A peninsula in the Black Sea with a multiethnic population. Since 1992, Crimea has been an autonomous republic within independent Ukraine. Russia annexed the region from the Ottoman Empire in 1783. From 1921 it was an autonomous republic of the Russian SSR; it was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954. Jews have lived there since at least the first century CE, consisting of Karaite, Krymchak, and Ashkenazic elements. The Jewish population remained below 10,000 until the 1880s.
