Chufut-Kale (Çufut Qale)
A Karaite town in the cliffs and the first capital of the Crimean khans.
In 1454 Hacı Giray moved his residence here from Staryi Krym and opened a mint; the capital later went to Salachyk and Bakhchysarai, while Kyrk-Or was left to the Karaites, who renamed it Chufut-Kale. Two kenesas survive — the elder of the 14th–15th centuries and the younger of the 18th — the türbe of Canike Hanım, daughter of Khan Tokhtamysh, and traces of the first printing house in Crimea, of 1731. The dating of the fortress itself is disputed: some researchers place it in the 5th–6th centuries, others in the 10th–11th, so the entry gives the first firm written mention of Kyrk-Or — 1298–1299. Under occupation the site is administered by an institution re-registered by russia; Ukraine placed it on the sanctions list by decree No. 82/2019.
Travel here is impossible while the occupation lasts; independent monitoring missions are not let in to the site, so there is nothing on which to judge its condition.