Bakhchysarai, Treaty of

Bakhchysarai, Treaty of. Treaty signed in Bakhchysarai on 13 January 1681 by Muscovy, Turkey, and the Crimean Khanate. They agreed to a 20-year truce and accepted the Dnipro River as the demarcation line between the Ottoman Empire and Moscow's domain. Both sides promised not to settle the territory between the Boh River and the Dnipro River. The Tatars retained the right to live as nomads in the southern steppes of Ukraine, while the Cossacks retained the right to fish in the Dnipro and its tributaries, to obtain salt in the south, and to sail on the Dnipro and the Black Sea. Turkey recognized Muscovy's sovereignty in Left-Bank Ukraine and the domain of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, while the southern part of the Kyiv region, the Bratslav region, and Podilia were left under Turkey's control.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]