Qırq Yer

Qırq Yer crowns a rocky plateau above the valleys of southwestern Crimea. Steep cliffs and fortified approaches protected a town whose buildings and chambers occupied the heights. Known later as Chufut-Kale, it became a stronghold of the early Crimean khans and home to one of the peninsula's most important Karaite communities.

The fortress was known as Qırq Yer by the thirteenth century. In 1299 it was captured during the Crimean campaign of the Golden Horde commander Nogai, and it later became a Tatar stronghold. In the fourteenth century, its inhabitants included Muslim, Christian, Armenian and Jewish communities. Hacı Giray, founder of the Crimean Khanate, made the fortified town his chief residence. The mausoleum of Janike Hanım, daughter of the Golden Horde ruler Tokhtamysh, was built here in 1437.

As the khans established their capital at Bakhchisaray below the plateau, Qırq Yer lost much of its administrative importance. By the seventeenth century the Karaites, followers of a Jewish tradition distinct from rabbinic Judaism, formed its dominant community. Their presence gave the fortress its later name of Chufut-Kale, the Jewish fortress. The former khans’ stronghold continued to shelter their houses of prayer and the traditions of a community connected with other Karaite centres around the Black Sea. After the Russian annexation in 1783, its inhabitants were allowed to settle elsewhere in Crimea.