visiting it till about first century BC. They encountered the Aehi, Zygii and other people who were apparently keen for the luxury goods brought by Greeks and exchanged them for slaves. Slaves were a major commodity of the time, and thus the Caucasian coast became a slave trade center. An ethnic group of a few thousand Greeks still live around Krasnaya Polyana. Between 2,000 and 1,800 BC, the coastal area around Sochi had one cultural entity. During this period, numerous stone monuments (dolmens) were built around Sochi, and at least fifty remain to the present day. It is still unclear how these tombs weighing tens of tons were built with such an accuracy (some stones match each other within millimetres), and what exactly their purpose was. Numerous bronze tools and trade objects, dated to 800–700 BC, were found near Sochi indicating active exchange with the nearby areas. In the Middle Ages, the region was mostly influenced by the Byzantine Empire and Christianity, as evidenced by the style of nine churches and eighteen fortresses dating from those times. The northern wall of an eleventh-century Byzantinesque basilica still stands in Loo Microdistrict. Middle Ages During the early 11th century Abkhazian King from Bagrationi dynasty Bagrat II managed to unify Georgian Kingdoms and Sochi remained under control of Bagrat II and his descendants. Sochi was part of Kingdom of Georgia from 10th to 14th century until dissolution of united Georgia under George VIII. Sochi and its inhabitants were later part of the region knows as Zichia after the dissolution of the Georgian kingdom. The native inhabitants of the region, who were the ubykhs, lived a free society ruled by princely clans until the end of the Caucasian war. A detailed description of the coastal area around Sochi originated from the naval expedition of the Frenchman Frédéric Dubois de Montpéreux in 1833. He also compiled former descriptions of the region. Montpéreux however could not land at the site of Sochi as his ship was met with a strong gun fire from the coast. He mentions that in the Middle Ages, a Genoan city of Mamai stood on river Psakhe (modern Mamaika in Sochi), and some 60 north from it a German fortress and a monastery. Russo-Circassian War and the Circassian Genocide Ottoman Turkey had much interest in the Black Sea coast as an outpost for its northern expansions, however, it had lost this area