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Feodosia (, Feodosiia, Teodosiia; , Transliteration Feodosiya Про впорядкування транслітерації українського алфавіту... | від 27.01.2010 № 55), also called in English Theodosia (from ), is a city on the coast of the Black Sea. Feodosia serves as the administrative center of Feodosia Municipality, one of the regions into which Crimea is divided. During much of its history, the city was a significant settlement known as Caffa () or Kaffa (Old Crimean Tatar/Ottoman Turkish: ; Crimean Tatar/). According to the 2014 census, its population was 69,145.
Theodosia remained a minor village for much of the next nine hundred years. It was at times part of the sphere of influence of the Khazars (excavations have revealed Khazar artifacts dating back to the 9th century) and of the Byzantine Empire.
Like the rest of Crimea, this place (village) fell under the domination of the Kipchaks and was conquered by the Mongols in the 1230s.
A settlement named Kaphâs (alternate romanized spelling Cafâs, ) existed surrounding Theodosia prior to the penetration of Genoese into the Black Sea. The archaeological evidence indicates that during the Middle Ages the population about Theodosia never decreased to zero; several medieval churches are found in the area dating from the times of Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages. However, the population had become completely agrarian. A small local Greek population must have existed in situ and in the neighboring settlements. Likely, from the 9th century there were Cumans and Goths living alongside the Greeks, and by 1270s, perhaps some Tatars and Armenians as well.Khvalkov, Ievgen Alexandrovitch, The Colonies of Genoa in the Black Sea Region: Evolution and Transformation, European University Institute, Department of History and Civilization, Florence, vol. 1, pg. 83, September 2015,
They established a flourishing trading settlement called Kaffa (also recorded as Caffa), which virtually monopolized trade in the Black Sea region and served as a major port and administrative center for the Genoese colonies around the Sea. The city thrived despite the tenuous politics of the region and Genoa's series of wars with the Mongol successor states.
It came to house one of Europe's biggest Slavery of the Black Sea slave trade, and served as a terminus for the Silk Road. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia also adds that the city of Caffa was established during the times when the area was ruled by the Khan of the Golden Horde Mengu-Timur. Mengu-Timur (Менгу-Тимур). Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Accessed 26 February 2024.
Ibn Battuta visited the city, noting it was a "great city along the sea coast inhabited by Christians, most of them Genoese." He further stated, "We went down to its port, where we saw a wonderful harbor with about two hundred vessels in it, both ships of war and trading vessels, small and large, for it is one of the world's celebrated ports." (2025). 9780330418799, Picador. ISBN 9780330418799
In early 1318, Pope John XXII established a Latin Church diocese of Kaffa, as a suffragan of Genoa. The papal bull of appointment of the first bishop attributed to him a vast territory: "a villa de Varna in Bulgaria usque Sarey inclusive in longitudinem et a Black Sea usque ad Ruthenia in latitudinem" ("from the city of Varna in Bulgaria to Sarey inclusive in longitude, and from the Black Sea to the land of the Ruthenians in latitude"). The first bishop was Fra' Gerolamo, who had already been consecrated seven years before as a missionary bishop ad partes Tartarorum. The diocese ended as a residential bishopric with the capture of the city by the Ottoman Turks in 1475.Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae, Leipzig 1931, pg. 432Konrad Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi, vol. 1 , pp. 154–155; vol. 2 , pp. XVIII e 117; vol. 3 , pg. 145; vol. 5, p. 134Gasparo Luigi Oderico, Lettere ligustiche ossia Osservazioni critiche sullo stato geografico della Liguria fino ai Tempi di Ottone il Grande, con le Memorie storiche di Caffa ed altri luoghi della Crimea posseduti un tempo da' Genovesi, Bassano 1792 (especially p. 166 ff.) Accordingly, Kaffa is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see. Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013; ), p. 855 The new diocese effectively broke up the diocese of Khanbaliq, which functioned as one diocese for all Mongol territory from the Balkans to China.
It is believed that the devastating pandemic of the Black Death entered Europe for the first time via Kaffa in 1347. After a protracted siege during which the Mongol army under Janibeg was reportedly withering from the disease, they catapulted the infected corpses over the city walls, infecting the inhabitants, in one of the first cases of biological warfare. Fleeing inhabitants may have carried the disease back to Italy, causing its spread across Europe. However, the plague appears to have spread in a stepwise fashion, taking over a year to reach Europe from Crimea. Also, there were a number of Crimean ports under Mongols control, so it is unlikely that Kaffa was the only source of plague-infested ships heading to Europe. Additionally, there were overland caravan routes from the East that would have been carrying the disease into Europe as well.
Kaffa eventually recovered. The thriving, culturally diverse city and its thronged slave market have been described by the Spanish traveler Pedro Tafur, who was there in the 1430s. Tafur, Andanças e viajes The port was also visited by German traveler Johann Schiltberger in the 15th century. In 1462, Caffa placed itself under the protection of King Casimir IV of Poland.D. Kołodziejczyk, The Crimean Khanate and Poland-Lithuania. International Diplomacy on the European Periphery (15th–18th Century) A Study of Peace Treaties Followed by Annotated Documents, Leiden - Boston 2011, p. 62; ISSN 1380-6076 / However, Poland did not offer significant help due to reinforcements sent being massacred in Bar fortress (modern day Ukraine) by Duke Czartoryski after a quarrel with locals.
Mehmed dispatched a fleet under the Ottoman commander Gedik Ahmet Pasha, which left Constantinople 19 May 1475. It anchored before the walls of the city on 1 June, started the bombardment the next day, and on 6 June the inhabitants capitulated. Over the next few days the Ottomans proceeded to extract the wealth of the inhabitants, and abduct 1,500 youths for service in the Sultan's palace. On 8 July, the final blow was struck when all inhabitants of Latin origin were ordered to relocate to Istanbul, where they founded a quarter ( Kefeli Mahalle) which was named after the town they had been forced to leave.Franz Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and his Time (Princeton: University Press, 1978).
Renamed Kefe, Caffa became one of the most important Turkish ports on the Black Sea. It was a major center of the Crimean slave trade until the late 18th-century, referred to by the Lithuanian Michalon Litvin as: "not a town, but an abyss into which our blood is pouring".Davies, Brian (2014). Warfare, State and Society on the Black Sea Steppe, 1500–1700. Routledge; ISBN 978-1-134-55283-2. pp. 24-25 In 1616, Zaporozhian Cossacks under the leadership of Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny destroyed the Turkish fleet and captured Caffa. Having conquered the city, the Cossacks released the men, women and children who were slaves.
All the Jews were gathered. The Germans told them they would be displaced somewhere in Ukraine. On December 4, 1941, in the morning, all the Jews, including my father, my mother and my sister were taken to an anti-tank trench where they were executed by German shooters. 1,500-1,700 people were shot that day.A monument commemorating the Holocaust victims is situated at the crossroads of Kerchensky and Symferopolsky highways. On Passover eve, 7 April 2012, unknown persons desecrated the monument for the sixth time in what was allegedly an anti-Semitic act.
All native Tatar inhabitants were arrested by Soviet forces as several thousand Tatars had fought side-by-side with the Nazis against Soviet forces and had participated in the Jewish genocide. Following Stalin's orders, all Tatars were sent to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other Central Asian republics of the USSR.
On 6 October 2025 Feodosia's marine oil depot was attacked by drones causing a fire that burned for two days.
While most beaches in the Crimea are made of pebbles, in the Feodosia area there is a unique Golden Beach ( Zolotoy Plyazh) made of small seashells which stretches for some 15 km.
The city is sparsely populated during the winter months and most cafes and restaurants are closed. Business and tourism increase in mid-June and peak during July and August. As in the other of the Crimea, the tourists come mostly from the Commonwealth of Independent States countries of the former Soviet Union.
Feodosia was the city where the seascape painter Ivan Aivazovsky lived and worked all his life, and where general Pyotr Kotlyarevsky and the writer Alexander Grin spent their declining years. Popular tourist locations include the Aivazovsky National Art Gallery and the Genoese fortress.
An early 14th-century bishop of Caffa appears in Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose, making several sharp replies in a long, tempestuous debate within a group of monks and clerics; he is portrayed as aggressive and somewhat narrow-minded.
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