Tmutarakan or
Tmutorakan was the name of a Mediaeval Kievan Rus' principality and trading town that controlled the
Cimmerian Bosporus, the passage from the
Black Sea to the
Sea of Azov. Its site was the ancient Greek colony of
Hermonassa , situated on the
Taman peninsula, in the present-day
Krasnodar Krai of
Russia, roughly opposite
Kerch. The
Khazar fortress of
Tamantarkhan (from which the
Byzantine name for the city,
Tamatarcha, is derived) was built on the site in the 7th century and became known as Tmutarakan (, ) when it came under
Kievan Rus control in the 10th and 11th centuries.