Kerasund - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

KERASUND (anc. Choerades, Pharnacia, Cerasus), a town on the N. coast of Asia Minor, in the Trebizond vilayet, and the port - an exposed roadstead - of Kara-Hissar Sharki, with which it is connected by a carriage road. Pop. just under 10,000, Moslems being in a slight minority. The town is situated on a rocky promontory, crowned by a Byzantine fortress, and has a growing trade. It exports filberts (for which product it is the centre), walnuts, hides and timber. Cerasus was the place from which the wild cherry was introduced into Italy by Lucullus and so to Europe (hence Fr. cerise, " cherry").