city (1989 pop. 174,000), in Ukraine, in the Crimea. It lies
on the Kerch Strait of the Black Sea and at the eastern end of the Kerch Peninsula,
a strip of land between Azov Sea and the Black Sea. A seaport and major industrial
center, it has iron and steel mills, shipyards, fisheries, and canneries.
Iron ore and vanadium are extracted nearby. The city was founded as Panticapaeum
(6th cent. BC) by Greek colonists from Miletus and was the forerunner of all
Milesian cities in the area. It was a large trade center and a terraced mountain
city with self-government. It became (5th cent. BC to 4th cent. AD) the capital
of the European part of the Kingdom of Bosporus. It was conquered (c.110 BC)
by Mithradates VI of Pontus, then passed under Roman and Byzantine rule, and
was taken by Novogorod in the 9th cent. and called Korchev. Later (13th cent.)
it became a Genoese trade center called Cherkio and was conquered (1475) by
the Crimean Tatars, who called it Cherzeti. It was captured (1771) by the
Russians in the first Russo-Turkish War (1768-74), and the Treaty of Kuchuk
Kainarji (1774) formally gave it to Russia. Under Russia, Kerch was a military
port and then became (1820) a commercial port. 
There
are ruins of the ancient acropolis on top of the steep hill of Mithradates.
Archaeological remains, discovered in catacombs and burial mounds near the
city, are in the archaeological museum (founded 1826), which is famous for
its Greco-Scythian antiquities. The Church of St. John the Baptist dates from
the 8th cent. The city has a marine fishery and oceanographic research institute.
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