Black Sea Forum for Partnership and Dialogue Black Sea Forum for Partnership and Dialogue The inaugural session of the Black Sea Forum for Partnership and Dialogue (BSF) was held on June 4–6, 2006 in Bucharest. The Forum is a Romanian initiative, initially meant to hold annual presidential-level summits (the venues rotating among participant countries) and thematic or sectoral-cooperation meeting during those annual intervals. The Forum is not meant to create new regional institutions, but rather to turn into a regular consultative process among countries of the extended Black Sea region (defined as including the South Caucasus to the Caspian Sea) and between this group of countries and
Black Sea–Caspian Steppe Azov broke off and formed the Lesser Nogai Horde, a name that gradually went out of use. Around 1630 the Kalmyks migrated west from Dzungaria and occupied the land around the north end of the Caspian Sea, driving the Nogais south and west. In 1771 a significant part of them returned to Dzungaria and the Nogais returned east and north. A few Russians were on the lower Terek by about 1520 and Cossacks were somewhere on the Don by 1550. In 1556 Russia took Astrakhan and interacted with Kabardia for a few years before losing interest in the area south