Editing Batumi (section)

===Ottoman rule===
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In the 15th century in the reign of the prince [[Kakhaber II Gurieli|Kakhaber Gurieli]], the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottomans]] conquered the town and its district but did not hold them. They returned to it in force a century later and inflicted a decisive defeat on the Georgian armies at [[Battle of Sokhoista|Sokhoista]]. Batumi was recaptured by the Georgians several times, first in 1546 by prince [[Rostom Gurieli]], who lost it soon afterwards, and again in 1609 by [[Mamia II Gurieli]]. In 1703, Batumi again became part of the Ottoman Empire. In the one-and-a-half century of Ottoman rule it grew into a provincial port serving the Empire's hinterlands on the eastern fringes of the [[Black Sea]]. After the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] conquest, [[Islamization]] of the hitherto Christian region began but this was terminated and to a great degree reversed, after the area was annexed to Russian Imperial Georgia after the [[Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878)|Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78]].