Armenians in Crimea

Armenians have maintained a presence in the Crimea since the Middle Ages. The first wave of Armenian immigration into this area began during the mid-eleventh century and, over time, as political, economic and social conditions in Armenia proper failed to improve, newer waves followed them. Today, between 10 to 20 thousand Armenians live in the peninsula.

History

Early communities

In an ethnic and national sense, the Crimea has been a host to wide group of peoples. Historians and other scholars have dated the Armenian presence in the Crimea to the eighth century and have distinguished three distinctive stages of their settlement in the region. The Crimea was under the control of the Byzantine Empire during this time and some Armenian troops serving in the Byzantine military were stationed here. In the course of the next two centuries, Armenians from their homeland in the Armenian Highlands and other Byzantine cities came to settle here as well.

As life grew more unbearable in Armenia proper following the destructive Seljuk raids of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, many Armenians were forced to migrate to Byzantium and elsewhere and with some of them eventually settling in the Crimea. They founded new homes in Kaffa (modern Feodosia),Solhat, Karasubazar (Belogorsk), and Orabazar (Armyansk), with Kaffa at its center. The stability of the region allowed many of them to engage in agriculture and commercial activity. Even when the region came under Mongol control in the mid-thirteenth century, their economic life was left largely undisturbed. The Armenians' ties to commercial interests also greatly benefited the Genoese when they secured their economic domination there in the late thirteenth century. The widening economic opportunities in the Crimea attracted more Armenians to settle there. According to Genoese sources, in 1316 Armenians had three churches (two Armenian Apostolic and one Catholic) of their own in Kaffa.

Armenians

Armenians (Armenian: հայեր, hayer [hɑˈjɛɾ]) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian Highlands.

Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. There is a wide-ranging diaspora of around 5 million people of full or partial Armenian ancestry living outside of modern Armenia. The largest Armenian populations today exist in Russia, the United States, France, Georgia, Iran, Ukraine, Lebanon, and Syria. With the exceptions of Iran and the former Soviet states, the present-day Armenian diaspora was formed mainly as a result of the Armenian Genocide.

Most Armenians adhere to the Armenian Apostolic Church, a non-Chalcedonian church, which is also the world's oldest national church. Christianity began to spread in Armenia soon after Jesus' death, due to the efforts of two of his apostles, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew. In the early 4th century, the Kingdom of Armenia became the first state to adopt Christianity as a state religion.