 A small enclave of the Crimean Karaites, a people of Jewish descent practising Karaism who later adopted a Turkic language, formed in the 13th century.It existed among the Muslim Crimean Tatars, primarily in the mountainous Çufut Qale area.In 1553–1554 Cossack Hetman Dmytro Vyshnevetsky gathered together groups of Cossacks and constructed a fort designed to obstruct Tatar raids into Ukraine.