source of plague-infested ships heading to Europe. In addition, there were overland caravan routes from the East that would have been carrying the disease into Europe as well.
Caffa recovered. The thriving, culturally diverse city and its thronged slave market were described by the Spanish traveller Pedro Tafur, who was there in the 1430s.
Kefe
In 1462 Caffa placed itself under the protection of King Casimir IV of Poland. However, Poland did not offer help when real danger came. Because the Genoese started intervening in the internal affairs of the Crimean Khanate, a Turkish vassal, the Ottoman commander Gedik Ahmet Pasha seized the city in 1475, deporting the whole population to Istanbul, in a quarter (Kefeli Mahalle) which got the name from the town. Renamed Kefe, Caffa became one of the most important Turkish ports on the Black Sea.
In 1615 Zaporozhian Cossacks under the leadership of Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny destroyed the Turkish fleet and captured Caffa. Having conquered the city, the cossacks released the men, women and children who were slaves.
Later history
Ottoman control ceased when the expanding Russian Empire conquered the whole Crimea in 1783. It was renamed Feodosiya in 1802, a Russian version of the ancient Greek name.
The city was occupied by the forces of Nazi Germany during World War II, sustaining significant damage in the process. The Jewish population numbering 3,248 before the German occupation was murdered by SD-Einsatzgruppe D between November 16 and December 15, 1941. A monument commemorating the holocaust victims is situated at the crossroads of Kerchensky and Symferopolsky highways. On Passover eve, April 7, 2012, unknown persons desecrated, for the sixth time, the monument, allegedly as an anti-Semitic act.
In 1954, it was transferred to the administrative control of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic with the rest of Crimea
