Crimea

Northern peninsula on the Black Sea, an autonomous republic of Ukraine; formerly an oblast (region) of the Soviet Union (1954–91); area 27,000 sq km/10,425 sq mi; population (2005) 1,994,300. The capital is Simferopol; other main towns are Sevastopol and Yalta. The region produces iron, steel, and oil, and there is fruit- and vine-growing. The land is mainly steppe, but the south coast is a holiday resort.

Government
Crimea is an autonomous republic within Ukraine. It has a 100-seat parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, which appoints a prime minister to head the government (council of ministers).

History
After successive occupation from the 7th century BC onwards by Scythians, Greeks, Goths, Huns, Bulgars, Khazars, and Kievan Russians, Crimea came under the rule of Crimean Tatars in the 15th century. The Genoese trading port of Kaffa (modern Feodosiya) in eastern Crimea was the place from where the Black Death spread from Asia to Western Europe in 1346. Crimea was part of the Ottoman empire between 1475 and 1774. A subsequent brief independence as the Khanate of Crimea was ended by Russian annexation in 1783. It was the scene of conflict between Russia and a coalition of Britain, France, Turkey, and Sardinia in the Crimean War (1854–56), which led to many Crimean Tatars fleeing for parts of the Ottoman Empire.

As part of the Soviet Union
During the civil war in Russia after the 1917 revolution, Crimea was a stronghold of the anti-Bolshevik White Army. The White Russian Army was defeated in Crimea by the communist Red Army in 1920. Subsequently, many opponents of the new communist regime were executed. Crimea became an Autonomous Soviet Republic within the Russian Socialist Federation from 1920. It was the scene of fierce Soviet resistance to the invading Nazi German forces in 1941–42, before being occupied by Germany in 1942–44. After Soviet Union (Russian) control was restored in 1944, it was reduced to a region within the Russian Socialist Federation. In May 1944, Crimea's Tatar people were forcibly deported to Uzbekistan for alleged Nazi collaboration. Two-fifths of those deported died from hunger and disease. Crimea's Black Sea resort of Yalta was the scene of an important conference of the Allied leaders during World War II. In 1954 the Soviet Union's leader, Khrushchev, transferred Crimea from the Russian Federation to the Ukraine, within the Soviet Union, despite most of its population being ethnically and culturally Russian. In 1967, Crimea's Tatars were exonerated. A small number were allowed to return, others were forcibly re-exiled in 1979. A drift back to their former homeland began in 1987 and a federal ruling in 1988 confirmed their right to residency.