Rumeíka (Ρωμαίικα) or Mariupolitan Greek is a dialect spoken in about 17 villages around the northern coast of the Sea of Azov in southern Ukraine. Mariupolitan Greek is closely related to Pontic Greek and evolved from the dialect of Greek spoken in the Crimea, which was a part of the Pontic Empire of Trebizond until that state fell to the Ottomans in 1461. Thereafter the Crimean region remained independent and continued to exist as the Greek Principality of Theodoro. The Greek speaking residents of the Crimea were invited by Catherine the Great to resettle in, and found, the new city of Mariupol after the Russo-Turkish War (1768–74) to escape the then Muslim dominated Crimea. Its main features present certain similarities with both the Pontic (e.g. the lack of synizesis of "-ía, éa"), and the northern varieties of the core dialects (e.g. the northern vocalism).