Balaklava is the city, the history of which is over a thousand years long and there are some assumptions that the city was mentioned in Homer’s “Odyssey”. Throughout history it changed hands many times. It was founded by the ancient Greeks and its first name was Symbolon. Then the city was under the Roman rule and after the fall of the Roman Empire the town was controlled by the Byzantine Empire. In the 14th century Balaklava incorporated by the Genoese Republic and after a century it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. In the 17th century the city and Crimean Peninsula were annexed by Russia and in 1951 it was passed to Ukraine by the Soviet authorities. In 2014, due to the Crimean crisis, Balaklava, along with the rest of the Crimea, was annexed by the Russian Federation.
