Bilohirsk

Bilohirsk is a city and the administrative centre of Bilohirsk Raion in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, a territory that most countries recognise as part of Ukraine but that is occupied by Russia. Until 1944 it was called Karasubazar; the Ukrainian and Russian names mean white mountains, while the Crimean Tatar name Qarasuvbazar means bazaar on the Karasu river. It lies about 25 miles east-northeast of Simferopol on the Biiuk Karasu river, on low ground ringed by hills that shelter it from the north wind. Karasubazar became a significant city in the 15th century and by the end of the 16th century had passed every other city on the peninsula in population, with a large slave market. In 1736 Khan Fetih Giray moved the Crimean capital there, and in 1772 the Karasubazar Treaty, signed in the city, defined the Crimean Khanate as an independent state. It has been a district centre since 1921 and a city since 1926, and it was renamed Belogorsk after the deportation of the Crimean Tatars.