Akkerman

Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi ( uk, Бі́лгород-Дністро́вський, Bílhorod-Dnistróvskyy, ; ro, Cetatea Albă), historically known as Akkerman ( tr, Akkerman) or under different names, is a city, municipality and port situated on the right bank of the Dniester Liman (on the Dniester estuary leading to the Black Sea) in Odesa Oblast of southwestern Ukraine, in the historical region of Budjak. It also serves as the administrative center of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi Raion, one of seven districts of Odesa Oblast, and is the only locality which constitutes Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. It is a location of a big freight seaport. Population:

Nomenclature

The city of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi is also referred to by alternative transliterations from Ukrainian as Bilhorod-Dnistrovsky or Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyy. ''Dnistrovsky'' was added to differentiate it from Bilhorod that was part of the Sloboda Ukraine and carried a similar name.

;Previous names
* Ophiusa (Οφιούσα), Phoenician colony (meaning "city of snakes" in Greek)
* Tyras (Τύρας), Ancient Greek colony (also the Greek name for the River Dniester)
* Asprokastron (, "White Castle"), Greek name in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Name attested from 944 to 1484 AD.
* Maurokastron (Μαυρόκαστρον, "Black Castle"), Greek name of a Roman/Byzantine fort in Late Antiquity on a site directly opposite Asprokastron, but usually taken together.
* Album Castrum ("White Castle"), Latin name
* Cetatea Albă ("White Citadel"), Romanian name
* Moncastro, Italian corruption of Maurokastron used by Genoese traders and during Genoese rule (14th–15th centuries)
* Turla, Turkic
* Akkerman, Ottoman Turkish ("White Castle") and Russian name until 1944
* Aqkermen, Crimean Tatar name
* Belgorod-Dnestrovskiy, Russian (Бе́лгород-Днестро́вский, "White city on the Dniester")

The town became part of the Principality of Moldavia in 1359. The fortress was enlarged and rebuilt in 1407 under Alexander the Good and in 1440 under Stephen II of Moldavia. It fell to Ottoman conquest on August 5, 1487. The city was known in Romanian as Cetatea Albă with other languages using the Turkish name, Akkerman, or variations of the Turkish name. Since 1944 the city has been known as "Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi" (Білгород-Дністровський), while on the Soviet geography maps often translated into its Russian equivalent of "Belgorod-Dnestrovskiy" (Бе́лгород-Днестро́вский), literally "white city on the Dniester".

The city is known by translations of "white city" or "castle" in a number of languages including Белгород Днестровски (''Belgorod-Dnestrovski'') in Bulgarian, ''Akerman'' (Акерман) in Gagauz, ''Białogród nad Dniestrem'' in Polish, ''Walachisch Weißenburg'' in Transylvanian German, ''Dnyeszterfehérvár'' in Hungarian and (''Ir Lavan'') in Hebrew.

In Western European languages, including English, the city has typically been known by the official name of the time or a transliteration derived from it.

The city's former name ''Akkerman'' is still extensively used as a nickname in informal speech and in local media.

History

In the 6th century BC, Milesian colonists founded a settlement named Tyras on the future location of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, which later came under Roman and Byzantine rule. In Late Antiquity, the Byzantines built a fortress and named it ''Asprokastron'' ("White Castle" - a meaning kept in several languages), but it passed out of their control in the 7th-15th centuries under control of Bulgaria, the cities called Belgorod(white city), as it was the border of the Bulgarian empire. The '' Voskresensk Chronicle'' lists Bilhorod "at the mouth of the Dniester, above the sea" among the towns controlled by Kyivan Rus'.

In the 13th century the site was controlled by the Cumans, and became a center of Genoese commercial activity from on. Briefly held by the Second Bulgarian Empire in the early 14th century, by the middle of the century it was a Genoese colony. Sfântul Ioan cel Nou (''Saint John the New''), the patron saint of Moldavia, was martyred in the city in 1330 during a Tatar