EOSTOV— AZOV— TAGANEOa. 439 



head of the Don delta, arc -Niihliichcvan and Rostov, which, with the long 

 Novo-Cherkask suburb, really form but one city. The former, so named by its 

 Armenian founders after the Transcaucasian Nakhichevun, is separated from 

 Rostov oul}^ by the old fortress of St. Dimitriy, a former bulwark against both 

 Turk and Cossack. It covers a large area, occupied chiefly by gardens, and the 

 inhabitants are still mostly Armenians, whereas Rostov is inhabited by a great 

 variety of races — Great and Little Russians, Greeks, Armenians, Tatars, Jews, 

 Italiaus, French, and Germans. It has a large export trade in corn, flax, wool, 

 tallow, and other agricultural produce, valued (1877) at £5,000,000. But its 

 port is not accessible at all times to the shipping, which is engaged chiefly in 

 the coast trade, and amounts to about 4,000 vessels yearly, with a gross burden 

 of 250,000 tons. Its delta fisheries have also been greatly diminished during 

 the present century, but Rostov is still the head-quarters of the mowers, reapers, 

 grape gatherers, and others, who yearly assemble here in search of employment 

 in the surrounding districts, and even in the valleys of the Caucasus. In 

 summer the population is consequently often swollen from about 50,000 to 

 upwards of 100,000, the harvest-men crowding in vile taverns or sleeping in the 

 streets, where they are exposed to the fearful ravages of typhoid fever. 



The famous old city of Azov, on the southern branch of the Don, about 

 9 miles from its mouth, has lost its former proud position, no longer ranking 

 even as a town, although the population is still greater than that of many 

 Russian towns. The ruins of the fortress, which at one time possessed such 

 strategic importance, still occupy a central position, but nothing remains of the 

 old Venetian Tana, which had succeeded to the Greek Tanais, and which was 

 formerly the emporium of the Persian and Indian trade, and the great serf 

 market of Russia. Owing to the bar and continual silting of its mouths, the 

 chief outport of the Don basin lies now beyond its delta at Taganrog, and even 

 this port, where 200 vessels could anchor in the time of Peter the Great, is now 

 accessible only to small craft. Ships drawing 18 or 20 feet lie about 9 miles off 

 the quays, and still larger vessels cannot come within 24 miles of the place. 

 In the thirteenth century the Pisans had established a trading station on the 

 promontory, since named Tagan-rog, or " Cape Tagan." But on this headland, 

 which stands 200 feet above the sea, nothing remained except a tower when 

 Peter the Great, in 1698, raised a fortress on the spot, which he was afterwards 

 obliged to abandon, although it had cost him vast labour and the lives of many 

 thousand workmen brought from the interior. The town was not really founded 

 till 1769, but since then it has greatly prospered, and is now the chief city of 

 South-east Russia, and, thanks to its railways, the nearest outport for the produce 

 of the Kharkov and Don "black lands." In its streets are met numerous Greek, 

 Italian, German, and other foreign traders, and it htis also become an important 

 manufacturing centre. Like Odessa and Kertch, it is administered as a grado- 

 nacJiahtvo, or "captainship," independently of the Yekaterinoslav government, 

 its shipping amounted, in 1874, to 5,738 vessels of 1,239,800 tons, its imports to 

 £830,000, and its exports to nearly £4,200,000. 



