Te 9th issue of the miscellany “Te Black Sea Region in the Middle Ages”, prepared within the framework of the scientifc project “Black Sea and the Mediterranean World in the System of Relations of Russia, East and West in the Middle Ages” supported by the Russian Science Foundation (№ 14–28–00213), is dedicated to the memory of a prominent Russian scholar and active participant of the project Andrey Leonidovich Ponomarev, who died prematurely on October 2, 2014.
According to the tradition of our scientifc school the main emphasis in this collective work is placed on the study of diferent types of newly discovered and unexplored sources: fnancial records, books of notarial acts, artefacts, coins and other monuments of the past. Te authors’ general scope pertains to the history of medieval Crimea and Northern Black Sea Coast, the Italian factories, the Golden Horde and the Crimean Khanate, the Pontus and Asia Minor. A lot of attention is dedicated to the history of science, archival materials, and the works of expeditions and of individual scientists engaged in the historical research of this region – all parts of which were closely connected through the course of history. Te fundamental tasks of the research team were to verify information and to create an accurate historical reconstruction of the complex (and ofen confusing) events and turns in the destiny of the countries, cities and nations on the shores of “the Great Sea”, as it was then called. Te team is composed of members of the Centre for the History of Byzantium and the Black Sea Region at Lomonosov Moscow State University, of Crimean historians and archaeologists, and of archivists.
S.P. Karpov