Genoese merchants open Black Sea trade routes

1297

Genoese trading colonies at Caffa in Crimea and Tana at the mouth of the Don River thrived under Mongol protection, funneling Chinese silk, Indian spices, and Caspian sturgeon westward. The Pax Mongolica had turned the Black Sea into an Italian lake connected by caravan to the Pacific. These same trade routes would later carry the Black Death westward from Central Asia to Europe with devastating consequences.