Kaffa

In the late 13th century, traders from Genoa arrived and purchased the town from the ruling Golden Horde. They established a flourishing trading settlement called Caffa (or Kaffa), which virtually monopolised trade in the Black Sea area and served as the chief port and administrative centre for the Genoese settlements around the Sea. It came to house one of Europe's biggest slave markets.

Under Genoa since 1266, it was governed by a Genoese consul, who since 1316 was in charge of all of all Genoese Black Sea colonies

It is believed that the devastating pandemic the Black Death entered Europe for the first time via Caffa in 1347. It is believed that the bubonic plague first entered Europe with the movements of the Golden Horde. After a protracted siege during which the Mongol army under Janibeg was reportedly withering from the disease, they catapulted the infected corpses over the city walls, infecting the inhabitants. The Genoese traders fled transferring the plague via their ships into the south of Europe, from whence it rapidly spread.

Because the Genoese started intervening in the internal affairs of the Crimean Khanate, a turkish vassal, the Ottoman commander Gedik Ahmet Pasha seized the city in 1475. Renamed Kefe, it became one of the most important Turkish ports on the Black Sea.