IEU'S FEATURED TOPIC CONCERNING THE LAND AND REGIONS OF UKRAINE

CRIMEAN MOUNTAINS. Young, folded mountains of the Alpine mountain system located in the southern part of the Crimea. Including the foothills, they cover one-fifth of the peninsula's area. They extend for about 150 km from Sevastopol to Teodosiia and are 40-50 km in width. The Crimean Mountains consist of three long, parallel ranges, separated by valleys. They descend gradually towards the north and fall sharply towards the south. The first two ranges starting from the north constitute the foothills; the third range, called the Yaila (the name is sometimes applied to the Crimean Mountains as a whole), constitutes the mountains proper. The top of the range of the Crimean Mountains forms a large, high plateau, which drops suddenly several hundred meters to the southern shore. In the west this range is quite unbroken and is divided into the Ai-Petri Yaila (1,320 m), Yalta Yaila (1,406 m), Nikita Yaila (Demir-Kap peak, 1,504 m), and Babuhan Yaila (which has the highest peak, Roman-Kosh, 1,545 m). Between the steep southern slope of the mountains and the Black Sea lies a hilly coastal strip, the Crimean southern shore...

CRIMEAN SOUTHERN SHORE (also known as the Crimean Riviera). Narrow (2-12 km) strip of land in the southern Crimea lying between the slope of the Crimean Mountains and the Black Sea. It stretches for about 150 km from Foros (east of Sevastopol) eastward to Mount Kara-Dag (west of Teodosiia), covering an area of about 600 sq km. Sheltered from north winds, the shore has a Mediterranean climate and flora. Its agriculture is subtropical. Because of its natural beauty and healthy climate, this area is heavily populated and famous for its health resorts and tourism. Visitors greatly outnumber residents: at the beginning of the 1880s about 8,000 people visited Yalta each year; in 1910, 50,000 came to Yalta; and up until 2014 over 500,000 visited the shore. Yalta is the main resort area. Other important areas, from west to east, are Foros, Simeiz, Alupka, Koreiz and its coastal district of Miskhor, Haspra, Livadiia, Masandra, Nikita, Hurzuf, Partenit, and Alushta. The shore east of Alushta is less adequately protected from the north winds and has a more continental climate. It is less important as a tourist destination. Its main resort is Sudak...

YALTA. A city (2014 pop 78,200; 2021 pop 74,652), a resort of national importance and a port of call on the Crimean southern shore. Sheltered by the Crimean Mountains from the north, it lies on the subtropical coastal slopes overlooking Yalta Bay. The earliest recorded reference to settlement on the site is a reference to a Greek colony named Yalita (Halita) in the 1st century BC. Control of the area later passed to Byzantium. By the 12th century Yalta (called Dzhalita) had become an established port and fishing village. Genoese traders had control of the town they would call Etalita in the 13th to 15th centuries until they were succeeded by the Turks in 1475. Destroyed by an earthquake in 1471, the town was rebuilt by Greek and Armenian residents who then called it, as the Turks did, Yalta. Yalta fell under Russian control in 1783. At that time the Russian government forcibly removed (1778-80) Greeks and Armenians to the vicinity of present-day Mariupol. Many Crimean Tatars of Yalta emigrated to the Ottoman Empire. These residents were replaced by imperial Russian military. By the early 19th century the area around Yalta began to be colonized by estate owners...

ALUSHTA. A city (2021 pop 31,364) in the eastern part of the Crimean southern shore. It was founded in the 6th century AD on the site of the fortress Aluston, built during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. It served as an anchor point for the powers controlling the Crimean southern shore: the Byzantine Empire (6-7th, and 8-12th centuries), the Khazar kaganate (7th century), and then as remnant of Byzantium, the Trapezund empire (1204-39). It was destroyed by the Mongols in 1239 and then restored as Alusta under the Theodoro principality coinciding with its eparchy of Gothia (1240s-1380). It fell under control of the Genoese (1381-1475, who called it Lusta), and was later taken by the Ottoman Turks (1475-1774, who destroyed its fort and reduced it to a village). It was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1783. By 1902 Alushta gained the status of a city. During this time a number of writers lived in this town, including the Ukrainian writer Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky (1896). The Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz dedicated two of his Crimean sonnets to Alushta. By 1910 the city's population was about 4,200...

SUDAK. A city (2014 pop 15,532; 2021 pop 17,834) on the Crimean southern shore. A fortress called Sugdei was built on that site in 212. At the end of the 8th century it became an important seaport, which maintained economic ties with Byzantium. In the Kyivan Rus' documents it was called Surozh; it maintained commercial and cultural ties with various Rus' principalities, notably those of Chernihiv, Tmutorokan, and Volodymyr (in Volhynia). In the 13th century it became part of the Crimean Khanate. Retaining its autonomy, it prospered from trade on the Silk Road. Meanwhile, the Genoese merchants secured a concession from the Golden Horde for Caffa (now Teodosiia, in 1266) and in 1365 seized Sugdaia, which they renamed Soldaia. On the hill east of the city, they built a sprawling fortress with 16 turrets, which today is the best preserved medieval fortress in the Crimea. In 1475 Soldaia was captured by the Ottomans (with the help of Crimean Tatars) who renamed it Sudak. The city lost its commercial importance but retained its strategic position. In 1783 it was annexed to the Russian Empire...

TEODOSIIA or FEODOSIIA. A city and seaport (2014 pop 69,040, 2021 pop 66,293) in southeastern Crimea on the Black Sea coast. The city originated in the 6th century BC as Theodosia (meaning 'God-given [place]'), a colony of the ancient Greek city-state of Miletus. In 355 BC it was annexed by the Bosporan Kingdom to become its second largest city after Panticapaeum. In the 4th century AD Theodosia was sacked by the Huns, and at the end of the 6th century what remained of it was captured by the Khazars. In 1227 the Geonese merchant republic bought the site from the Golden Horde and established (in 1275) a trading post called Caffa. In 1454 the city was besieged by the Crimean Tatars and the Ottoman navy. The huge tribute it was forced to pay led to bankruptcy of Caffa. The Ottomans took it over, renamed it Kefe, and developed it into the largest slave market in the region. On any day, some 20 thousand captives taken in Crimean Tatar raids, mostly from Ukraine, were sold at the Kefe slave market. In reprisal, the Zaporozhian Cossacks destroyed the Turkish fleet, sacked Kefe and freed the slaves in 1616; they again attacked the city in 1628 and later took it in 1675...