And the The Welcome to Russian History Retold.

Episode 139, The Crimean War Part 1. A Short History of Crimea.

Now first off, I'd like to apologize to those of you who are current with the podcast and have missed it for the past few weeks. I had the script written about a week

ago, edited, ready to go, and then I came down with a small little lung infection which

also affected my voice. So I decided that instead of sounding like Louis Armstrong,

I was going to hold off for a week and let my voice recover and it's pretty good right now.

And on top of it, my wife had hip replacement surgery at the young age of

47 and that kind of made things go a little crazy here in the Shouse

household so I apologize again and I'm ready the of the Russian peasant, one of, if not the saddest segment of Russian history.

Today I want to begin to discuss the Crimean War of the 19th century, but within a context that can help shed light on current events between

Russia and Ukraine.

We can't discuss the war without giving you a thorough review of the history of the Crimean Peninsula.

First, let's talk about where the Crimea is located.

It's on the northern coast of the Black Sea and on the western coast of the Sea of Azov, bordering

the Herson oblast from the north.

It is in the southern part of Ukraine, opposite from Turkey, and its eastern tip borders Russia.

Crimea was known to the ancient world as Taurus and later Taurica by the ancient

Greeks. Herroditus claimed that the land was plowed by a huge ox known as the

Taurus.

The area was also known as the Krimini or Cliffs. The Greeks were the first of the foreigners

to settle in the coastal area of Torica with Scythians further inland. They became a part of the Roman Empire from around

100 B.C. through the 3rd century AD. After the Romans left, it looked like Crimea became a crossroad for a lot of different invading peoples,

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