a fortified town and seaport of Russia, on the eastern coast of the Crimea, stands on a small peninsula at the mouth of the strait of Yeni Kaleh, about 10 miles S.W. of the town of that name. From its commanding position between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof, it is, both in a commercial and military point of view, a place of considerable importance. The streets are regular, the houses well-built of stone, the harbour good, strongly fortified, and generally filled with shipping. All vessels entering the Sea of Azof do quarantine here for four days. Pop. about 10,000. The present town is built close to the site of the ancient Panticapeum, the last residence of Mithridates the Great. In the neighbourhood are numerous tumuli, some of them of enormous size, in which there have been discovered large quantities of Grecian antiquities of the most exquisite workmanship. The best part of these is at St Petersburg, but a very valuable collection, preserved in the museum at Kertch, was barbarously destroyed or pillaged by a mob of drunken soldiers, after the capture of the place by the allied forces of Britain and France in May 1855. Subsequent excavations by Dr D. McPherson brought to light what seems to have been the burying-place of the Scythian kings, as described by Herodotus. The hill near the town is still called after Mithridates, who is said to have reviewed his troops from its summit, before his last expedition against the Romans. The peninsula of Kertch was colonized by Milesians about 500 B.C. About 500 A.D. it became part of the Roman empire, and in A.D. 375 it fell into the hands of the Huns. In 1280 it was occupied by the Genoese, who were driven out by the Turks in 1478. It was seized by the Russians in 1771, and formally ceded to them in 1774.