English: Balaklava, section of the city of Sevastopol, on the Crimean peninsula. Fishing and limestone quarrying are carried on. In ancient times it was an important Greek commercial city. In the Middle Ages it belonged to the Genoese until it was taken (1475) by the Turks, who gave it its present name. Balaklava was the capital of the former Balaklava district in the Crimean region until 1957, when it was incorporated into Sevastopol. There are ruins of a Genoese fortress (14th-15th cent.) in Balaklava.