Yevpatoria or
Eupatoria is a city in
CrimeaCrimea or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is the only autonomous republic of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name.The territory of Crimea was conquered and controlled many times throughout its history...
,
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
.
The first recorded settlement in the area, called
Kerkinitis (Κερκινίτης), was built by
GreekAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
colonists around 500 BC. Along with the rest of Crimea, Kerkinitis was part of the dominions of
Mithridates VI-Early reign:Mithradates VI was the son of Mithradates V , who died when he was a boy. During Eupator's minority, supreme power was exercised by his mother queen Laodice, whom he eventually deposed and committed to prison...
, King of
PontusPontus or Pontos is a historical Greek designation for a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day northeastern Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region in antiquity by the Greeks who colonized the area, and derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea: Pontos...
, from whose nickname,
Eupator, the city's modern name derives.
From roughly the 7th through the 10th centuries AD Yevpatoria was a Khazar settlement; its name in
Khazar languageKhazar was the language spoken by the medieval Khazar tribe, a semi-nomadic Turkic people from Central Asia. It is also referred to as Khazarian, Khazaric, or Khazari...
was probably
Güzliev (literally "beautiful house").
Yevpatoria or
Eupatoria is a city in
CrimeaCrimea or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is the only autonomous republic of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name.The territory of Crimea was conquered and controlled many times throughout its history...
,
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
.
History
The first recorded settlement in the area, called
Kerkinitis (Κερκινίτης), was built by
GreekAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
colonists around 500 BC. Along with the rest of Crimea, Kerkinitis was part of the dominions of
Mithridates VI-Early reign:Mithradates VI was the son of Mithradates V , who died when he was a boy. During Eupator's minority, supreme power was exercised by his mother queen Laodice, whom he eventually deposed and committed to prison...
, King of
PontusPontus or Pontos is a historical Greek designation for a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day northeastern Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region in antiquity by the Greeks who colonized the area, and derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea: Pontos...
, from whose nickname,
Eupator, the city's modern name derives.
From roughly the 7th through the 10th centuries AD Yevpatoria was a Khazar settlement; its name in
Khazar languageKhazar was the language spoken by the medieval Khazar tribe, a semi-nomadic Turkic people from Central Asia. It is also referred to as Khazarian, Khazaric, or Khazari...
was probably
Güzliev (literally "beautiful house"). It was later subject to the
CumansCumans were a nomadic Turkic people who inhabited a shifting area north of the Black Sea known as Cumania along the Volga River. They eventually settled to the west of the Black Sea, influencing the politics of Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Moldavia, and Wallachia...
(
KipchaksKipchaks were an ancient Turkic people who originally formed part of the group of Kimäks in Siberia along the middle reaches of Irtysh or along the Ob. Around the middle of the eleventh century they split off from the bulk of the Kimaks and departed in the direction of Europe...
), the
MongolsThe name Mongol specifies one or several ethnic groups, now mainly located in Mongolia, China, and Russia.-Definition:...
and the
Crimean KhanateThe Crimean Khanate or the Khanate of Crimea was a Crimean Tatar state from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was Crimean Yurt The Crimean Khanate or the Khanate of Crimea was a Crimean Tatar state from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was Crimean Yurt...
. During this period the city was called
Kezlev by
Crimean TatarsCrimean Tatars or Crimeans are a Turkic ethnic group originally residing in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language...
and
Gözleve by Ottomans. The Russian medieval name
Kozlov is a
RussificationRussification is an adoption of the Russian language or some other Russian attribute by non-Russian communities...
of the Crimean Tatar name.
For a short period between 1478 and 1485, the city was administrated by the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
. Afterwards it became an important urban center of the
Crimean KhanateThe Crimean Khanate or the Khanate of Crimea was a Crimean Tatar state from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was Crimean Yurt The Crimean Khanate or the Khanate of Crimea was a Crimean Tatar state from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was Crimean Yurt...
. In 1783, with the whole Crimea, Kezlev was captured by the
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. Its name was officially changed to Yevpatoria in 1784. The city was briefly occupied in 1854 by
BritishGreat Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...
,
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
and
TurkishTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
troops during the
Crimean WarThe Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire on one side and an alliance of the British Empire, France, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia on the other. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
, when it was the site of the
Battle of EupatoriaThe Storm of Eupatoria was the most important military engagement of the Crimean War on the Crimean theatre in 1855 outside Sevastopol.- Battle :...
.
Adam MickiewiczAdam Bernard Mickiewicz was a Polish-Lithuanian Romantic poet...
visited the town in 1825 and wrote one of his
Crimean Sonnets here; it was later translated into Russian by
Mikhail LermontovMikhail Yuryevich Lermontov , , a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", was the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death. His influence on later Russian literature is still felt in modern times, not only through his poetry, but...
.
The 400 year old Cuma Cami mosque is one of the many designed or built by the
OttomanThe Ottoman Turks were the subdivision of the Ottoman Muslim Millet that dominated the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire. Reliable information about the early history of the Ottomans is scarce. According to some sources , the leader of the Kayi tribe of the Oguz Turks, Ertugrul, left Persia in...
architect
SinanKoca Mimar Sinan Ağa was the chief Ottoman architect and civil engineer for sultans Suleiman I, Selim II, and Murad III. He was, during a period of fifty years, responsible for the construction or the supervision of every major building in the Ottoman Empire...
.
Modern Yevpatoria
Today Yevpatoria is a major
UkrainianUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
Black Seaur a loser!The Black Sea is an inland sea bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and various straits. The Bosporus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects it to...
port, a rail hub, and resort town. The main industries include
fishingFishing is the activity of catching fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
,
food processingFood processing is the set of methods and techniques used to transform raw ingredients into food or to transform food into other forms for consumption by humans or animals either in the home or by the food processing industry...
, wine making,
limestoneLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . The deposition of limestone strata is often a by-product and indicator of biological activity in the geologic record...
quarryA quarry is a type of open-pit mine from which rock or minerals are extracted. Quarries are generally used for extracting building materials, such as dimension stone, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, and gravel...
ing, weaving, and the manufacture of building materials, machinery, furniture manufacturing and tourism. The
National Space Agency of UkraineThe National Space Agency of Ukraine is the Ukrainian government agency responsible for space policy and programs....
has ground control and tracking facilities here.
Yevpatoria has spas of mineral water, salt and mud lakes. These resorts belong to a vast area with curative facilities where the main health-improving factors are the sunshine and sea, air and sand, brine and mud of the salt lakes, as well as the mineral water of the hot springs. The population of the town is sure to have known about the curative qualities of the local mud that can be found here from time immemorial, which is witnessed by the manuscripts of
Pliny the ElderGaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an author, naturalist, and natural philosopher as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
, a Roman scholar (ca 80 BC).
On December 24, 2008 a blast destroyed a five storey building in the town. 27 people were killed.
PresidentThe President of Ukraine is the head of state of Ukraine, representing the state in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the State, conducts negotiations and concludes international treaties of Ukraine....
Viktor YushchenkoViktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is the third and current President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005....
declared December 26 to be a day of national mourning.
Famous people from Simferopol
- Vitya Vronsky — Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers....
- Lyudmila Alexeyeva
Lyudmila Mikhailovna Alexeyeva is a Russian historian, human rights activist and one of the few veterans of the Soviet dissident movement still active in modern Russia.-Biography:...
— Soviet and RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n human rightsHuman rights refer to the "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." Examples of rights and freedoms which have come to be commonly thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the...
activist
External links