Feodosia

The city was founded by the Greeks of Miletus in the 6th century B.C. From 355 B.C. Theodosia was part of the Bosporan Kingdom.. Destroyed by the Huns in the IV century A.D. At that time in the city and its surroundings lived Alans, and the settlement was given the Alanian name Ardauda - translated as "seven gods". In the V century the city came under the control of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire, in the VI century was captured by the Khazars, and then reverted to Byzantium. During the next centuries, existed as a small village, which in the XIII century. under the influence of the Golden Horde. Subsequently it was bought by the Genoese merchants.

The Genoese created a prosperous commercial port city of Caffa, which served as the main port and control center of all the Genoese colonies in the Northern Black Sea. During this period the city was in its heyday. The city's population exceeded 70 thousand people, there was a branch of the Bank of St. George and the theater. There was a mint, where coins were minted. The Genoese maintained an allied relationship with the Golden Horde khans. The Genoese administration had full self-government within the walls of the cities and appointed a special prefect of Crimean natives to manage the rural district of the Cafinia possessions, the administration was subordinate to the high council in Genoa.

In 1346, due to the deterioration of relations with the Golden Horde, Kaffa was besieged by the troops of Khan Janibek. After the plague broke out in the Horde army, the khan ordered catapults to throw the corpses of those who died of the disease into Kaffa, where the epidemic began immediately. The siege ended with nothing, as the army, weakened by the disease, was forced to retreat.

Cafa was the starting point for the spread of the deadliest pandemic in European history, the Black Death.

By the mid-15th century, Caffa had surpassed the size of Constantinople.

In 1475 Kaffa, together with all the Genoese possessions, was conquered by Ottoman troops, led by commander Gedik Ahmed Pasha. With the Ottoman conquest the names of two ranges to the southwest of Feodosia - Biyuk and Kuchuk-Janyshary (big and small janissaries). Kefe (as the Turks called Caffa) became one of the main Turkish ports on the Black Sea, there was the largest in the Northern Black Sea slave market, where thousands of slaves captured by the Crimean Tatars during raids on Polish and Russian cities and villages were sold annually. During the Ottoman era, the city was often called Kucuk-Istanbul - Little Istanbul and Krym-Stambul, emphasizing its importance and large population.

In 1616, the Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Host under the leadership of Hetman Petro Sagaidachny stormed the Turkish fortress of Cafa, defeated the 14 thousandth Turkish garrison and released several thousand prisoners. In 1682 there were 4,000 houses in the city: 3,200 Muslim and 800 Christian. Under Turkish rule the importance of the city gradually declined, although it remained a fortified point, but was severely depopulated. An important trade in the vicinity of Kafa was the extraction of self-salt in natural estuaries.

In 1771 Russian troops took the fortress of Kaffa by storm. In 1783 the Empress Catherine II by her manifesto included the whole Crimea to Russia; in 1784 the peninsula was included in the Tauride region. In 1787, during her famous trip to the Crimea, the city was visited by Empress Catherine II.

At the mint in Caffa on the same day struck medals with an inscription on the visit of this city Catherine and Archduke of Austria and the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II of Habsburg. The city was then in decline and suffered from rivalry with Taganrog. Contemporaries noted that the ruins of the city made a deep impression on the empress.

Since 1796 - as part of the Novorossiysk Province, in 1798 it was declared for 30 years porto-franco; in 1802 the district offices were transferred here, and the city itself is isolated in a particular town government (abolished in 1827); in 1804 the city received its ancient name Theodosia. The city received an international trade port, customs and quarantine.

During the resettlement organized in 1778 by the Russian government of the Christian population of Crimea to the Azov Sea region, 5,511 Armenians, 1,648 Greeks, and 24 Georgians left Feodosia. The population of Theodosia was as follows: in 1829 - 3700, in 1838 - 4500, in 1861 - 8400, in 1874 - 10600, in 1894 - 17000 people.

In August 1820 the town was visited by the town governor (retired) S. M. Bronevsky, A. S. Pushkin, who in a letter to his brother called Bronevsky "a man of honorable service.

In the 19th century, Feodosia was home to Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky, a painter and marine painter, whose talent was recognized in his youth by Feodosia town governor A. I. Kaznacheev, who encouraged Aivazovsky to get an art education. Having become a famous artist, Ivan helped the city with money, he opened an art school and an art gallery, and built a new building for Theodosia Museum of Antiquities on Mount Mithridates. The artist advocated for the expansion of the port of Feodosia, which was done. In 1887 his money was used to start the construction of a water pipeline from Subashsky spring to the city. In 1900 Aivazovsky died at the age of 83 in Feodosia and was buried in the yard of the local Armenian church of St. Sergius. I. K. Aivazovsky was the first to be awarded the title of honorary citizen of Feodosia.

In 1888, A. P. Chekhov visited Feodosiya. In a letter to M.P. Chekhov he describes the city this way:

In the morning at 5 o'clock I arrived in Feodosia, a grayish-brown, dull and dull-looking little town. There is no grass, the trees are miserable, the soil is coarse-grained, hopelessly skinny. Everything is scorched by the sun, and the only thing smiling is the sea, which does not care about small towns and tourists. The swimming is so good that I, after taking a dip, began to laugh for no reason.

In 1892 a branch railway from Dzhankoi was laid to Feodosiya, and in 1899 the commercial port was transferred from Sevastopol. This contributed to the industrial development and growth of the city. According to the All-Russian census of 1897 in Feodosia there were 24,096 inhabitants (13,983 men and 10,113 women), including (according to the criterion of native language) Russians - 11,288 (46.85 %), Tatars - 4,526 (18,78 %), Jews - 2,736 (11,35 %), Ukrainians - 1,846 (7,66 %), Greeks - 1,280 (5,31 %), Armenians - 880 (3,65 %), Poles - 598 (2,48 %), Germans - 311 (1,29 %), Belarusians - 150 (0,62 %), Turkish - 130 (0.54 %), other nationalities - 351 (1.46 %). The census did not ask about ethnicity, but only about their native language (dialect) and religion, so the Karaites were counted as speakers of the Tatar language (which was more than 25 % of all "Tatars" by language), and 93 as speakers of Russian language; total number of Karaites by religion was 1233 people. Of the 3109 people professing Judaism, 245 were counted as speakers of Russian, 127 as speakers of Tatar, and 2727 as speakers of Jewish.

Being in the mainstream of the Crimean history, Feodosia experienced common problems (famine, unemployment, repression, frequent changes of government), directly with Feodosia related battles of parts of the Soviet Republic of Tauris against the Austro-German, Anglo-French troops and military units of the White Movement. In the 20s of April 1918 the 2nd Feodosiya Regiment made an attempt at a counterattack, which pinned down the German units for several days. In 1920 A. I. Denikin, who commanded at the time the Armed Forces of Southern Russia, moved to Feodosia, and his headquarters in Feodosia was located in the building of the hotel "Astoria". During the subsequent period of Wrangel rule in Feodosia acted Bolshevik detachment of Ivan Nazukin, 28 members of which were exposed counterintelligence and executed in early 1920.

The Soviet regime in Feodosiya was finally established in November 1920. After the Civil War ended, the port workers, yesterday's Red Army fighters, participants in the battles for the Crimea, began to restore the port of Feodosia. During the famine in Soviet Russia grain and food products from abroad came through the port of Feodosia. During the year the loaders of the port of Feodosiya, also hungry and exhausted, unloaded 5,880 thousand poods of food. For this feat by the decision of the Central Executive Committee on March 19, 1923 the port of Feodosiya was awarded with the highest award of the Soviet Russia - the Order of Red Banner of Labour of the RSFSR. In the first years of Soviet power the city was in decline (35.4 thousand people in 1921, 28.7 thousand in 1926). In the years of five-year plans Feodosia developed primarily as an industrial center.

The first time German troops occupied Feodosia in November 1941. On December 26-30, a large Red Army landing was made in the port of Feodosiya. For three weeks the city became Soviet again. On January 18, 1942 the city was reoccupied by German troops, the mayor of the city was a former active member of the VKP(b) Vasily Gruzinov. An anti-fascist underground was active in the city.

Finally Feodosia was liberated on April 13, 1944 during the overall offensive of the Red Army.

During the occupation, more than 8,000 Feodosia residents were shot, including all the Jews of the city (3,248 people). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a monument to the dead was erected, which has been desecrated six times, the last time on April 7, 2012.

Heavy fighting led to the destruction of much of the city.

The city was awarded the Order of World War I.

In 1954, Feodosiya was transferred from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR as part of the Crimean region. In the early 1970s, the city received the status of a resort.

In the postwar years (1948-1990) in the city was created a strong potential of the military-industrial complex (MIC). The nuclear arsenal of the Black Sea Fleet was located in Feodosia-13. Through the port of Feodosia was carried out shipping cargo to Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the city the cosmonauts of the first group of astronauts were trained. 57 % of able-bodied population was employed in the military-industrial complex. There were restored industrial enterprises: a tobacco factory (founded in 1861), oil terminal (1938); new factories were built: shipbuilding - FSK "Sea" and KTB "Sudokompozit", which created the unique ships; ship repair (1946), instrument-making, mechanical (1952), optical plants, JSC "Feodosiya factory cognacs and wines". Today, enterprises of the military-industrial complex are in a difficult financial situation: most of them practically do not work.

In 2014, the city, like the entire territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, was annexed to Russia.

On April 6, 2015, by presidential decree, Feodosia was awarded the status of City of Military Glory of Russia.