Tana

Tana stands at the mouth of the Don, on the northeastern rim of the Sea of Azov. Greek colonists from the Bosporan kingdom founded Tanais nearby in the third century BC, and a Kipchak town named Azak grew on the river arm to the south. In 1332 the Venetian envoy Andrea Zeno secured Khan Özbeg's permission for a Venetian station here, set apart from the Genoese one. The Italians bought slaves, furs, grain and salt fish from the steppe peoples and shipped them west, and Tana was the westerners' last stop for goods coming overland from the east.

The trade depended on the khans. In 1343 a Venetian killed a Tatar in a brawl, and Khan Jani Beg drove the Italians out for some years. Timur razed the town in 1395; when the Venetian envoy Blanco de Ripa came in 1397 he found only ruins, yet the Venetians insisted on rebuilding. Khan Pulad's raiders sacked it again in 1410 and 1418. The Ottomans took Tana in 1475 and built the fortress of Azak beside it. Cossacks stormed Azak in June 1637 and held it until 1642, and Peter I's armies captured it in 1696.