The forgotten kingdom of Trebizond

Tucked away at the far eastern end of the Black Sea coast, Trabzon (ancient Trebizond) is a port city with an illustrious history. For it was here that the last of the Byzantines held out in a remote mini-kingdom even after the great Ottoman leader Mehmet the Conqueror had captured Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453. The court of the Komneni monarchs was one of those lucky ones that managed to benefit from other people's misfortunes. As the Mongols rampaged through Central Anatolia in the 13th century, the lucrative Silk Road to China was forced to migrate northwards, and Trabzon was in the ideal position to benefit. The result was a Golden Age in art and culture. Not that modern Trabzon tends to dwell much on the past. This is a city that was close enough to the old Soviet borders to have been greatly affected by the changes of the 1990s. The result is a city with a unique atmosphere, the fingerprints of Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan stamped all over it.