Tahanrih

Tahanrih or Tahanroh (Таганріг or Таганрог; Russian: Таганрог; Taganrog). VI-19. A city (2017 pop 250,287) on Tahanrih Bay in the Sea of Azov in Rostov oblast, Russian Federation. It was founded in 1698 as a Russian naval base and was destroyed and annexed by Turkey in 1712. It was reclaimed by the Russian Empire in 1774. Tahanrih lost its military significance when Sevastopol was founded, but it developed as a commercial port. In the 19th century it exported grain. At the end of that century it began to develop a large metallurgical and machine-building industry. In 1887–1920 it was an administrative center of an okruha in the Don Cossack province. From 1920 to 1924 Tahanrih and its okruha were part of the territory of Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. According to the census of 1926, Ukrainians accounted for 34.6 percent of the city’s population and 71.5 percent of the okruha’s population. Today Tahanrih is an important industrial center with metallurgical, boiler-manufacturing, and combine-building plants, ship repair yards, and metalworking factories. It has an art museum, a regional studies museum, and a memorial museum dedicated to Anton Chekhov, who was born in Tahanrih.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]