The book is dedicated to the history of the city of Tanais" that existed in antiquity and played a significant role in the economic and cultural life of a number of tribes in Eastern Europe. Based on extensive new archaeological data, as well as an analysis of reports by Greek and Roman geographers, historians and writers, the author restores the economic, political and cultural life of the city in the III-I centuries. BC The book has a significant place in the study of the relations of Tanais with the Bosporan kingdom and with the surrounding Sarmatian, Scythian and Meot tribes. Issues of ethnic, economic and cultural history of Podonya of the second half of the 1st millennium BC. e.