Feodosiya is a port and resort city in Crimea, Ukraine, located on the Black Sea coast. The name is often spelled as Feodosiya and sometimes as Theodosia according to transliteration from Greek. The city was founded under the name of Theodosia (Θεοδοσία) by Greek colonists from Miletos in the 6th century BC. Noted for its rich agricultural lands, on which its trade depended, it was destroyed by the Huns in the 4th century AD. Theodosia remained a minor village for much of the next nine hundred years. It was at various times part of the sphere of influence of the Khazars (excavations have revealed Khazar artifacts dating back to the ninth century) and of the Byzantine Empire. Like the rest of Crimea, it fell under the domination of the Kipchaks and was conquered by the Mongols in the 1230s.
Because the Genoese started intervening in the internal affairs of the Crimean Khanate, a Turkish vassal, the Ottoman commander Gedik Ahmet Pasha seized the city in 1475. All the non muslim inhabitants of Caffa were deported to Istanbul, where a mosque still today remembers in its name (Kefeli Mosque: in Turkish "Mosque of the Caffariotes") the city. Renamed Kefe, Caffa became one of the most important Turkish ports on the Black Sea. Ottoman control ceased when the expanding Russian Empire conquered the whole Crimea in 1783. It was renamed Feodosiya (Ôåîäîñèÿ) in 1802, a Russian version of the ancient Greek name. The city was captured twice by the forces of Nazi Germany during World War II, sustaining significant damage in the process. In 1954, it was transferred to the administrative control of the Ukrainian SSR with the rest of Crimea.
Modern Feodosiya is a popular resort city with a population of about 85,000 people. It has beaches, mineral springs, and mud baths, and is renowned for its many sanatoria and rest homes. Apart from tourism, its economy rests on agriculture and fisheries, with local industries including fishing, brewing and canning. As is the case in much of the rest of the Crimea, most of its population is ethnically Russian and the Ukrainian language is relatively little used there. In June 2006, Feodosiya made the news in connection with the Crimean anti-NATO protests of 2006.
Miscellanea
Feodosiya is known as the city where the seascape painter Ivan Aivazovsky lived and worked all his life.
It is also the town where the general Pyotr Kotlyarevsky and the writer Alexander Grin spent the declining years of their lives.
The town is well known as a birth place of the Russian Aviation, mountain "planernaya" is still being used for para-gliding.
Since 2005 it is the only city in Ukraine to produce Belamorkanal papirosi after the kiev factory closed down.
The ruins of Genoese fortress and number of ancient Greek, Armenian and Russian Orthodox churches are situated on the south part of Feodosiya.
