Jump to navigation Jump to search “Taurida” redirects here. Satellite image of the Black Sea, with the lighter-colored Sea of Azov and the Crimean peninsula in the center of the picture. 5th century BC when several Greek colonies were established along russian dating history coast.

In 1783, the Ottoman Empire was defeated by Catherine the Great. Crimea was traded to Russia by the Ottoman Empire as part of the Treaty provision. After two centuries of conflict, the Russian fleet had destroyed the Ottoman navy and the Russian army had inflicted heavy defeats on the Ottoman land forces. In 1921 the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created.

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. 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. 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. The Scythian treasure of Kul-Oba, in eastern Crimea.

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.

The Greeks, who eventually established colonies in Crimea during the Archaic Period, regarded the Tauri as a savage, warlike people. 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 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 colonies along the north coast of the Black Sea in the 5th century BCE. Greek city-states began establishing colonies along the Black Sea coast of Crimea in the 7th or 6th century BC. 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. 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. 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. At the same time, the southern fringe of the peninsula was controlled by the Byzantine Empire as the Cherson theme. Kievan hold on the Crimean interior was lost in the early 13th century due to the Mongol invasions.

In the summer of 1238, Batu Khan devastated the Crimea and pacified Mordovia, reaching Kiev by 1240. Crimea until the Ottoman conquest in 1475. It has been speculated that this operation may have been responsible for the advent of the Black Death in Europe. Crimean Tatars founded an independent Crimean Khanate under Hacı I Giray, a descendant of Genghis Khan, in 1441. The Crimean Tatars controlled the steppes that stretched from the Kuban and to the Dniester River, however, they were unable to take control over commercial Genoese towns. 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 raids into Ukrainian lands, 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. In 1769 a last major Tatar raid, which took place during the Russo-Turkish War, saw the capture of 20,000 slaves. The Crimean Tatars as an ethnic group entered the Crimean Khanate during the 15th to 18th centuries. A small enclave of the 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. 1554 Cossack Hetman Dmytro Vyshnevetsky gathered together groups of Cossacks and constructed a fort designed to obstruct Tatar raids into Ukraine.