevastopol) where he later converted to Christianity. An impressive Russian Orthodox cathedral marks the location of this historic event.


At the same time, the southern fringe of the peninsula was controlled by the Byzantine Empire as the Cherson theme.


Kiev lost its hold on the Crimean interior in the early 13th century due to the Mongol invasions. In the summer of 1238 Batu Khan devastated the Crimean peninsula and pacified Mordovia, reaching Kiev by 1240. The Crimean interior came under the control of the Turco-Mongol Golden Horde from 1239 to 1441. The name "Crimea" (via Italian, from Turkic "Qirim") originates as the name of the provincial capital of the Golden Horde, the city now known as Staryi Krym.


The Byzantines and their successor states (the Empire of Trebizond (1204–1461) and the Principality of Theodoro (early 14th century–1475)) continued to maintain control over parts of southern Crimea until the Ottoman conquest in 1475. In the 13th century the Republic of Genoa seized the settlements which their rivals, the Venetians, had built along the Crimean coast and established themselves at Cembalo (present-day Balaklava), Soldaia (Sudak), Cherco (Kerch) and Caffa (Feodosiya), gaining control of the Crimean economy and the Black Sea commerce for two centuries.


In 1346 the Golden Horde army besieging Genoese Kaffa (present-day Feodosiya) catapulted the bodies of Mongol warriors who had died of plague over the walls of the city. Historians have speculated that Genoese refugees from this engagement may have brought the Black Death to Western Europe.


After Timur destroyed a Mongol Golden Horde army in 1399, the Crimean Tatars founded an independent Crimean Khanate under Hacı I Giray (a descendant of Genghis Khan) in 1441. Hacı I Giray and his successors reigned first at Qırq Yer, then - from the beginning of the 15th century - at Bakhchisaray.


The Crimean Tatars controlled the steppes that stretched from the Kuban to the Dniester River, however, they were unable to take control of the commercial Genoese towns in the Crimea. After the Crimean Tatars asked for help from the Ottomans, an Ottoman invasion of the Genoese towns led by Gedik Ahmed Pasha in 1475 brought Kaffa and the other trading towns under their control.


After the capture of the Genoese towns, the Ottoman Sultan held Khan Meñli I Giray captive, later releasing him in return for accepting Ottoman suzerainty over the Crimean Khans and allowing them rule as tributary princes of the Ottoman Empire.<ref name="blacksea-crimea/hist"></ref> However, the Crimean Khans still had a large amount of autonomy from the Ottoman Empire, and followed the rules they thought best for them.


Crimean Tatars introduced the practice of raids into Ukrainian lands (the Wild Fields), in which they captured slaves for on-sale. For example, from 1450 to 1586, eighty-six Tatar raids were recorded, and from 1600 to 1647, seventy. In the 1570s close to 20,000 slaves a year went on sale in Kaffa.


Slaves and freedmen formed approximately 75% of the Crimean population. In 1769 a last major Tatar raid, which took place during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, saw the capture of 20,000 slaves.


The Crimean Tatars as an ethnic group dominated the Crimean Khanate from the 15th to the 18th centuries. They descend from a complicated mixture of Turkic peoples who settled in the Crimea from the 8th century, presumably also absorbing remnants of the Crimean Goths and the Genoese.


Linguistically, the Crimean Tatars are related to the Khazars, who invaded the Crimea in the mid-8th century; the Crimean Tatar language forms part of the Kipchak or Northwestern branch of the Turkic languages, although it shows substantial Oghuz influence due to historical Ottoman Turkish presence in the Crimea.


A small enclave of Crimean Karaites, a people of Jewish descent practising Karaism who later adopted a Turkic language, formed in the 13th century. It existed among the Muslim Crimean Tatars, primarily in the mountainous Çufut Qale area.


In 1553–1554 Cossack Hetman Dmytro Vyshnevetsky (in office: 1550-1557) gathered together groups of Cossacks and constructed a fort designed to obstruct Tatar raids into Ukraine. With this action, he founded the Zaporozhian Sich, with which he would launch a series of attacks on the Crimean Peninsula and the Ottoman Turks.


In 1774 the Crimean Khans fell under Russian influence with the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. In 1778 the Russian government deported numerous Greek Orthodox residents from Crimea to the vicinity of Mariupol.


In 1783 the Russian Empire annexed all of the Crimea.


The Taurida Oblast was created by a decree of Catherine the Great on 2 February 1784. The center of the oblast was first in Karasubazar but was moved to Simferopol later in 1784. The establishment decree divided the oblast into 7 uyezds. However, by a decree of Paul I on 12 December 1796, the oblast was abolished and the territory, divided into 2 uyezds (Akmechetsky "[Акмечетский]" and Perekopsky "[Перекопский]") was attached to the second incarnation of the Novorossiysk Governorate.


After 1799, the territory was divided into uyezds. At that time, there were 1,400 inhabited villages and 7 towns—Simferopol, Sevastopol, Yalta, Yevpatoria, Alushta, Feodosiya, and Kerch.


In 1802, in the course of Paul I's administrative reform of areas that were annexed from the Crimean Khanate, the Novorossiysk Governorate was again abolished and subdivided. Crimea was attached to a new Taurida Governorate established with its centre at Simferopol. The governorate included both the 25,133 km2 Crimea as well as 38,405 km2 of adjacent areas of the mainland. In 1826 Adam Mickiewicz published his seminal work "The Crimean Sonnets" after traveling through the Black Sea Coast.


By the late 19th century, Crimean Tatars continued to form a slight plurality of Crimea's still largely rural population but there were large numbers of Russians and Ukrainians as well as smaller numbers of Germans, Jews (including Krymchaks and Crimean Karaites), Bulgarians, Belarusians, Turks, Armenians, and Greeks and Gypsies.


The Tatars were the predominant portion of the population in the mountainous area and about half of the steppe population. Russians were concentrated most heavily in Feodosiya district. Germans and Bulgarians settled in the Crimea at the beginning of the 19th century, receiving a large allotment and fertile land and later wealthy colonists began to buy land, mainly in Perekopsky and Evpatoria uyezds.


The Crimean War (1853–1856), a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the Duchy of Nassau, was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. Russia and the Ottoman Empire went to war in October 1853 over Russia's rights to protect Orthodox Christians; to stop Russia's conquests France and Britain entered in March 1854. While some of the war was fought elsewhere, the principal engagements were in Crimea.


Following action in the Danubian Principalities and in the Black Sea, allied troops landed in Crimea in September 1854 and besieged the city of Sevastopol, home of the Tsar's Black Sea Fleet and the associated threat of potential Russian penetration into the Mediterranean. After extensive fighting throughout Crimea, the city fell on 9 September 1855.


The war devastated much of the economic and social infrastructure of Crimea. The Crimean Tatars had to flee from their homeland "en masse", forced by the conditions created by the war, persecution and land expropriations. Those who survived the trip, famine and disease, resettled in Dobruja, Anatolia, and other parts of the Ottoman Empire. Finally, the Russian government decided to stop the process, as the agriculture began to suffer due to the unattended fertile farmland.


In 1909, the Russian battleship "Potemkin" accidentally sank a Russian submarine.


Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the military and political situation in Crimea was chaotic like that in much of Russia. During the ensuing Russian Civil War, Crimea changed hands numerous times and was for a time a stronghold of the anti-Bolshevik White Army. It was in Crimea that the White Russians led by General Wrangel made their last stand against Nestor Makhno and the Red Army in 1920. When resistance was crushed, many of the anti-Bolshevik fighters and civilians escaped by ship to Istanbul.


Approximately 50,000 White prisoners of war and civilians were summarily executed by shooting or hanging after the defeat of General Wrangel at the end of 1920. This is considered one of the largest massacres in the Civil War.


Crimea changed hands several times over the course of the conflict and several political entities were set up on the peninsula. These included:


On 18 October 1921, the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created as part of the Russian SFSR which, in turn, became part of the new Soviet Union. However, this did not protect the Crimean Tatars, who constituted about 25% of the Crimean population, from Joseph Stalin's repressions of the 1930s. The Greeks were another cultural group that suffered. Their lands were lost during the process of collectivisation, in which farmers were not compensated with wages. Schools which taught Greek were closed and Greek literature was destroyed, because the Soviets considered the Greeks as "counter-revolutionary" with their links to capitalist state Greece, and their independent culture.


From 1923 until 1944 there was an effort to create Jewish settlements in Crimea. At one time, Vyacheslav Molotov suggested the idea of establishing a Jewish homeland.


Crimea experienced two severe famines in the 20th century, the Famine of 1921–1922 and the Holodomor of 1932–1933. A large Slavic population influx occurred in the 1930s as a result of the Soviet policy of regional development. These demographic changes permanently altered the ethnic balance in the region.


Sevastopol held out from October 1941 until 4 July 1942 when the Germans finally captured the city. From 1 September 1942, the peninsula was administered as the "Generalbezirk Krim" (general district of Crimea) "und Teilbezirk" (and sub-district) "Taurien" by the Nazi "Generalkommissar" Alfred Eduard Frauenfeld (1898–1977), under the authority of the three consecutive Reichskommissare for the entire Ukraine. In spite of heavy-handed tactics by the Nazis and the assistance of the Romanian and Italian troops, the Crimean mountains remained an unconquered stronghold of the native resistance (the partisans) until the day when the peninsula was freed from the occupying force.


The Crimean Jews were targeted for annihilation during Nazi occupation. According to Yitzhak Arad, "In January 1942 a company of Tatar volunteers was established in Simferopol under the command of "Einsatzgruppe 11". This company participated in anti-Jewish manhunts and murder actions in the rural regions."


In 1944, Sevastopol came under the control of troops from the Soviet Union. The so-called "City of Russian Glory" once known for its beautiful architecture was entirely destroyed and had to be rebuilt stone by stone. Due to its enormous historical and symbolic meaning for the Russians, it became a priority for Stalin and the Soviet government to have it restored to its former glory within the shortest time possible.


On 19 February 1954, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree on the transfer of the Crimean region of the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR. This Supreme Soviet Decree states that this transfer was motivated by "the commonality of the economy, the proximity, and close economic and cultural relations between the Crimean region and the Ukrainian SSR".


In post-war years, Crimea thrived as a tourist destination, with new attractions and sanatoriums for tourists. Tourists came from all around the Soviet Union and neighbouring countries, particularly from the German Democratic Republic. In time the peninsula also became a major tourist destination for cruises originating in Greece and Turkey. Crimea's infrastructure and manufacturing also developed, particularly around the sea ports at Kerch and Sevastopol and in the oblast's landlocked capital, Simferopol. Populations of Ukrainians and Russians alike doubled, with more than 1.6 million Russians and 626,000 Ukrainians living on the peninsula by 1989.


The North Crimean Canal (Russian: Северо-Крымский канал, Ukrainian: Північно-Кримський канал; in the Soviet Union – North Crimean Canal of the Lenin's Komsomol of Ukraine) is a land improvement canal for irrigation and watering of Kherson Oblast in southern Ukraine, and the Crimean peninsula. The canal also has multiple branches throughout Kherson Oblast and the Crimean peninsula.


The construction preparation started in 1957 soon after the transfer of Crimea of 1954. The main project works took place between 1961 and 1971 and had three stages. The construction was conducted by the Komosomol members sent by the Komsomol travel ticket (Komsomolskaya putyovka) as part of shock construction projects and accounted for some 10,000 "volunteer" workers.


With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Crimea became part of the newly independent Ukraine. Independence was supported by a referendum in all regions of Ukrainian SSR, including Crimea. 54% of the Crimean voters supported independence with a 60% turnout (in Sevastopol 57% supported independence). The percentage of the total Crimean electorate that had voted for Ukrainian independence in the referendum was 37%. In 1994, the legal status of Crimea as part of Ukraine was backed up by Russia, who pledged to uphold the territorial integrity of Ukraine in a memorandum signed in 1994, also signed by the US and UK.


This new situation led to tensions between Russia and Ukraine. With the Black Sea Fleet based on the peninsula, worries of armed skirmishes were occasionally raised. In August 1991, Yuriy Meshkov established the Republican Movement of Crimea which was registered on 19 November.


On 2 September 1991, the National Movement of Crimean Tatars appealed to the V Extraordinary Congress of People's Deputies in Russia demanding the program how to return the deported Tatar population back to Crimea. Based on the resolution of the Verkhovna Rada (the Crimean parliament) on 26 February 1992, the Crimean ASSR was renamed the Republic of Crimea. The Crimean parliament proclaimed self-government on 5 May 1992. (which was yet to be approved by a referendum to be held 2 August 1992) and passed the first Crimean constitution the same day. On 6 May 1992 the same parliament inserted a new sentence into this constitution that declared that Crimea was part of Ukraine.


On 14 April 1993, the Presidium of the Crimean parliament called for the creation of the presidential post of the Crimean Republic. A week later the Russian deputy, Valentin Agafonov, stated that Russia is ready to supervise the referendum on Crimean independence and include the republic as a separate entity in the CIS. On 28 July 1993, one of the leaders of the Russian Society of Crimea, Viktor Prusakov, stated that his organization is ready for an armed mutiny and establishment of the Russian administration in Sevastopol. In September, Eduard Baltin accused Ukraine of converting some of his fleet and conducting an armed assault on his personnel, and threatened to take "countermeasures" of placing the fleet on alert.


Following the ratification of the May 1997 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership on friendship and division of the Black Sea Fleet, international tensions slowly eased off. With the treaty, Moscow recognized Ukraine's borders and territorial integrity, and accepted Ukraine's sovereignty over Crimea and Sevastopol. In a separate agreement, Russia was to receive 80 percent of the Black Sea Fleet and use of the military facilities in Sevastopol on a 20-year lease.


However, other controversies between Ukraine and Russia still remain, including the ownership of a lighthouse on Cape Sarych. Because the Russian Navy controlled 77 geographical objects on the south Crimean Shore, the Sevastopol Government Court ordered the vacating of the objects, which the Russian military did not carry out. Since August 3, 2005, the lighthouse has been controlled by the Russian Army. Through the years, there have been various attempts to return Cape Sarych to Ukrainian territory, all of which were unsuccessful.


In 2006, protests broke out on the peninsula after U.S. Marines arrived at the Crimean city of Feodosiya to take part in the Sea Breeze 2006 Ukraine-NATO military exercise. Protesters greeted the marines with barricades and slogans bearing "Occupiers go home!" and a couple of days later, the Crimean parliament declared Crimea a "NATO-free territory." After several days of protest, the U.S. Marines withdrew from the peninsula.


In September 2008, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko accused Russia of giving out Russian passports to the population in the Crimea and described it as a "real problem" given Russia's declared policy of military intervention abroad to protect Russian citizens.


During a press conference in Moscow on 16 February 2009, the Mayor of Sevastopol Serhiy Kunitsyn claimed (citing recent polls) that the population of Crimea is opposed to the idea of becoming a part of Russia.


Although western newspapers like the "Wall Street Journal" have speculated about a Russian coup in Sevastopol or another Crimean city in connection with the Russian-Georgian war and the Recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by Russia. Valentyn Nalyvaychenko, acting head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), stated on 17 February 2009, that he is confident that any "Ossetian scenario" is impossible in Crimea. The SBU had started criminal proceedings against the pro-Russian association "People's front Sevastopol-Crimea-Russia" in January 2009.


On the 55th anniversary of the transfer of the Crimea from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR (on 19 February 2009) some 300 to 500 people took part in rallies to protest against the transfer.


On 24 August 2009, anti-Ukrainian demonstrations were held in Crimea by ethnic Russian residents. Sergei Tsekov (of the Russian Bloc and then deputy speaker of the Crimean parliament) said then that he hoped that Russia would treat the Crimea the same way as it had treated South Ossetia and Abkhazia.


Chaos in the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) during a debate over the extension of the lease on a Russian naval base erupted on 27 April 2010 after Ukraine's parliament ratified the treaty that extends Russia's lease on a military wharf and shore installations in the Crimean port Sevastopol until 2042. The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Lytvyn had to be shielded by umbrellas as he was pelted with eggs, while smoke bombs exploded and politicians brawled. Along with the Verkhovna Rada the treaty was ratified by the Russian State Duma as well.


Before 2014, Crimea can be considered a part of the political base of then President Viktor Yanukovych. Thus, in the period just prior to 2014, Crimea was not experiencing intense mobilization against Ukraine or on behalf of absorption into Russia.


Within days, on 26 February 2014, hundreds of pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine protesters clashed in front of the parliament building in Simferopol. The previous day, 300–500 pro-Russia protesters chanting "Russia" had replaced the flag of Ukraine with the flag of the Russian Federation. Leaders of Crimean Tatars organised a meeting in order to block a meeting of Crimean parliament which is "doing everything to execute plans of separation of Crimea from Ukraine". According to the Russian state media, the pretext of the clash was the purported abolition, on 23 February 2014, of a controversial law on the status of regional languages.


On 27 February, unidentified troops widely suspected of being Russian special forces seized the building of the Supreme Council of Crimea and the building of the Council of Ministers in Simferopol. Whilst the "little green men" were occupying the Crimean parliament building, the parliament held an emergency session. It voted to terminate the Crimean government, and replace Prime Minister Anatolii Mohyliov with Sergey Aksyonov. According to the Constitution of Ukraine, the Prime Minister of Crimea is appointed by the Supreme Council of Crimea in consultation with the President of Ukraine. Both Aksyonov and speaker Vladimir Konstantinov stated that they viewed Viktor Yanukovych as the "de jure" president of Ukraine, through whom they were able to ask Russia for assistance.


The "little green men" began to surround Ukrainian bases in the peninsula and soon individuals were kidnapped. On 11 March, after disagreements between Crimea, Sevastopol, and the interim Government in Ukraine, the Crimean parliament and the city council of Sevastopol adopted a resolution to show their intention to unilaterally declare themselves independent as a single united nation with the possibility of joining the Russian Federation as a federal subject, should voters approve to do so in an upcoming referendum.


On 16 March, Crimea's government claimed that nearly 96% of those who voted in Crimea supported joining Russia. The vote received no international recognition and, aside from Russia, no country had sent official observers there.


On 17 March, the Crimean parliament officially declared its independence from Ukraine and requested to join the Russian Federation.


On 18 March 2014, the self-proclaimed independent Republic of Crimea signed a treaty of accession to the Russian Federation. The accession was granted but separately for each the former regions that composed it: one accession for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea as the "Republic of Crimea"—the same name as the short-lived self-proclaimed independent republic - and another accession for Sevastopol as a federal city. The accession was only recognised internationally by a few states with most regarding the action as illegal. Though Ukraine refused to accept the annexation, the Ukrainian military began to withdraw from Crimea on March 19.


All actions of Crimean parliament were declared null and void by Ukrainian constitutional court that led to its disbandment by Ukrainian parliament.


The Ukrainian parliament has stated that the referendum is unconstitutional. The United States and the European Union said they consider the vote to be illegal, and warned that there may be repercussions for the Crimean ballot.


On 27 March, the U.N. General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution 100 in favour, 11 against and 58 abstentions in the 193-nation assembly that declared invalid Crimea's Moscow-backed referendum.


In July 2015, Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, declared that Crimea had been fully integrated into Russia.


On 18 September 2016, the whole of Crimea participated in the Russian legislative election.


Zephyrium or Zephyrion () was a town of the Chersonesus Taurica (modern Crimean Peninsula), mentioned by Pliny the Elder.


The Treaty of Livadia () was an unequal treaty between the Russian Empire and the Chinese Qing dynasty signed in Livadiya, Crimea, on 2 October 1879, wherein Russia agreed to return a portion of the lands it had occupied in Xinjiang during the Dungan Revolt of 1862–1877. Even though Qing forces had reconquered the area, the resulting treaty was extremely unfavorable to China. As a result, the Qing government refused to ratify it and the emissary who made the negotiations was sentenced to death (although the sentence was not carried out). Seventeen months later, the two nations signed the Treaty of Saint Petersburg, which apart from territorial matters, largely had the same terms as the Treaty of Livadia.


The Qing dynasty under the Qianlong Emperor conquered Xinjiang from the Dzungar Khanate in the late 1750s. However, Qing China declined in the late 19th century following the First Opium War. A major revolt known as the Dungan Revolt occurred in the 1860s and 1870s in Northwest China, and Qing rule almost collapsed in all of Xinjiang except for places such as Tacheng. Taking advantage of this revolt, Yakub Beg, commander-in-chief of the army of Kokand occupied most of Xinjiang and declared himself the Emir of Kashgaria.


Russia was officially neutral during the conflict, but as a result of the Treaty of Tarbagatai in 1864, had already gained about of territory in Xinjiang. Furthermore, the Russian Governor-General of Turkestan had sent troops into the Ili Valley in 1871, ostensibly to protect his citizens during the rebellion, but they had extensively built up infrastructure in the Ili capital of Ghulja. This was typical of the Russian strategy of taking control over a region and negotiating recognition of its sovereignty after the fact.


The Qing counterinsurgency, led by General Zuo Zongtang began in September 1876 and concluded in December 1877, having completely retaken the lands that were lost. During this time, Russia had promised to return all occupied lands to China.


The Treaty of Livadia actually consisted of two separate agreements.


The first treaty consisted of eighteen articles, and stipulated that:


The second treaty contained seventeen articles that focused on the logistics of conducting trade, such as tax issues, passport requirements, and certification procedures, the total effect of which was very preferential to Russian commercial interests and represented unprecedented access to the Chinese interior. There was also an unrelated supplementary article that reaffirmed Russia's right to navigate the Songhua River as far as Tongjiang in Manchuria.


At the time of negotiations, China was in a strong position. Zuo's army was still in the region and far outnumbered the Russian troops that remained. Furthermore, Russia had recently concluded the Russo-Turkish War and the resulting Treaty of Berlin had not been particularly favorable to them. Military expenditures during that war had also drained the national treasury, so the fact that the terms of Livadia were so heavily in their favor came as quite a shock among government officials when they became widely known.


As the months passed, tensions between the two countries remained high and both sides prepared for war. China dispatched Zeng Jize as their new negotiator. The foreign emissaries in Beijing pleaded on behalf of Chonghou, and even Queen Victoria personally interceded. Finally, on 12 August 1880, it was announced that Chonghou would be freed, and negotiations resumed. The resulting Treaty of Saint Petersburg kept many of the same provisions as the Treaty of Livadia, with the major exceptions being that Russia would return almost all of Xinjiang, less a small area reserved for Dungans who wanted to become Russian citizens, and that the amount of the indemnity payment increased.


For many years, the story that Chonghou was solely responsible for the debacle was perpetuated by the Chinese government, and this was the view put forth by historians as well. Although Chonghou had survived, he was turned into a nonperson by the government; he was expunged from government records and his letters were not published posthumously, as was the custom for Chinese court officials. Furthermore, neither the Chinese nor Russian governments retained any documents from the negotiations, thus making it difficult to determine how China ended up with an unequal treaty despite being in the better negotiating position.


Historian S. C. M. Paine investigated the circumstances around the treaty and discovered that contrary to the official story, Chonghou was an experienced diplomat and had a career of over thirty years in negotiations with France, England, and the United States. In fact, he led the delegation to France to offer the Chinese apology after the Tianjin Massacre in 1870.


Instead, Paine believes blame should be laid on the Qing government as a whole. At the Zongli Yamen (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Prince Gong, who had founded the ministry, had plenty of experience dealing with Russia during negotiations for the Convention of Peking in 1860, and during the Russian occupation period, there was plenty of communication between the two countries that Russian territorial and commercial demands should have been known long before negotiations started. However, despite its charter, the Zongli Yamen was not the only agency that dealt with foreign affairs. Even within the ministry, there was a split between those who were open to foreigners (such as Prince Gong) and those were not.


Paine argues that given Chonghou's experience, because the terms were so unfavorable to China, it is unlikely that he would have made those concessions on his own, as evidenced from the subsequent outrage. It was only when Empress Dowager Cixi sought comment on the treaty from others that it turned into a scandal. Cixi's installation of her nephew as emperor also created a power struggle in the government between her and Prince Gong, whose son was also in contention to succeed the Tongzhi Emperor. Thus, Prince Gong may have been distracted and unable to apply his foreign affairs expertise. In addition, Wenxiang, another diplomat who was also experienced in negotiating with Westerners, had died in 1876.


In short, Paine believes that Chonghou was poorly advised by the Zongli Yamen and when the court became outraged by the treaty, he became the scapegoat, otherwise the ministry and by extension Manchus (who made up the majority of Zongli Yamen officials) would have to take the blame.


Suuksu or Suuk-su (, , ) is a cape on the southern coast of Crimea, Ukraine between the town Gurzuf and western slopes of Mount Ayu-Dag ("Bear Mountain"). On top of the cape is an early medieval cemetery. Excavation of the cemetery began in 1903 and turned up a variety of jewelry, dishes and weapons.


The cemetery was named for the cape, which it is located. In the Crimean Tatar language, it means "cold water" (suvuq - cold, suv - water).


The Evacuation of the Crimea (November 13–16, 1920) was an event in the Russian Civil War, in which the White Russian state evacuated over sea from the Crimean Peninsula, their last stronghold on the Southern Front, bringing an end to the fighting on that Front.


During the occupation of Crimea by the Crimean Soviet Army under the command of Pavel Dybenko in April 1919, the Entente troops were evacuated from Sevastopol, taking with them a number of refugees, including some of the leaders of the Second Crimean regional government of Solomon Crimea. White Army units retreated to the Kerch Peninsula and held it. Initially, the Crimean Socialist Soviet Republic and its leaders Dmitry Ulyanov pursued a relatively soft policy in comparison with the atrocities of the winter of 1917-1918 and were able to avoid mass terror.


However by the end of October 1920, the White Army had been driven out of Southern Russia and Ukraine, and only held the Crimean Peninsula, defended behind the narrow Perekop Isthmus. When this last defensive line was breached by the Red Army during the Siege of Perekop, the commander of the White Army, Pyotr Wrangel, decided to evacuate. The operation had been preliminarily worked out and planned by General Wrangel's staff, so its implementation was carried out in good order.


During the evacuation from the ports of the Crimean peninsula (Sevastopol, Yevpatoria, Kerch, Feodosia, Yalta) a total of 145,693 soldiers and civilians, not counting the crews, were taken on board on 126 ships and "sudenosheks" (small boats and tugs).


This fleet, known as Wrangel's fleet, and composed of ships of the Whites' Black Sea fleet, foreign ships and the temporarily mobilized ships of the Voluntary Fleet, first sailed to Entente-occupied Constantinople. A significant part of the passengers left the ships here, replenishing the ranks of White Russian emigrees. Between December 8, 1920 and February 1921, the reduced flotilla sailed to the Tunisian port of Bizerte.


The soldiers and civilians who were left behind in the Crimea, suffered under the Red Terror organised by Béla Kun and Rosalia Zemlyachka, under the general management of the representative of the Russian Soviet government Yuri Pyatakov and authorised by Vladimir Lenin. <br>


The estimated number of executions vary from minimum 12,000 over 50,000 to 120,000. The White Army soldiers had been falsely promised amnesty if they surrendered.


Several rare photographs of the moment of evacuation in Sevastopol and Yalta have been preserved. The Crimean Evacuation is also shown in Soviet feature films "Two Comrades Were Serving" (1968) and "The Flight" (1970), and also in the 2014 film "Sunstroke" .


Trebizond already had a long history of autonomous rule before it became the center of a small empire in the Late Middle Ages. Due to its natural harbours, defensible topography and access to silver and copper mines, Trebizond became the pre-eminent Greek colony on the eastern Black Sea shore soon after its founding. Its remoteness from Roman capitals gave local rulers the opportunity to advance their own interest. In the centuries before the founding of the empire the city had been under control of the local Gabras family, which – while officially still remaining part of the Byzantine Empire – minted its own coin.


The rulers of Trebizond called themselves "Megas Komnenos" ("Great Comnenus") and – like their counterparts in the other two Byzantine successor states, the Empire of Nicaea and the Despotate of Epirus – initially claimed supremacy as "Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans". However, after Michael VIII Palaiologos of Nicaea recaptured Constantinople in 1261, the Komnenian use of the style "Emperor" became a sore point. In 1282, John II Komnenos stripped off his imperial regalia before the walls of Constantinople before entering to marry Michael's daughter, accepting his legal title of despot. However, his successors used a version of his title, "Emperor and Autocrat of the entire East, of the Iberians and the Perateia" until the Empire's end in 1461.


Geographically, the Empire of Trebizond consisted of the narrow strip along the southern coast of the Black Sea and the western half of the Pontic Alps, along with the Gazarian Perateia, or southern Crimea (soon losing to Genoese Gazaria and Theodorite Gazaria).


The empire traces its foundation to April 1204, when Alexios Komnenos and his brother David took advantage of the preoccupation of the central Byzantine government with the encampment of the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade outside their walls (June 1203 – mid-April 1204) and seized the city of Trebizond and the surrounding province of Chaldia with troops provided by their relative, Tamar of Georgia. Henceforth, the links between Trebizond and Georgia remained close, but their nature and extent have been disputed. However some scholars believe that the new state was subject to Georgia, at least in the first years of its existence, at the beginning of the 13th century.


After marching from Georgia, and with the help of their paternal aunt Queen Tamar, Alexios and David occupied Trebizond in April 1204. That same month Alexios was proclaimed emperor at the age of 22, an act considered by later writers as the moment the Empire of Trebizond was founded. Alexios would then proceed to rule his new empire for the next twenty-two years, until his death in February 1222. The throne then passed to his son-in-law Andronikos I Gidos Komnenos.


For most of the 13th century Trebizond was in continual conflict with the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm and later with the Ottoman Turks, as well as Constantinople, the Italian republics, and especially the Republic of Genoa. It was an empire more in title than in fact, surviving by playing its rivals against each other, and offering the daughters of its rulers, who were famed for their beauty, for marriage with generous dowries, especially with the Turkish rulers of inland Anatolia. The common view is that the Empire of Trebizond relied heavily upon wealth gained from its trade with Genoese and Venetian merchants to secure for itself the resources necessary to maintain independence.


The second son of Alexios I, Manuel I (1238–1263), preserved internal security and acquired the reputation of a great commander. His accomplishments included capturing Sinope in 1254. He was the first ruler to issue silver coins, which were known as "aspers".


From the civil wars to the end of the 14th century.


Under the rule of Alexios III, Trebizond was considered an important trade center and was renowned for its great wealth and artistic accomplishment. It was at this point that their famous diplomatic strategy of marrying the princesses of the Grand Komnenos to neighboring Turkish dynasts began. However, Anthony Bryers has argued against thinking this empire was a wealthy polity, stating that while the income from taxes levied on this trade was "by Byzantine standards" substantial, as much as three quarters of the income of the Emperor came from land "either directly from the imperial estates or indirectly from taxes and tithes from other lands."


Alexios IV's eldest son, John IV (1429–1459), could not help but see that his Empire would soon share the fate of Constantinople. The Ottoman Sultan Murad II first attempted to take the capital by sea in 1442, but high surf made the landings difficult and the attempt was repulsed. While Murad's son and successor, Mehmed II, was away laying siege to Belgrade in 1456, the Ottoman governor of Amasya attacked Trebizond, and although defeated, he took many prisoners and extracted a heavy tribute. A Genoese document records the seizure of one of their ships at that port in 1437 by a military Galley on the orders of Emperor John IV.


After John's death in 1459, his brother David came to power. David intrigued with various European powers for help against the Ottomans, speaking of wild schemes that included the conquest of Jerusalem. Mehmed II eventually heard of these intrigues and was further provoked to action by David's demand that Mehmed remit the tribute imposed on his brother.


Mehmed's response came in the summer of 1461. He collected a sizable army at Bursa, and in a surprise move marched on Sinope, whose emir quickly surrendered. Then the Sultan moved south across eastern Anatolia to neutralize Uzun Hasan. Having isolated Trebizond, Mehmed quickly swept down upon it before the inhabitants knew he was coming, and placed it under siege. The city held out for a month before David surrendered on August 15, 1461. With the fall of Trebizond, the last independent remnant of the Byzantine Empire, as well as the Roman Empire from which the Byzantine Empire sprang, was the Empire of Trebizond's offshoot, the Principality of Theodoro. On December 5, 1475 it would also fall to Ottoman rule.


In the relatively limited territory of the kingdom of the Grand Komnenoi (known as the “Empire of Trebizond”) there was enough room for three dioceses: Trebizond, which was the only diocese established far in the past, Cerasous and Rizaion in Lazika, both formed as upgraded bishoprics. All three dioceses survived the Ottoman conquest (1461) and generally operated until the 17th century, when the dioceses of Cerasous and Rizaion were abolished. The diocese of Rizaion and the bishopric of Of were abolished at the time due to the Islamisation of the Laz and of the region respectively. Possibly the diocese of Cerasous was deactivated for the same reasons.


Christianity strongly influenced society in the Empire of Trebizond. According to the Acts of Vazelon, which were written by contemporary monks, most peasants in the Matzouka region of the Empire had first names relating to Christian religious figures. Last names often referred to Christian saints, trades, and place names.


In Italian, there exists the expression "to lose the Trebizond" ("perdere la Trebisonda") which means "to be bewildered". Trebizond was a port reachable by all the routes that crossed the Black Sea, and therefore a safe shelter in case of storms.


The Russo-Crimean Wars were fought between the forces of Russia and the Nogays of the Crimean Khanate during the 16th century over the region around the Volga River.


In the 16th century, the Wild Steppes in Russia were exposed to the Khanate. During the wars, the Crimean Khanate (supported by the Turkish army) invaded central Russia, devastated Ryazan, and burned Moscow. However, the next year they were defeated in the Battle of Molodi. Despite the defeat, the raids continued. As a result, the Crimean Khanate was invaded several times, conquered in the late 18th century. The Tatars eventually lost their influence in the regions.


The raids began shortly after the establishment of the Russian buffer state, Qasim Khanate, and the domination of Russia in the Russo-Kazan Wars of the late 15th century.


The Crimean invasions of Russia began in 1507, after the death of Moscow's grand duke Ivan III, with the Crimean Khanate attacking the Russian towns of Belev and Kozelsk.


Over the course of the 16th century, the outer border of the "Wild Steppes" was near the city of Ryazan, outside the Oka River. The main path for the invading forces to Moscow was the Muravsky Trail, running from the Crimean Isthmus of Perekop, between the basins of the Dnieper and Seversky Donets rivers, and finally up to Tula. The Tatars would turn back only after extensive looting and kidnapping, the Tartars usually managed to penetrate 100–200 kilometers into Russian territory. Captives were subsequently sent to the Crimean city of Caffa to be sold into slavery. As a result, the Russian population in the border regions suffered heavily.


Each spring, Russia mobilized up to several thousand soldiers for border service. The defensive lines consisted of a circuit of fortresses and cities.


To protect from invasions by the Nogai Horde in the region between the Volga and Irtysh rivers, the Volga cities of Samara (1586), Tsaritsyn (1589), and Saratov (1590) were founded.


The most damaging invasions occurred in 1517, 1521 (supported by the Khanate of Kazan), 1537 (supported by the Khanate of Kazan, the Lithuanians, and the Ottoman Empire), 1552, 1555, 1570–72 (supported by Sweden and the Ottoman Empire), 1589, 1593, 1640, 1666–67 (supported by Poland–Lithuania), 1671, and 1688.


In 1570 the Crimean Tatars' horde devastated the Ryazan borderland of Russia.


In May 1571, the 120,000-strong Crimean and Turkish army (80,000 Tatars, 33,000 irregular Turks, and 7,000 janissaries) led by the khan of Crimea Devlet I Giray, and Big and Small Nogai hordes and troops of Circassians, bypassed the Serpukhov defensive fortifications on the Oka River, crossed the Ugra River, and rounded the flank of the 6,000-man Russian army. The sentry troops of Russians were crushed by the Crimeans. Not having forces to stop the invasion, the Russian army retreated to Moscow. The rural Russian population also fled to the capital.


The Crimean army devastated unprotected towns and villages around Moscow, and then set fire to suburbs of the capital. Due to a strong wind, the fire quickly expanded. The townspeople, chased by a fire and refugees, rushed to the northern gate of the capital. At the gate and in the narrow streets, there was a crush, people "went in three lines went on heads one of another, and top pressed those who were under them". The army, having mixed up with refugees, lost order, and general prince Belsky died in a fire.


Within three hours, Moscow burnt completely. In one more day, the Crimean army, sated with its pillage, left on the Ryazan road to the steppes. Contemporaries counted up to 80,000 victims of the invasion in 1571, with 150,000 Russian taken as captives. Papal ambassador Possevin testified of the devastation: he counted in 1580 no more than 30,000 inhabitants of Moscow, although in 1520 the Moscow population was about 100,000.


After the burning of Moscow, Devlet Giray Khan, supported by the Ottoman Empire, invaded Russia again in 1572. A combined force of Tatars and Turks, however, this time they were repelled in the Battle of Molodi. In July–August, the 120,000-strong horde of Devlet I Giray of Crimea was also defeated by the Russian army, led by Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky and Prince Dmitriy Khvorostinin.


Later, the Russian expansion turned to the Black Sea region and the Crimean khanate was invaded several times in the 18th century and finally conquered during the Russo-Turkish Wars.


This list does not include raids into Poland-Lithuania (75 raids during 1474–1569)


Crimean Regional Government ( "Krymskoe kraevoe pravitel'stvo") refers to two successive short-lived regimes in the Crimean Peninsula during 1918 and 1919.


Following Russia's 1917 October Revolution, an ethnic Tatar government proclaimed the Crimean People's Republic. The republic was soon overrun by Bolshevik forces in early 1918 who established the Taurida Soviet Socialist Republic and then by the forces of the Ukrainian People's Republic with a military assistance from the German Empire in the Crimean Offensive at the end of April 1918.


The first Crimean Regional Government was established on 25 June 1918. It was formed under German protection with Lipka Tatar General Maciej (Suleyman) Sulkiewicz as prime minister, minister of interior and military affairs. There were efforts by Ukraine to exert control over Crimea but, with German support, the regional government remained separate from Ukraine though, in September and October, there were talks to effect a federation of the two.


Following the withdrawal of German troops from Crimea, the unpopular Sulkiewicz fell from power on 25 November 1918 and was succeeded by Crimean Karaite politician and former "Kadet" member Solomon Krym. This liberal, anti-Bolshevik regime included fellow former "Kadet" member Maxim Vinaver as foreign minister and Vladimir D. Nabokov as minister of justice. In late November 1918, troops of the Allies of World War I, mainly French and Greek, landed in Crimea but they withdrew in April 1919, after the loss of Odessa.


The Krym government, also called the Crimean Frontier Government, began to crumble in early 1919 due to tensions with the Russian White movement's Volunteer Army under Anton Denikin which suspected the loyalty of its main figures. The collapse of the World War I Central Powers and the withdrawal of the Allies had made the Crimea again fully dependent on Russia.


On 2 April 1919, the Soviet Red Army occupied Simferopol and the second Crimean Regional Government was dissolved. The Crimean Socialist Soviet Republic was then established only to be retaken by White forces in June 1919. The Whites under Denikin and later Pyotr Wrangel held Crimea until November 1920.


The Yalta Raion (; ) was an administrative division (a district) of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and later the Crimean Oblast as part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic until it was reorganized into the Yalta municipality in 1948.


About 50 years later, students from Moscow created a monument of remembrance for the battle.


In November 1920, immediately prior to the main attack on Perekop, the balance of forces was as follows:


The construction of fortifications on the isthmus of Perekop began in the autumn of 1919. The White Army defense system consisted of two strips of defense: The Perekop (founded on the Turkish Wall with a total length of 11 km, it included a ditch, barbed wire in 3-5 rows and three lines of trenches) and Ishun (20–25 km from the first line).


There were also fortifications to strengthen the Chonhar Peninsula and the Arabat Spit - up to 5-6 lines of trenches and trenches with barbed wire.<br>


Relatively weak defended was the Lithuanian Peninsula with only one line of trenches and barbed wire.


Approximately 10,000 White Army soldiers defended Perekop and Ishun while 3,000 defended the Syvash, the Chongar Strait and Arabat Spit, a strong reserve. Just over 14,000 were located in the rear.


Initially, Frunze had planned to deliver the main blow toward Chongar but due to the ice holding back the Azov flotilla, the main attack was transferred on toward Perekop.


The assault on Perekop was executed by the 6th Army, 1st Cavalry Army and 2nd Cavalry Army.<br>


Communists and Komsomol members were sent to strengthen the troops. Just before the operation began, 8,000 Communists and 2,500 Komsomol members were added to the Army.


On the night of November 8, 1920, the striking force of the 6th Army, in adverse weather conditions (strong winds and minus 11-12 degrees Celsius), crossed the 7-kilometer water obstacle (Syvash), and captured the Lithuanian Peninsula on that day.


At the same time, the 51st Rifle Division undertook a frontal attack at the Turkish Redoubt. For the purpose of the concentration of forces in the attack, the division was reorganized into six waves - the first component grenade launchers and wire cutters, second - attack aircraft; third - reserve; fourth - "cleaners", and the fifth and sixth - reserve. The attack was not successful.


After back-and-forth fighting, complicated by fluctuating water levels in Syvash bay, the Red Army achieved a breakthrough on November 12, 1920, sending the opposition in general retreat.<br>


General Wrangel had no other option than to evacuate his army from the Crimea to Constantinople.


A popular uprising in Sevastopol in 1830 in response to strict quarantine measures imposed upon the city to combat the spread of the plague.


In 1828, there was a plague in the southern part of the Russian Empire, which was then at war with The Ottoman Empire. Even though there was no plague in Sevastopol, a quarantine was called as a preventative measure, likely due to the city's strategic importance as a port for the Russian Navy.


In May 1828, a quarantine cordon was built around Sevastopol, and all traffic into and out of the city had to pass through a checkpoint. In the summer of 1829, the quarantine was made stricter, such that anyone travelling to the city had to spend 2–3 weeks in the quarantine zone. Anybody suspected of illness had to be put into isolation. This dissuaded local farmers from entering the city with goods. This led to a shortage of rations, which was compounded by hoarding of goods by quarantine officials.


The deficit and poor quality of the goods in the city contributed to illness and death amongst the population, and the effects were the most pronounced in the poorer parts of the city.


Matters got so bad that an official commission was ordered from St. Petersburg to investigate the situation. Mass abuses were found, but no officials were punished and the commission was disbanded in November of that same year.


In March 1830, the quarantine was toughened further when all of the residents were ordered not to leave their homes. This ban was lifted in May, except for those residents of the poorer Korablenaya neighborhood, who were ordered to remain in quarantine for another 7 days, and upon passage of this week, for another 2 weeks. This enraged those residents, as well as their relations outside of the neighbourhood, and they refused the orders - despite the urging of Counter admiral Ivan Skalovsky and others in the military and religious establishment.


The quarantine was enforced by the infantry, and the desperate residents began planning an armed resistance, led by retired military amongst them. Many within the infantry sympathised with the residents. The two sides managed to avoid the outbreak of an armed confrontation.


On the 3rd of June, Lt. General and Military Governor of Sevastopol, Nikolai Stolypin, in response to the growing instability, positioned troops in the streets and around the governor's mansion. This further incensed the revolting residents, who descended upon the governor's mansion in an angry mob and murdered Stolypin.


They were supported by the military garrisons deployed to enforce the quarantine, some of these soldiers tore down the quarantine cordon around the neighbourhood. The revolting citizens and soldiers held control of the city for 22 hours, during which time they ordered 'plague' officials to sign written documents stating that there was no plague in the city.


The next day Lt. Gen. Andrei Turchaninov replaced the murdered Stolypin and signed a decree ordering the end of the quarantine.


Despite accomplishing their immediate goal, the revolters did face repercussions when a division under Timofeyev arrived to regain control of the city. A committee under the governor of Novorossiya, Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov, considered the cases of about 6,000 people. 7 people were executed for leading the uprising and about 1,000 residents and sailors were sent to hard labor. Approximately 4,200 civilians were deported to other cities. The officers received disciplinary punishment.


The Government of South Russia ( ) was a White movement government established in Sevastopol, Crimea in April 1920.


It was the successor to General Anton Denikin's South Russian Government (Южнорусское Правительство "Yuzhnorusskoye Pravitel'stvo") set up in February 1920.


General Pyotr Wrangel was the "pravitel"' (правитель, "ruler") while the head of the government itself was the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Alexander Krivoshein, with Peter Berngardovich Struve serving as foreign minister. The government officially adopted the name "Government of South Russia" on 16 August 1920, and it controlled the area of the former Russian Empire's Taurida Governorate, i.e., the Crimean Peninsula and adjacent areas of the mainland.


The Government of South Russia received assistance from the Allied Powers including France (which recognized it in August 1920) and the United States, as well as from the newly independent Poland. However, foreign support gradually dried up so offensives of the former Armed Forces of South Russia and the Volunteer Army, now called the Russian Army, had failed in Northern Taurida.


In early November with the Perekop–Chongar operation, the Bolsheviks won decisive victories and entered Crimea proper. Between 7 and 17 November it broke through Russian Army defenses on the Isthmus of Perekop, crossing the Sivash and capturing the Lithuanian Peninsula, the fortified , Yushun, and Chongar positions. After breaking through at Perekop, the front advanced into Crimea. Wrangel initiated an evacuation of 146,000 people to Constantinople with the last boats departing on 16 November. With this withdrawal, the final remnants of the White forces in European Russia were defeated.


Chersonesus (; ; modern Russian and Ukrainian: Херсоне́с, "Khersones"; also rendered as "Chersonese", "Chersonesos"), in medieval Greek contracted to Cherson (Χερσών; Old East Slavic: Корсунь, "Korsun") is an ancient Greek colony founded approximately 2,500 years ago in the southwestern part of the Crimean Peninsula. Settlers from Heraclea Pontica in Bithynia established the colony in the 6th century BC.


The ancient city is located on the shore of the Black Sea on the outskirts of present-day Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, where it is referred to as "Khersones" (). The site is part of the "National Preserve of Tauric Chersonesos". The name "Chersonesos" in Greek means "peninsula" and aptly describes the site on which the colony was established. It should not be confused with the "Tauric Chersonese", a name often applied to the whole of the southern Crimea.


During much of the classical period Chersonesus operated as a democracy ruled by a group of elected Archons and a council called the "Demiurgoi". As time passed, the government grew more oligarchic, with power concentrated in the hands of the archons. A form of oath sworn by all the citizens from the 3rd century BC onwards has survived to the present day.


In 2013 UNESCO listed Chersonesus as a World Heritage Site.


In the late 2nd century BC Chersonesus became a dependency of the Bosporan Kingdom. It was subject to Rome from the middle of the 1st century BC until the 370s AD, when it was captured by the Huns.


It became a Byzantine possession during the Early Middle Ages and withstood a siege by the Göktürks in 581. Byzantine rule was slight: there was a small imperial garrison more for the town's protection than for its control. It was useful to Byzantium in two ways: it was an observation point to watch the barbarian tribes, and its isolation made it a popular place of exile for those who angered the Roman and later Byzantine governments. Among its more famous "inmates" were Pope Clement I and Pope Martin I, and the deposed Byzantine Emperor Justinian II.


According to Theophanes the Confessor and others, Chersonesus was the residence of a Khazar governor ("tudun") in the late 7th century. Between approximately 705 and 840, the city's affairs were managed by elected officials called "babaghuq", meaning "father of the city".


In 833, Emperor Theophilus sent the nobleman Petronas Kamateros, who had recently overseen the construction of the Khazar fortress of Sarkel, to take direct control over the city and its environs, establishing the theme of Klimata/Cherson. It remained in Byzantine hands until the 980s, when it reportedly fell to Kiev. Vladimir the Great agreed to evacuate the fortress only if Basil II's sister Anna Porphyrogeneta would be given him in marriage. The demand caused a scandal in Constantinople. As a pre-condition for the marriage settlement, Vladimir was baptized here in 988, thus paving the way to the Baptism of Kievan Rus'. Thereafter Korsun' was evacuated.


Since this campaign is not recorded in Greek sources, historians have suggested that the account actually refers to the events of the Rus'–Byzantine War (1043) and to a different Vladimir. In fact, most valuables looted by the Slavs in Korsun' made their way to Novgorod (perhaps by way of Joachim the Korsunian, the first Novgorodian bishop, as his surname indicates ties to Korsun), where they were preserved in the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom until the 20th century. One of the most interesting items from this "Korsun Treasure" is the copper Korsun Gate, supposedly captured by the Novgorodians in Korsun' and now part of the St. Sophia Cathedral.


After the Fourth Crusade (1202–04), Chersonesus became dependent on the Byzantine Empire of Trebizond as the Principality of Theodoro. After the Siege of Trebizond (1461) the Principality of Theodoro became independent. The city fell under Genoese control in the early 13th century. In 1299, the town was sacked by the Mongol armies of Nogai Khan's Golden Horde. Byzantine sources last mention Chersonesus in 1396, and based on archaeological evidence the site is presumed to have been abandoned in the following decades.


Chersonesus had been a Roman pre-Great Schism, later Greek/Orthodox, episcopal see for centuries, elevated early to the rank of archbishopric, since it is mentioned as such in the "Notitiae Episcopatuum"; it disappeared after the Turkish conquest in 1475 and the destruction of the city.


In the late 19th century, the grand Russian Orthodox St Vladimir's Cathedral (completed 1892) was built on a small hill overlooking the site; designed in Byzantine style, it was intended to commemorate the site of Vladimir's baptism.


In 1333, a Latin Church diocese of Chersonesus was established, but it appears that it had only a bishop, a Dominican called Richard the Englishman.


No longer a residential diocese, Chersonesus in Zechia is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular archbishopric, since the early 20th century, originally called Cherson(a) or Chersonesus, since 1933 specifically Chersonesus in Zechia, avoiding confusion with other sees called Chersonesus (notably in Crete) by specifying it is Crimean.


It is vacant for decades, having had the following incumbents, all of the intermediary (archiepiscopal) rank:


Chersonesus's ancient ruins are presently located in one of Sevastopol's suburbs. They were excavated by the Russian government, starting from 1827. They are today a popular tourist attraction, protected as an archaeological park.


The buildings mix influences of Greek, Roman and Byzantine culture. The defensive wall was approximately long, 3.5 to 4 metres wide and 8 to 10 metres high with towers at a height of 10 to 12 metres. The walls enclosed an area of about . Buildings include a Roman amphitheatre and a Greek temple.


The surrounding land under the control of the city, the chora, consists of several square kilometres of ancient but now barren farmland, with remains of wine presses and defensive towers. According to archaeologists, the evidence suggests that the locals were paid to do the farm work instead of being enslaved.


The excavated tombstones hint at burial practices that were different from the Greek ones. Each stone marks the tomb of an individual, instead of the whole family and the decorations include only objects like sashes and weapons, instead of burial statues. Over half of the tombs archaeologists have found have bones of children. Burned remnants suggest that the city was plundered and destroyed.


In 2007, Chersonesus tied for fifth in the Seven Wonders of Ukraine poll.


On February 13, 2009, Ukrainian Defence Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov called on Russia's Black Sea naval fleet to move its automobile depot from the site to another place. The location of the Russian Black Sea naval fleet's automobile depot was one of the obstacles to the inclusion of the reserve on UNESCO's list of world heritage sites.


In 2017, archaeologists discovered on the outskirts of Sevastopol, fragments of an ancient Greek altar with figures of gods.


The 1935 basilica is the most famous basilica excavated in Chersonesus. The original name is unknown so "1935" refers to the year it was opened. The basilica was probably built in the 6th century on the site of an earlier temple, assumed by historians to be a synagogue, itself replacing a small temple dating from the early days of Christianity. The 1935 basilica is often used as an image representing Chersonesos. Its picture appears on one Ukrainian banknote.