Balaklava is a former city on the Crimean peninsula and part of the city of Sevastopol which carried a special administrative status in Ukraine, it is now part of Russia. It was a city in its own right until 1957 when it was formally incorporated into the municipal borders of Sevastopol by the Soviet government. It also is an administrative center of Bakalava Raion that is used be part of the Crimean Oblast before it was transferred under the Sevastopol Municipality.

Balaklava has changed hands many times during its history. A settlement at its present location was originally founded under the name of Symbolon (Συμβολον) by the Ancient Greeks, for whom it was an important commercial city.

During the Middle Ages, it was controlled by the Byzantine Empire and then by the Genoese who conquered it in 1365. The Byzantines called the town Yamboli and the Genoese named it Cembalo. The Genoese built a large trading empire in both the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, buying slaves in Eastern Europe and shipping them to Egypt via the Crimea, a lucrative market hotly contested with by the Venetians. It is believed that it was on board a Genoese trading cog sailing back to Genoa from Balaklava (or Kaffa, according to some chronicles) that the Black Death first arrived in Europe in the mid-14th c. The ruins of a Genoese fortress positioned high on a clifftop above the entrance to the Balaklava Inlet are a popular tourist attraction and have recently become the stage for a Medieval festival. The fortress is a subject of Mickiewicz's penultimate poem in his 1825 cycle of Crimean Sonnets.

In 1475 the growing Ottoman Empire took possession of Balaklava renaming it Balıklava ("a fish nest" in Turkish), which was slowly corrupted over time to its present form. During the Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774, the Russian troops conquered the Crimea in 1771. Thirteen years later, Crimea was definitively annexed by the Russian Empire. After that, Crimean Tatar and Turkish population was replaced by Greeks from the Archipelago. In 1787 the city was visited by Catherine the Great.

The town became famous for the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War thanks to the suicidal Charge of the Light Brigade, a British cavalry charge due to a misunderstanding sent up a valley strongly held on three sides by the Russians, in which about 250 men were killed or wounded, and over 400 horses lost, effectively reducing the size of the mounted brigade by two thirds and destroying some of the finest light cavalry in the world to no military purpose.

The British poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson immortalized this battle in verse. The balaclava, a tight knitted garment covering the whole head and neck with holes for the eyes and mouth, also takes its name from this settlement, where soldiers first wore them.

During the Second World War, Balaklava was the southernmost point in the Soviet-German lines. In 1954 Balaklava, together with the whole Crimea, passed from Russia to Ukraine. It became part of the independent state of Ukraine in 1991. Today there are over 50 monuments in the town dedicated to the remembrance of military valour in past wars, including the Great Patriotic War, the Crimean War and the Russian Civil War.

Cape Aya is a rocky promontory jutting out into the Black Sea southeast of Balaklava. This 13-km-long offspur of the Crimean Mountains separates Laspi Bay (to the east) from Balaklava Bay (to the west). The highest point is Blue Cliff, or Kokiya-Kiya (559 metres). A storm off Cape Aya is the subject of one of Aivazovsky's paintings. A Soviet guided missile system was located on Cape Aya. The headland is full of grottoes.

In the naval museum you can breach the huge nuclear-blast-proof doors and wander some of the 600m of the former repair docks, mess rooms and thankfully now empty arsenal on a one-hour-long guided tour. When MTV launched in Ukraine in 2007, this is where it held the party.

The historic old courthouse at Balaklava, built in 1913 and converted into an art gallery and separate gift shop, is managed entirely by community volunteers. Varied exhibitions lasting six weeks range from paintings, sculptures, quilting and craftwork. Exhibition space is free to artists. A popular attraction is the BLACO Art Price held in July/August each year with associated prizes up to the value of AUD3000.00. The shop is stocked with South Australian hand-made gifts. You can get there by direct flight to Simferopol or through Kiev or Odessa.