Perekop

Perekop [Перекоп]. Map: VII-14. A village (2011 pop 894) on the Perekop Isthmus in Armiansk city council, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. In the past it was the departure point for Tatar raids into Ukraine. At the end of the 15th century Mengli-Girei built the fortress of Or at the site. Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny defeated the Tatars there in 1620. In 1736 and 1738 the Russians captured and destroyed the fortress, but it was rebuilt by the Tatars in 1754. In 1783 Russia annexed the territory and turned Perekop into a county center of Tavriia gubernia. After the Crimean War many Crimean Tatars emigrated from the region to Turkey, and Ukrainian settlers moved in. With the building of the Lozova–Sevastopol railway line the town lost its commercial importance. By 1896 its population was only 7,400. According to the census of 1926, Ukrainians accounted for 43.6 percent of the region's population.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]