Mangup Qale, capital of Theodoro
The capital of the principality of Theodoro, which held out through a five-month siege in 1475.
The ruling dynasty of Theodoro — the Gabrades of Trebizond — held to the Greek language and the Byzantine tradition until the very fall; on the plateau there remain the citadel walls, the gates, cave monasteries and the Great Basilica. The fortress arose in the 6th century as the Byzantine Doros and became a capital at the end of the 14th, but the only precisely dated event is 1475, when the army of Gedik Ahmed Pasha took Mangup after roughly five months of siege. After the Ottoman conquest a Karaite community lived here, and it left the plateau in 1793. Ukraine submitted Mangup together with Eski Kermen to the UNESCO tentative list on 24 September 2012 — since 2014 the nomination has not moved.
Travel here is impossible while the occupation lasts; at neighbouring Eski Kermen the occupiers are running excavations that Ukraine and UNESCO consider illegal.