Feodosiya
Feodosiya (Given by God) was founded in the 6th century by Greeks. The Genoeses called it Kafa and the Turkish — Kuchuk-lstanbul (Small Istanbul). In 1783 the town got its original name of Feodosiya.
The Genoese consolidated their position in Feodosiya in 1266. They built stone walls with 25 round towers which surrounded the city. The Constantine Tower built in 1382–1445 has come down to the present time. The Armenian Church of St. Sergius was erected in the 14th century.
On August 16, 1820 Alexander Pushkin visited Feodosiya and stayed with Governor of Feodosiya S. M. Bronevskiy, who established the first Crimean archeological museum.
In 1848 the world-famous painter I. K. Aivazovskiy, who lived almost all his long life in Feodosiya, built a house and a studio on the sea coast. Here the artist painted his famous canvases. One of his most famous pictures “The Ninth Wave” is exposed in St. Peterburg art museum. The house of I. K. Aivazovskiy was visited by M. A. Voloshin, A. P. Chekhov, A. G. Rubinshtein and other noted men of culture. In 1930 the monument to I. K. Aivazovskiy was installed at the picture gallery which the artist donated to his native city. Armenian by nationality, I. K. Aivazovskiy was buried near the bell-tower of St. Sergius’ Church in 1900.
The Russian writer A. S. Grin (Grinevskiy) (1860–1932) lived six years (1924–1930) in Feodosiya where he wrote many his novels “The Running Across the Waves” and “The Road to Nowhere”. In the house on 10 Galereinaya Street where the writer lived in 1924–1928 a literary-memorial museum was opened. The entrance to the museum is decorated with attributes of a sailing vessel. In its rooms an atmosphere of the magic world of heroes of the great romanticist reigns.
In Feodosiya there are the temples: of the Iberian Icon of the Mother of God, (650 years), of Consolation of All Who Sorrow, of St. Catherine, of the Kazan Mother of God, of the Presentation in the Temple.
