Balaklava has changed possession several times during its history. A settlement at its present location was founded under the name of Symbolon () by the
Ancient Greeks, for whom it was an important
commercial city. During the
Middle Ages, it was controlled by the
Byzantine Empire and then by the
Genoese who conquered it in 1365. The Byzantines called the town Yamboli and the Genoese named it Cembalo. The Genoese built a large trading empire in both the
Mediterranean and the
Black Sea, buying
slaves in
Eastern Europe and shipping them to
Egypt via the Crimea, a lucrative market hotly contested with by the
Venetians. The ruins of a
Genoese fortress positioned high on a clifftop above the entrance to the Balaklava Inlet are a popular
tourist attraction and have recently become the stage for a medieval festival. The fortress is a subject of
Mickiewicz's penultimate poem in his 1826 cycle of
Crimean Sonnets. In 1475, Cembalo City was conquered by the Turks and was subsequently renamed
Balyk-Yuva (Fish's Nest) which then became Balaklava. During the
Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774, the Russian troops invaded Crimea in 1771. Thirteen years later, Crimea was definitively annexed by the
Russian Empire. After that, the Crimean Tatar and Turkish population was forcefully replaced by Greek Orthodox people from the
Archipelago. File:Balaclava Panorama.jpg|left|thumb|View of harbor in Balaklava in 1889, Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, DC The town became famous for the
Battle of Balaclava during the
Crimean War thanks to the suicidal
Charge of the Light Brigade, a British
cavalry charge due to a misunderstanding sent up a valley strongly held on three sides by the Russians, in which about 250 men were killed or wounded, and over 400 horses lost, effectively reducing the size of the mounted brigade by two thirds and destroying some of the finest light cavalry in the world to no military purpose.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson immortalized the battle in verse in his
Charge of the Light Brigade. The
balaclava, a tight knitted garment covering the whole head and neck with holes for the eyes and mouth, also takes its name from this settlement, where soldiers first wore them. Also numerous towns founded in English-speaking countries in later parts of the 19th century were named "Balaklava" (see
Balaklava (disambiguation)). In 1954, Balaklava, together with the whole of
Crimea,
was transferred from the Russian FSFR to the Ukrainian SSR. In 1957 it was formally incorporated into the municipal borders of Sevastopol by the
Soviet government and lost city status. Upon the break-up of the USSR, the town, along with the entire Crimean peninsula, became constituent parts of the modern state of Ukraine. There are dozens of monuments in the town dedicated to the remembrance of military valor in past wars, including the
Great Patriotic War, the
Crimean War and the
Russian Civil War. Since the
internationally unrecognized 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, Balaklava, along with rest of Crimea, is administered by Russia. In 2019 Russian authorities granted Balaklava status of a city within Sevastopol. ==Underground submarine base==