Rostov-on-Don
City in Rostov Oblast, Russia
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Key Takeaways
- Rostov-on-Don , or simply Rostov , is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia.
- The southwestern suburbs of the city lie above the Don river delta.
- History Early history From ancient times, the area around the mouth of the Don River has held cultural and commercial importance.
- It was the site of Tanais, an ancient Greek colony, Fort Tana under the Genoese, and Fort Azak in the time of the Ottoman Empire.
- It was co-located with a fortress named for Dimitry of Rostov, a metropolitan bishop of the old northern town of Rostov the Great.
Rostov-on-Don, or simply Rostov, is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the East European Plain on the Don River, 32 kilometers (20 mi) from the Sea of Azov, directly north of the North Caucasus. The southwestern suburbs of the city lie above the Don river delta. Rostov-on-Don has a population of over one million people and is an important cultural, educational, economic and logistical centre of Southern Russia.
History
Early history
From ancient times, the area around the mouth of the Don River has held cultural and commercial importance. Ancient indigenous inhabitants included the Scythian and Sarmatian tribes. It was the site of Tanais, an ancient Greek colony, Fort Tana under the Genoese, and Fort Azak in the time of the Ottoman Empire.
In 1749, a custom house was established on the Temernik River, a tributary of the Don, by edict of the Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, in order to control trade with Turkey. It was co-located with a fortress named for Dimitry of Rostov, a metropolitan bishop of the old northern town of Rostov the Great. Azov, a town closer to the Sea of Azov on the Don, gradually lost its commercial importance in the region to the new fortress, but it remains an important historical center.
In 1756, the "Russian commercial and trading company of Constantinople" was founded at the "merchants' settlement" (Kupecheskaya Sloboda) on the high bank of the Don. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, with the incorporation of previously Ottoman Black Sea territories into the Russian Empire, the settlement lost much of its militarily strategic importance as a frontier post.
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