- published: 17 Sep 2015
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Coordinates: 45°11′08″N 36°47′28″E / 45.18556°N 36.79111°E / 45.18556; 36.79111
The Taman Peninsula (Russian: Таманский полуостров) is a peninsula in the present-day Krasnodar Krai of Russia. It is bounded on the north by the Sea of Azov, on the west by the Strait of Kerch and on the south by the Black Sea. The peninsula has evolved over the past two millennia from a chain of islands into the peninsula it is today. In ancient times the Pontic Greek colonies of Hermonassa and Phanagoria were located on the peninsula, as was the later city of Tmutarakan.
The peninsula was settled by Maeotae and Sindi from ancient times. In the classical period it became part of the Bosporan kingdom; its inhabitants included Sarmatians, Greeks, Anatolian settlers from Pontus, and Jews. In the 4th century CE the area fell to the Huns; it was later the capital of Great Bulgaria and fell to the Khazars in the mid-7th century. Following the breakup of the Khazar Khaganate in c. 969, the peninsula was part of a Khazar Jewish successor state under a ruler named David. By the late 980s it was largely in the possession of the Kievan Rus and the Russian Principality of Tumutarakan before falling to the Kipchaks c. 1100. The Mongols seized the area in 1239 and it became a possession of Genoa, along with Gazaria in Crimea, in 1419.