Staryi Krym (Ukrainian: Старий Крим; Crimean Tatar: Eski Qırım; Russian: Старый Крым; Armenian: Հիմ Ղրիմ lit.

[citation needed] Before the Mongol period, mention is made in Greek hagiography of the residence of the Khazar governor of the eastern part of the peninsula, as a fortress named Phoulla or Phoullai (Φοῦλλαι, although other sources identify this place with Chufut-Kale)[3] along with Sugdaia (Sudak); it is likely that the site of this fortress corresponds to the site of Solghat.

The Strait of Kerch was known as Bosporus Cimmerius in the Roman era (as reported by Ptolemy, Polybius, and Strabo), after the city of Cimmerium which stood nearby.

[11] In 1812, shortly before Napoleon's invasion, the Countess Jeanne de Gachet, wife of a French emigrant and victim of the revolution, had been living in Saint Petersburg for some time.

Tsar Alexander I then wanted to meet her in person and, once met at her palace, she confessed to him that she was actually the Countess Jeanne de La Motte-Valois, the sad heroine of the necklace affair.

In 1824, by order of the emperor who did not grant the extradition of the state criminal requested by the French ambassador, she was exiled to the Crimea with a group of pietists, settling permanently in a modest peasant house in the small village of Staryi Krym.

Two years later, in the spring, sensing that she was close to death, after having destroyed all the papers and burned the compromising documents in her possession, she asked the Armenians of the church that her body be buried with the clothes she was wearing at the moment, without being stripped.

[12][13] Staryi Krym was the city where the famous Russian writer Alexander Grin lived and died, and now has a museum dedicated to him.

The share of ethnic Ukrainians living in the town barely exceeds 10%, which is the lowest percentage recorded in any major settlement on the whole Crimean peninsula.

The exact ethnic composition was as follows:[15] As Phulli, it was one of the bishoprics in the Roman client-state, later province, of the Bosporan Kingdom, where no imperial metropolis was established, and it faded under heathen rule.