Author(s): Necmettin AYGÜN
For the Ottomans, the Black Sea was a special area that formed the main transport link connecting the Balkans to the Caucasus, Anatolia to Desht-i Qipchaq, as well as being a great food supply area that was tried to be kept close to foreigners. In addition, during the war periods, the transportation of the grain, armory as well as military transport activities from non-war districts to war districts were making the Black Sea for the Ottoman Empire different from the political and military point of view. In the economic history of the Black Sea, the historical geographies which surround the sea such as the Crimea and Azov occupied a special place in the economic relations with the southern Anatolian harbors. Apart from the dimension of social and cultural relations, grain and slave shipping from north to south; textile products from the south to the north continued for centuries in the economic relations between the south and the north side of the Black Sea. It can be said that the economic mind that directed all these relations originated from the south coast. This is related to the fact that the settlements on the south coast of the Black Sea were densely populated, and that the economic tradition in Anatolia and the surrounding geographies were much wider. In the Ottoman era, there were entrepreneurs who went back and forth between the two coasts. Although commercial activities were frequently influenced by regional and international military and political developments, entrepreneurs were able to continue their activities by adapting to new conditions. As a result, the Black Sea as today has always maintained the status of being a field that is of value in every sense as well as economic in the Ottoman period.
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