C H U F U T - K A L E

    In the 8th-9th or 9th-10th centuries a fortified settlement appeared on a high plateau with precipitous slopes 3,5 km. east of Bakhchisarai. In 1299 it was beseiged and then seized by khan Nogai's troops. After that the town got the name of  Kyrk-Er (Forty  Fortifications). When Bakhchisarai was founded, the Tartars moved to the capital and only Karaites remained here in which connection the town was renamed Chufut-Kale (Jewish Fortress). It occupied a territory of 18 hectares and consisted of Old and New towns which were divided by a wall and were protected by walls with towers and moats. Numerous domestic bildings and household structures had undegrond subsidary premises and  stood along  longitudinal streets and transversal lanes. Only their ruins and two houses from the 18th century have come down to us. From public buildings especially notable were the Djanyke-Khanum sepulchre and two Karaite praying houses built in the 14th and 18th centuries. The Greater praying house is adjoined from the north-west by a stone fence on clumns while the entrance to the Lesser is marked by wooden gallery. After the annexation of the Crimea by Russia and the lifting of the ban for the Karaites to settle in bakhchisarai and other cicties, Chufut-Kale became deserated by the mid-19th century. The last resident of the formerly blossoming town was a well-known Karaite scholar A.S. Firkovich (1786-1875) who published medieval epitaphs, gathered a huge collection of ancient  manuscripts and later donated it  to the Public Library in St. Petersburg. He lived near the fortress gates in his estate over the precipice, which consisted of two-storey house with an extension and household structuries built of aslar and grouped around the inner courtyard. today the structures have been restored.

Part of text taken from book "Crimea" autor V. Timofeenko