Sudak: the Genoese fortress

The Genoese fortress in Sudak stands on a hill about 150 metres above the bay. The Genoese took the town in 1365, after they were already established in Caffa, today's Feodosia. From here they moved on Cembalo, today's Balaklava. By 1380 their forts ran along the south coast from Caffa to Cembalo. On maps of the time the Black Sea was sometimes called the Sea of Sudak.

A consul from Genoa ran the town, under the consul of Caffa, for one year. Trade moved wine, craft goods, and also slaves and spices, which the Genoese and the Venetians carried through Crimea. A curfew held at night. Sudak stayed Genoese for a little more than a hundred years. In 1475 the Ottomans took the fortress, and the Genoese lost their Crimean towns. Trade moved to Caffa.

Russian troops occupied the fortress in 1771. A garrison stayed until 1816. The building in the battlements began as a mosque. The Genoese finished it as a Catholic church, the Ottomans made it a mosque again, the Russian garrison used it as a church, and from 1883 it was an Armenian Catholic chapel. In the Soviet period the fortress was restored and opened as a museum. Smaller Genoese forts stand in Feodosia and Balaklava.

Crimea is temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation. For now it is not a place for tourism.