THEODOSIA, formerly Kaffa, a seaport and watering-place of South Russia, on the east coast of the Crimea, in 45° 3' N., 35° 22' E., and on the railway. It has an excellent modern har bour, which is never frozen and has a floating crane lifting 4o to 5o tons. Pop. (1926) The ancient Theodosia, the native name of which was Ardabda, was a colony founded from Miletus. Archaic terra-cottas show it to have been inhabited in the 6th century B.C., but it is first heard of in history as resisting the attacks of Satyrus, ruler of the Cimmerian Bosporus, c. 390 B.C. His successor Leucon took it and made it a great port for shipping wheat to Greece, especially to Athens. This export of wheat continued until the days of Mithradates VI. of Pontus, against whom the city revolted. Later it became a special part of the Bosporan kingdom with its own governor. In the 3rd century A.D. it was still inhabited, but seems to have been deserted not long afterwards. Besides the terra cottas and pottery, very beautiful Greek jewellery has been found near Theodosia. It coined silver and copper during the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. The name Kaffa (Genoese Capha, Turk. Kefe)
is first mentioned in the 9th century. The Genoese established themselves on the site shortly after 1266, and the settlement flourished exceedingly, being the depot of a trade route reaching to China. It became the head of the Genoese establishments in Gazaria, the see of a bishop, and the chief port on the northern shore of the Black sea, surpassing the Venetian Tana. When the Turks took Constantinople the colony was almost cut off from the mother city, which handed it over to the enterprising bank of St. George; but it could not be saved and fell in 1475 to the Turks, who sometimes called it Kuchuk-Stambul (Little Stambul) or Constantinople, or Krym-Stambul (Stambul of Crimea). In '771 it was taken by the Russians, and in 1783 annexed by them, whereupon the greater part of its population deserted it.
See E. von Stern, Theodosia (German and Russian, 1906) ; E. H. Minns, Scythians and Greeks (1909) ; M. Rostovtzeff, Iranians and Greeks in South Russia (1922) ; for the history of Kaffa, see Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant au moyen age (1886).