Crimean Khanate

The Crimean Khanate was the Tatar state of the Black Sea steppe from 1441 to 1783, the Golden Horde's longest lived heir. Haci Giray, a Genghisid prince, seized the peninsula in 1441 and built his palace at Bakhchisarai, the garden palace, over its singing fountains. In 1475 the Ottomans took the Genoese ports and made the khan their vassal, an alliance that lasted three centuries: Crimean horsemen raided Poland, Muscovy and the Caucasus for the Sultan's wars and for the slave markets of Caffa, carrying off a million captives in two centuries and teaching Moscow to build its chain of fortress lines. At its height the khan's writ ran from Bessarabia to the Kuban. The tide turned with Russia's guns: Minikh burned Bakhchisarai in 1736, the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji in 1774 declared the khanate independent, which meant Russian, and in April 1783 Potemkin read the annexation manifesto. The last khan, Sahin Giray, surrendered his throne for a pension and was later executed by the Ottomans; the Tatars stayed, and their deportation in 1944 is another story.