See here:
https://www.amazon.com/Island-Crimea-Vassily-Aksyonov/dp/0394524314
I read the novel when it came out in 1983. Unfortunately, the author cheats, by the standards of this forum, by making Crimea an actual island. And even then the distance from the mainland would be just too small to make the premise plausible. On top of that, its just not a very good book.
Anyway, the actual Crimea is not even that much of a peninsula. During the Crimean War, the British in fact planned to land at the neck of the peninsula to keep the Russians from reinforcing their forces there, an idea that looks good on the map, only to find out that the waters at the neck were too shallow for even nineteenth century ships to function. During the Middle Ages, you did have whichever nomadic tribe who had dominated the Ukrainian steppe and just been kicked off take refuge in Crimea for a time, but that was the Middle Ages and that doesn't work against anyone who can build boats.
https://www.amazon.com/Island-Crimea-Vassily-Aksyonov/dp/0394524314
I read the novel when it came out in 1983. Unfortunately, the author cheats, by the standards of this forum, by making Crimea an actual island. And even then the distance from the mainland would be just too small to make the premise plausible. On top of that, its just not a very good book.
Anyway, the actual Crimea is not even that much of a peninsula. During the Crimean War, the British in fact planned to land at the neck of the peninsula to keep the Russians from reinforcing their forces there, an idea that looks good on the map, only to find out that the waters at the neck were too shallow for even nineteenth century ships to function. During the Middle Ages, you did have whichever nomadic tribe who had dominated the Ukrainian steppe and just been kicked off take refuge in Crimea for a time, but that was the Middle Ages and that doesn't work against anyone who can build boats.