Feodosiya

The city was founded under the name of Theodosia 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 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.
In the late 13th century, traders from Genoa arrived and purchased the town from the ruling Golden Horde. They established a flourishing trading settlement called Caffa (or Kaffa), which virtually monopolised trade in the Black Sea area and served as the chief port and administrative centre for the Genoese settlements around the Sea. It came to house one of Europe's biggest slave markets.
Modern Feodosiya is a popular resort city. 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.
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.