 It provided a major impetus for the rapid expansion of Greek education throughout the Pontus region, on the south coast of the Black Sea.The building still retains its function as a prestigious highschool, and it has been considered as the most impressive Pontic Greek monument in Trabzon.In the Middle Ages, Trabzon was the capital of the Empire of Trebizond, one of the successor states to the Byzantine Empire, and the last Greek state to be annexed by the Ottomans, in 1461.