Goths - ancient Germanic tribes, one name of which made the mighty armies of the Romans and Byzantines tremble. In the early Middle Ages, the Goths owned huge territories from modern southern Russia and Ukraine all the way to Italy and Spain. And if the European powers were ready to fall under the blows of the Byzantines and Arabs in the? І -? ІІІ centuries AD, then in the Crimea the Goths existed as a separate people much longer. Having penetrated into Taurica in the III century AD, they struck at the late Scythian cities and settled in the "Dori region," located in the south-western part of the peninsula. The Gothic barbarians and their Alan allies formed the basis of the population of medieval Crimean Gothia, which included the territory of the principality of Theodoro (Mangup) and the coastal lands ruled by the Genoese from Balaclava to Sudak.