In the Early Middle Ages in Eastern Europe, next to Kievan Rus, there was such a powerful state as the Khazar Khaganate. The Khazars themselves were originally a Caucasian tribe that lived on the territory of modern Dagestan. Then this people migrated and settled along the shores of the Caspian Sea and in the lower reaches of the Terek. At that time, the level of the Caspian Sea was 8 meters lower than today. Therefore, the Volga delta was extremely large and reached the Buzachi Peninsula. All these lands abounded in fish and grapes brought by the Khazars from the Caucasus.

The enemies of the Caspian Khazars were Burtases and Bulgars. In the VI century, both of them were subjugated by the Turks. Then the winners began dynastic strife. At the same time, some Turks leaned on the Bulgars, others on the Khazars. The Khazars and their allies won. The Bulgars fled to the Middle Volga, where they founded the city of Great Bulgar. Another part of the Bulgar horde, headed by Khan Asparukh, went to the Danube. There she mixed with the local tribes of the Slavs and laid the foundation for the Bulgarian people.

In the 7th-8th centuries, the Khazars were attacked by the Arabs. The Turks helped them in this war. These people were very brave and warlike. It was the Turks who were the first to master such a rider's weapon as a saber. In the middle of the 7th century, the Turkic dynasty was defeated by the Chinese Tang dynasty (618-907). The representative of the broken dynasty fled to the Khazars. They accepted him and made him their khan, as the khan-Turk suited them.

He wandered with his headquarters in the lower reaches of the Volga, migrated to the Terek in the spring, spent the summer between the Terek, the Kuban and the Don, and returned to the Volga with the advent of winter. Such a khan did not need to be maintained. He did not demand taxes, but was fed by his own nomadic economy. It was the Turkic khans, having become the head of the Khazars, who organized their defense against the Arabs. They advanced from Azerbaijan through Derbent to the Terek and the Volga. But their invasion was repulsed. After that, a joint Turkic-Khazar state was formed in the Caspian Sea.

Khazars and the Jewish people

The history of various peoples is notable for the migration of the population. At the same time, migrations are very different. It happens that people move to a foreign territory and completely adapt to it. This is what happened to the Slavs. From the upper reaches of the Vistula, they spread to the Baltic, the Adriatic and the Aegean Seas. At the same time, they managed to settle everywhere. But the Vandals, Sueves and Goths mixed with the local population and disappeared.

At all times, there was another migration: a group of merchants or conquerors created their own small colony on foreign territory. These include the British, who colonized India and the French, who created African colonies. The first did not become Indians, and the second did not become Negroes. After working and serving away from home, they returned. For the Khazars, the Jewish people, or rather, its Persian and Byzantine branches, became colonizers.

The Persians and Byzantines forced the Jews out of their lands, and they found shelter north of the Terek. Trade routes passed here, and the Khazars who lived in these places did not show aggression towards the refugees. Those, using their literacy, began to master and develop occupations that were unusual for the local population. Trade, diplomacy, education were in their hands.

At the beginning of the 9th century, the Jewish population of the Khazar Khaganate added political power to its intellectual and economic power. The wise Obadiah seized the actual power in the state. He expelled the Turks, who made up the military class. At the same time, he relied on mercenary units of the Guzes and Pechenegs. The Khazar Turks resisted, but were defeated and retreated to Hungary.

In the 9th century, the Baghdad Caliphate began to fall apart. His main city, Baghdad, sucked all the juice out of the subject areas and gave nothing in return. As a result, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia broke away. Egypt, Eastern Iran, Central Asia separated, and the Deylem region separated off the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. This area was inhabited by extremely warlike people, and they professed Islam in the form of Shiism.

Khazar Khaganate on the map

They captured part of Azerbaijan up to Derbent, the western regions of Persia and conquered Baghdad. Thus, a convenient route from the Volga along the coast of the Caspian Sea to Baghdad was under the control of the Daylemites. And they didn't let anyone through.

As a result, the Jewish government of the Khazar Khaganate found itself in a difficult situation, as trade routes to the south were cut off. Prior to this, the Jews recruited warriors from Gurgan and paid them high wages. But the Kurgans refused to fight against the Daylamite Muslims, since they were co-religionists. And then the Khazar Khaganate was forced to hire the Rus on the same terms.

The Russians encountered the Daylamites in 913 and were defeated by the Muslims. In an unsuccessful campaign, the entire Russian squad perished, and Khazaria after that, for two decades, was occupied with minor conflicts with the Slavs and the emerging Kiev principality.

In 939, a very important historical event took place. The Russian Prince Igor captured the city of Samkerts (Taman), which belongs to the Khazars and is located on the banks of the Kerch Strait. In response to this, in 940, the Khazar army under the command of the Jew Pesach moved against the Rus. He liberated Samkerts, crossed the Kerch Strait with an army and marched along the southern coast of Crimea. Then Pesach crossed Perekop, reached Kiev and imposed tribute on the Russian principality. All these events are told in the Tale of Bygone Years.

In 943, the Khazars again sent the Rus as tributaries to the Caspian for a war with the Daylemites. The Russian squad captured the Berdaa fortress in the lower reaches of the Kura River. But after this victory, dysentery began among the Russian soldiers. It turned out to be more terrible than enemy sabers. The Rus hastily plunged into the boats and sailed away from the inhospitable shores. But no one returned home.

For Kievan Rus, the Khazar Khaganate became an extremely serious problem, which in its significance surpassed the war with Byzantium. As a result, in the summer of 964, the young Kiev prince Svyatoslav began a campaign against the Khazars. He did not lead his squad from Kiev to the Volga through the steppes. The Rus ascended the Dnieper to the upper reaches and dragged the rooks to the Oka. Along the Oka and the Volga, Svyatoslav reached the capital of Khazaria, the city of Itil.

Itil was located on a large island 18 km wide. It was formed by two Volga channels: the Volga itself from the west and Akhtuba from the east. In those days, the Akhtuba River was as full-flowing as the Volga. The city had a stone synagogue, a king's palace, large wooden houses. There was a stone mosque, as Muslims were treated politely.

Warriors of Svyatoslav against the Khazars

The squad of Svyatoslav surrounded the city, but many Khazars had previously fled to the Volga delta and hid in the labyrinth of the canal. But the Jewish population of Itil remained outside the city walls. It came out to fight the Russians and was utterly defeated.

After that, Svyatoslav moved to the Terek and surrounded the second most important city in the Khaganate, Semender. Its inhabitants did not resist for long. They surrendered to the mercy of the victors. The Rus took horses, oxen, carts from the population and moved home through the Don. On the way, they stormed the Sarkel fortress and destroyed it.

As a result of the campaign of 964-965, Svyatoslav excluded the Volga, the middle course of the Terek and part of the Middle Don from the zone of influence of the Khazars. But the main achievement of the campaign was that Kievan Rus regained its independence and stopped paying tribute to the Khazar Khaganate.

Sunset of the Khazar Khaganate

In the 80s of the X century, many Khazars converted to Islam and received help from Khorezm. The Kagan and his court returned to Itil again, but in 985 the Kiev prince Vladimir organized a new campaign against Khazaria and imposed tribute on it. In the XI century, the Khazars completely lost their political influence in the region. They could not resist the Polovtsians and began to leave their ancestral lands.

In the XII century, instead of Itil, the city of Saksin appeared. Muslim Khazars lived in it, but there were few of them. But the Jewish Khazars migrated to Europe, where they disappeared among other Jews. Nomads began to dominate the former lands of the kaganate. These territories united into a single whole only during the Golden Horde.

Alexey Starikov

Ethnogenesiskhazar 2

Formation of the Khazar state3

Formation of the Khazar Khaganate4

Territory and population4

Economics and social relations6

State building10

CitiesKhazaria12

ReligionsKhazar15

Ethnogenesiskhazar

The ethnonym "Khazars" cannot be satisfactorily explained from any known language. In the scientific literature, it is precisely the form "Khazars" that is most clearly recorded by Arabic and Byzantine sources. The documents in Hebrew associated with Khazaria reflect the same form. On the other hand, ancient Armenian authors usually speak of "khazirs" and in the Russian chronicle the form "kozare" (plural) is found. Since the ancient Georgian name is identical to the Arabic and Byzantine ones, the Armenian form cannot be recognized as common Caucasian. At the same time, given the very close acquaintance with the Khazars in Armenia and Ancient Russia, it can be assumed that the forms "khazir" and "kozar" came from the Transcaucasus and to Russia, respectively, through some mediating links, i.e. through languages ​​and dialects, in which the original form of "Khazar" changed into "Khazir" and "Kozar".

From the 4th century together with the tribes of the Hunnic Union, a stream of Finno-Ugric and proto-Turkic tribes poured into Eastern Europe from Siberia and more remote regions (Altai, Mongolia). They found in the steppe regions of Eastern Europe a predominantly Iranian (Sarmatian) population, with whom they entered into ethnic contacts. Throughout the IV-IX centuries. in this part of Europe there was a mixture, mutual influence of three ethnic groups: Iranian, Ugric and Turkic. Ultimately, the latter prevailed, but this happened rather late. The processes mentioned above formed the basis for the formation of the Khazars.

However, the Huns did not play the main role in the ethnogenesis of the Khazars. This belongs primarily to the Savir tribe. The Finno-Ugric tribes of the south of Siberia were called Savirs and, perhaps, the very name Siberia goes back to them.

Here, the Savirs ended up in the Northern Caucasus, where they entered into contacts with a diverse ethnic local population, entering into various tribal associations, heading them, and later forming the Savir Union. The Savir Union collapsed as a result of an unsuccessful struggle with the Turkic Kaganate. "It was this Turkic tribe, which then during the second half of the 6th century and later assimilated the remnants of the Savirs in Ciscaucasia, as well as some other local tribes, as a result of which the Khazar ethnos was formed.

The Khazar language, as proved by linguists, is Turkic, but together with Bulgar it belonged to a separate group of Turkic languages, quite different from other Turkic languages, most common in the 9th-10th centuries. (Oguz, Kimak, Kypchak, etc.), well-known in the Muslim world.

Formation of the Khazar State

Early references to the Khazars in connection with the events in Transcaucasia (second half of the 6th century) are very contradictory. In the south of Eastern Europe in the 6th century, the supreme power of the first unified Turkic, and then, from 588 (approximately), the Western Turkic Khaganates was asserted. Iran. But the tribes of Ciscaucasia, at least its eastern part, depended on the Khakan, the Turks were involved in wars with Iran.

At that time, speaking of the Khakan of the Western Turks, Arab sources portray him in the Caucasus as a kind of supreme overlord of many local tribes. , and this gives reason to think that it was their political unification that gradually, by the 90s of the 6th century, came to the fore in the Eastern Ciscaucasia. titled "malik" ("king"). At the same time, the mention of other tribes next to the Khazars testifies to the instability of the political situation in this region, the presence of there and other political associations, among which the Khazar one looks only as the most prominent.

Thus, in the second half of the VI century. Several political associations functioned in the North Caucasus, one of which was the Khazar one. But all of them, to one degree or another, recognized the supreme power of the Turkic Khaganate.

But in the 20s of the VII century. after a series of events in this region in which the Khazars took part (the wars of Byzantium, Iran), the Khazars, officially recognizing the power of the Western Turkic Khaganate, were practically independent. The Western Turkic Khaganate itself was on the verge of death. the attack on Iran came from two sides - from Central Asia and through Derbent. In the 20s of the 7th century, the Khakanturok himself did not interfere in the Virano-Byzantine war.

Researchers refer to the 30s of the 7th century. turmoil in the Western Turkic Kaganate and precisely with it, or with the collapse of this state under the blows of the Chinese in the 50s of the 7th century. connect the emergence of the Khazar state. In practice, the policy of the Khazars in the 20s of the VII century. was completely independent, and this allows us to date the formation of the Khazar state to approximately the first quarter of the 7th century. True, the Khazar ruler still recognized the supreme power of the Khakan-Turks, with whom he was related. But the double title of the Khazar ruler, jebu-khakan, indicates that he considered himself no lower than his official overlord.

Taking the first quarter of the 7th century as the date of foundation of the Khazar state, one must understand that this is the initial date, followed by a rather significant period of the formation of the Khazar Khaganate as an independent state in all respects, which became the main political force in Eastern Europe. And in this period, two main moments emerge: the adoption by the Khazar ruler of the highest title in the nomadic world of the title "Khakan" and the victorious struggle with another Caucasian political association - the Bulgar Union.

Formation of the Khazar Khaganate

The time of the formation of the Khazar Khaganate within Eastern Europe is the 30-80s of the 7th century. At this time, the Khazars clashed with the Arabs in the Derbent region, and then in the 60s, taking advantage of the turmoil in the Caliphate, actively intervened in Transcaucasian affairs. But they were not the main content of the Khazar history of this time. Ciscaucasia, and then more extensive areas of Eastern Europe, became the main arena in Tupor.

In Ciscaucasia, along with the Khazars, another major political force emerged - Great Bulgaria. The limit in general is the Western Ciscaucasia, the region of the river. Kuban, although some historians attribute the western border of the Great Bulgars to the Dnieper, and the areas subject to it could cover the limits of the south of modern Ukraine.

The rise of the Great Bulgaria is connected with the reign of Khan Kuvrat. the Bulgars freed themselves from nominal dependence on the Western Turkic Khaganate. But after the death of Kuvrat, the Bulgar association collapsed, separate hordes of Bulgars under the command of the sons of Kuvrat were defeated by the Khazars somewhere in the 40-70s of the 7th century. Khazar legends speak of the Khazars pursuing enemies to the river. Dun, i.e. the Danube, and the settlements of the runaway Bulgars Asparuh, near Constantinople. Thus, the steppe (and partly forest-steppe) regions of Eastern Europe fell under the rule of the Khazars. Asparukh fled to the west in the 70s of the 7th century, and this date can serve as the final date in the process of the formation of the Khazar Khaganate and its territory (in the 90s of the 7th century, almost all of Crimea was in the power of the Khazars).

But how did the small Khazars manage to defeat the numerous, "like the sand of the dead", Bulgars? Enmity between the sons of Kuvrat played a big role. But it also becomes clear from the sources that there was an alliance between the Khazars and the Alanian tribes, which were at that time (mid-VII century) under the rule of the Great Bulgaria.

Territory and population

Most often, the borders of the Khazars are trying to be determined out of time, i.e. That is, as some kind of stable, not changing for three centuries. But the borders of this state, like others, were not unchanged. Arab sources (mostly geographical writings) draw the limits of Khazars mainly for the 9th - early 10th centuries, and only in the Caucasus their information is more extensive and covers the 7th-8th centuries. Byzantine sources introduce important corrections for the end of the 7th-beginning of the 8th centuries. and the eve of the fall of the Khazars (40s of the 10th century). For the IX-X centuries, the news of the Russian chronicle is indispensable.

The administrative-territorial unit of the Khazar state is Climate. At the head of such units in Khazars were governors (tuduns), specifically known to us for the Crimea and Volga Bulgaria.

The Eastern European possessions of Khazaria, which did not include the indigenous territory of the latter (Primorsky Dagestan and neighboring territories up to the mouth of the Volga) were the main source of tribute for the Khazars, whose own territory, excluding parts of Primorsky Dagestan, was poor in natural resources. The controlled lands (climates) included the lands of the Burtases (Mordovians), Volga Bulgaria (with Suvar), Mari, part of the Slavs and some other territories in the Don region. The Don area was especially important for the Khazars, their fortresses were located along the Don and along the Seversky Donets. The most famous of them, Sarkel (Belaya Vezha), was built by the Byzantines at the request of the Khazars in the 30s of the 9th century, but other Khazar fortifications are also known here. They gave the Khazars the opportunity to control trade routes not only along the Volga, but also from the Volga (through Perevoloka) to the Don, the Sea of ​​Azov, Crimea, etc., given that international trade was one of the main sources of existence for Khazaria and its ruling class. The Khazar outpost also existed on the Caucasian coast of the Kerch Strait. Control over this strait has always been extremely important for the Khazars. VIII-IX centuries. The presence of the Khazars in the Crimea was so significant that the Black Sea was called the Khazar Sea, although the Khazars did not have a fleet and they did not swim in the Black Sea, unlike the otrusovs of the 10th-11th centuries, after which the Black Sea then became known as the Russian Sea. The limits of the Khazars to the north-west are not at all clear. In the middle of the 10th century. Sarkel was a frontier town. Further to the west at that time the Pechenegs roamed, who, according to the treatise of Konstantin Porphyrogenitus, look not only independent from the Khazars, but also one of the three most important political forces (others - Russia and Hungary) of Eastern Europe. Further, the border goes north and reaches in some sources (a lengthy version of Joseph's letter) to the Dnieper, where the Pechenegs were localized at that time. For some reason, the Khazar king in the same epistle did not attach due importance to the issue of the northern border. The Volga basin (excluding its upper reaches) was in the tenth century. the main part of the Khazar state. Apparently, the Volga Bulgaria could not throw off the Khazar yoke before the campaign of Svyatoslav, although in 921/922. such an attempt was made. In the region of the Caucasus, Khazaria was subordinated mainly to Eastern Ciscaucasia with a coastal strip along the Caspian Sea to Derbent. Here was the ancient center of Khazaria, from where the power of the Khazars spread to other territories of Eastern Europe. The largest local ethnic groups (Alans, Kashaks) in the 7th-8th centuries, and also partially in the 9th century. were associated with Khazaria, although there is no reason to talk about their direct subordination to the kaganate. Already in the 7th century, the Khazars entrenched in the Crimea, the Don and the Lower Volga. From the middle of the 8th century The Volga and Don areas become the main regions of the Khazars. The Burtases, Volga Bulgaria, part of the Eastern Slavs were subordinate to the Kaganate. During the heyday of Khazaria (70s of the 7th century - 8th century), its power in the west extended to the Danube. In the 9th century, the situation changed, and by the end of the century, the limits of the Khazaria did not go west further than the Don and its tributaries. The eastern border of the Khaganate extended far into the depths of the Volga region.

In the issue of ethnic composition, first of all, it is necessary to consider the issue of the Khazars themselves, their places of settlement. Khazars lived here later, after the collapse of the kaganate. They are mentioned in the Derbent chronicles of the late 11th - early 12th centuries.

Already in the 7th century The Khazars settled in different, mostly outlying, strongholds. Initially, one of these points was the mouth of the Volga, where the center of the state was then transferred. Here the Khazars are known even in the middle of the 12th century. the inhabitants of the city of Saksin, which replaced the Atil destroyed by the Rus. A large Khazar colony arose in the Crimea, where it survived after the fall of the Khazars. Finally, the Khazar colony was on the Don, primarily in the Sarkel region. Other centers of settlement of the Khazars are unknown to us. But this already shows that the Khazars in their state did not have a compact territory, but constituted, as it were, islands in the motley ethnic world of southeast Europe.

Arabic sources divide the Khazars into two groups. One is called the black Khazars, they are swarthy, almost black, similar to the Indians. Representatives of the other group are white. Apparently, the Khazars in the IX-X centuries. were a people rather mixed in racial terms and not quite similar to the early Khazars (7th century).

Economics and social relations

We can speak about the economy of the Khazars only in the most general terms, mainly on the basis of written sources.

Sources for the 7th century. depict the Khazars as semi-wild nomads, quite comparable with the Huns, with whom they were often identified. Describing the Khazar army, which operated in the 20s of the 7th century. in Transcaucasia, they note that it included both nomads and settled residents. Obviously, the latter meant auxiliary contingents from the local (Iranian and Caucasian) population. As for the Khazars themselves, their description is similar to what can be found in the authors who told about the Huns of the 4th century BC. They were unusual for a resident of Transcaucasia - broad-cheeked, without eyelashes, with long hair, born horsemen. Their food was common for nomads - meat, as well as mare and camel milk.

And in the last period of existence of the Khaganate of the Khazars, in many respects they preserved the customs of their ancestors. The Arab traveler directly indicates that the Khazars live in cities in winter, and go to the steppe in summer. Describing the Khazar capital Atil, he notes that there are no villages near this city (or in its vicinity), but arable fields are scattered at a distance of 20 kilometers in a circle, along the river and in the steppe. This indicates that at the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th centuries the Khazars were engaged in agriculture. Rice is indicated as the produced cereal, which, along with fish, is called the predominant food of the Khazars.

Very important information is contained in Jewish-Khazar documents. In the letter of Joseph, nomadic and sedentary populations are quite clearly distinguished. Actually, only the Pechenegs and the extended edition are depicted by the nomads (there is no short version of this ethnonym). Khazaria) is fertile, it has many fields, vineyards, orchards, as well as fruit trees. In the letter of Joseph, three types of Khazar settlements appear: villages, villages, cities, and so fortified cities. The latter, most likely, refers to a Sarkel-type fortress, mainly in the border zone.

From the very beginning of its existence, the Khazar state asserted control over the most important trade routes from Eastern Europe to the countries of Western Asia. This already shows what role transit trade played for the Khazars. One of the most important, if not the most important, was the path along the western shore of the Caspian Sea, to the mouth of the Volga, then up this river. Approximately in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe present Volgograd, it branched into two: one continued up the Volga, the other through Perevoloka passed to the Don. Both ways in the 7th - first half of the 10th century were controlled by the Khazars. Up the Volga, the merchants had to pass the country of the Burtases and reached the Volga Bulgar, where already in the 9th century there was a trading post and where Muslim merchants met Russians.

The path leading to the Volga through Perevoloka was described by Arab geographers. It began in Lower Russia (Kiev), and passed through the Byzantine possessions in the Crimea, and then the Khazar outpost Samkush (Samkerts-Tmutarakan). Both the Byzantines and the Khazars collected tithes in their favor. Then the path went along the Slavic River (Don), from where, through Perevoloku, the merchants got into the Volga valley and past the Khazar capital followed to the Caspian Sea, from there the caravan route went to Baghdad in the 9th century. But, undoubtedly, Russian merchants could go out in Derbent, and in Baku, and in Gilan.

Occupying the Crimea, dominating the Taman Peninsula, the Khazars also controlled a significant part of the Black Sea trade. The center of the last on the southern coast of the Black Sea was Constantinople Trebizond. There were always many merchants in Trebizond: Greeks, Muslims, Armenians, as well as those who come here from areas of the Azar sphere of influence. The Black Sea itself was long called the Khazar Sea, although in the 10th century. this name was transferred to the Caspian, and the Black Sea received the name Russian, however, this was not its only name.

There were no or almost no direct ties between the Khazars and Western and even Central Europe. Obviously, the Khazars closed themselves here, as in the east, on intermediaries, which was determined by the very nature of the Khazar trade.

Judging by the sources, the trade of the Khazars was mainly transit. Arab geographers directly write that only (fish) glue is produced and exported in the country of the Khazars. Perhaps this is not entirely accurate, since it is possible to assume the export of slaves from the Khazars. But, apparently, this article of trade is also not the Khazars themselves (mostly), but their neighbors - Hungarians, Pechenegs, etc., who resold the captives captured during the raids on the lands of the Slavs, Adyghes, etc., to merchants from Atil.

Honey, wax, beaver, sable, fox skins and fur were exported from the countries of the Burtases, Bulgars, Rus through Khazaria. All this was in great demand in the countries of the East, and the Khazars received large profits in the form of duties, which they imposed on foreign merchants. For the neighbors of the Khazars, this was extremely burdensome, and the campaign of the army of Svyatoslav against the main Khazar cities was also caused by these economic reasons.

In connection with the problem of trade through the Khazars, it is important to pay attention to one circumstance: nothing is known about the Khazar merchants. Obviously, in this state, trade was completely in the hands of Jewish merchants who lived in all the cities of the country, and this fact that in a country for which international transit trade was of paramount importance, it turned out to be in the hands of trans-ethnic Jewish trading capital, was of decisive importance in the history of Khazaria and, obviously, became the most important reason for the adoption of Judaism as a state religion by the Khazar king and his entourage.

In Khazaria, the Arabic dirham was mainly used with its varieties minted in independent or semi-independent state formations of North Africa, Central Asia and Iran. He received (from Jewish merchants) the name "sheleg" ("white", "silver"), and this monetary unit is mentioned in the PVL for the Khazar possessions in the lands of the Eastern Slavs. In the Muslim states, their own coinage was of a fundamental nature, it is no coincidence that the coins were already in the 10th century. to mint in the Volga Bulgaria, the nobility of which adopted Islam.

In an earlier time, when the Khazars were exclusively nomads, their social structure was a kind of tribal relations that have always existed among nomads due to the specifics of their economic organization. Family, clan, tribe, union of tribes are the steps of the social structure inherent in a nomadic society. The specific content and ratio of these elements may change, but they exist as long as the nomadic life persists. Moreover, in part these forms or their elements turn out to be very tenacious and persist for some time even when the self-population settles on the ground.

In the same way, the Khazar clans did not disappear until the very end of the Khazar state. King Joseph notes the existence and number of these clans. Their very existence shows that the Khazar society of the tenth century was an early class society, where the process of forming feudal relations had not yet gone far. At the same time, the Khazars already in the seventh century. the nobility stood out, organizationally united in noble families. One of the most common designations for the Khazar nobility was the word “tarkhan”.

Thus, the population of the Khazars was divided into two parts: the nobility (tarkhans) and the common people. The difference between them was that the tarkhans now paid taxes, but were obliged to carry out military service, most often in the cavalry. However, the “common people” did not yet fall into feudal dependence. (in the tenth century), it was required to kill the khakan, then noble people and ordinary people came to the king.

The preservation of relics of tribal organization, freedom for the main population and at the same time the allocation of a special class of nobility (Tarkhans) indicates that Khazaria can be considered as an early class society, where social differentiation did not reach great depth, although it manifested itself in a specific form.

The peoples subordinate to the Khazars were at different stages of social development. The Eastern Slavs, the Volga Bulgars and some others experienced the same stage of early class relations as the Khazars. But the Burtases did not reach it. Sources report that their country was very populated, rich in furs, but they did not have heads, and in each place a sheikh, that is, an elder, ruled.

There is almost no information about land ownership in Khazaria. From the correspondence of Joseph it can be seen that the land was at the disposal of the clan and was considered as a possession received from the ancestors, and this also applied to the royal family. So in Khazaria there was the right of the clan to land.

In the multi-tribal Khazars, where the population professed different religions (Islam, Christianity, Judaism and pagan cults), there was no unified state law and a unified judicial system. Arab authors report that under the king there were seven judges (kadi) in Atilen: two for Muslims who judged Sharia; two for Jews (Khazars who converted to Judaism and Jews) who judged in accordance with the Torah; two for Christians who judged according to the Gospel, and one for pagans (Slavs, Russians and other idolaters), who judged according to pagan customs, that is, "according to the dictates of reason." In case of particularly serious cases, all these judges were gathered by Muslim qadis and their decisions were outweighed according to Sharia. Other Arabic sources note that there was an intermediary between these judges and the king, who transmitted the decisions of the judges to the king, and after their approval by the latter, they were enforced. This practice existed in Khazaria in the 9th-10th centuries.

In the early period of existence of the Khazar state, its troops consisted of militias of the Khazars themselves and subordinate peoples and tribes. In the 9th-10th centuries. the situation has changed. Auxiliary troops from subordinate peoples were still called upon, but the mercenary army, consisting of Muslims, Russ and Slavs, began to play the main role. It was divided into two parts - Muslim and Slavic-Russian. in chain mail and armor, armed with bows. Mercenaries were paid salaries, after the death of one of the mercenaries, a new warrior was taken in his place.

The change in the composition of the Khazar army is undoubtedly an indirect evidence of social changes in the Khazar society in the 9th-19th centuries. This suggests that the khakans no longer trusted the militias, but sought to rely on paid detachments that were not connected with the country and, it would seem, were completely dependent on the khakan. In fact, they soon completely fell under the influence of these mercenaries and their commanders, and the king in the tenth century was forced to obey his mercenaries, and above all the Muslim guards.

Political system

The dynasties of the Khazar Khakans are traced back to the dynasty of the Ashina clan.

In the early period of the history of the Khazars, their supreme ruler, as before the ruler of the Turkic Kaganate, was called Khakan. In modern literature, it is generally accepted that the title "Khakan" came into the Turkic environment from the Rouran people. Then it was worn by the supreme rulers of the Turkic Kaganate, the Avars, and finally the Khazars, among whom it is most famous for Eastern Europe.

As for the general meaning of the title "Khakan", actually the Turks of the 6th-10th centuries it meant the supreme ruler, to whom other rulers were subordinate. Therefore, Khakans, for example, were called Chinese emperors, and this title itself is identified with the emperor of the feudal era.

Interesting information about the ruler of the Khazars in the first half of the VIII century, reported by al-Kufi, who, unlike other Arab writers of the IX-X centuries. tells in detail about the Arab-Khazar wars. Al-Kufin calls the ruler both a khakan and a king (malik), but it is clear that these are one and the same person. In some cases, the historian simply writes about the khakanemalik of the Khazars. This proves that in the first half of the 8th century the khakan had full power, and foreign authors called him the king. Various sources describe the exile of Emperor Justinian II to Chersonesos, where he established relations and intermarried with the Khazar ruler. In connection with these events, Mikhail the Syrian calls the head of the Khazars hakan.

Thus, the evolution of supreme power among the Khazars can be represented as follows. In the 7th - first half of the 8th century. at the head of the state was a khakan, in whose hands all power was. Khakan relied on the Khazar nobility (tarkhans). The next person after the khakan was a shad, one of the closest relatives of the khakan (VII century). Shad commanded the army, and, perhaps, foreign relations were in his hands (or passed into his hands). It was in the ninth century. in Khazaria there was a kind of dual power, which in the 10th century was replaced by the power of a bak (bek), who deprived the khakan of any real power and influence.

The power of the supreme ruler of the Khazars (khakan, then shad-bek) was, in fact, unlimited, although there is reason to believe that even in the last period of the existence of the Khazar state, the role of tribal traditions was strong, mainly in terms of the obligatory belonging of the ruler to a certain family - clan.

In Khazaria there was a central administration, from which we know judges for people of different faiths.

As for local government in Khazaria, it was of a double kind, since this state itself consisted of two varieties of subordinate countries and regions. Firstly, these are countries ruled by local princes, leaders, etc. Secondly, areas directly subordinated to the khakan (king) and ruled by his governors. but in the ninth century The “king of the Slavs” paid tribute to Atil in the amount of a sable skin from the house (“byte”), and the son of the Bulgar ruler was a hostage to the king of the Khazars. to whom the leaders who bore the titles of "Gila" and "Karha" obeyed. Before the departure of the Magyar tribes to Pannonia, the Hungarian archons were subordinate to the Khazars and were their allies in the fight against the spechenegs.

Local representatives of the central government were called tuduns. This title comes from the Chinese tu "t" ung- "head of the civil administration." He came to the Turks through the Eastern Iranian (Sako-Khotan) languages, where he meant "a close assistant." , the former capital, sat its own king (malik), but a relative of the Khazar king.This is evidence that in Khazars there was a process of decentralization and in the localities some governors became independent rulers.

CitiesKhazaria

It seems that it is necessary to speak specifically about the cities of Khazars (countries, states), and not about the Khazar cities, since the polyethnic composition of the population of this state and the nomadic life of the Khazars themselves, at least until the 9th century, do not give grounds to define the cities of Khazaria as Khazars. Further, we will only talk about the largest and most famous cities.

Varachan(Varajan variant). Mentioned only in Armenian sources of the 7th century. Varachan (Varajan) is mentioned in "Armenian Geography" as a city of "Khons". There is no other news about it. According to sources, Varachan is located relatively close to Derbent, but where it has not yet been established. F. Minorsky defines it in the area of ​​Bashly (r. Artozen in Dagestan). A. Pletneva, accepting the identification of Varachan with Balanjar, sees this city as Nar. Sulak, believing that people cannot be drowned in other rivers of Dagestan, namely, in Balanjar-Varachan, Arabs in 723 drowned prisoners in the river.

Balanjar- one of the three most famous cities of Khazaria, apparently the first Khazar capital. The etymology of the name is unclear. The name Balanjar occurs only in Arab-Persian sources, and not only in relation to the city. Uat-Tabari (albeit, when describing the events of the 6th century) is the Balanjar tribe, next to the Abkhazians, Alans and the even more obscure Banjar people. In addition, the sources mention r. Balanjarza Derbent, the passages of Balanjarai and, finally, the mountains of Balanjara. Yakut, generalizing the data of Arab geography, has Balanjarza Derbent, as the first city of Khazaria. In the campaigns of the Arabs for Derbent in the 7th-8th centuries. The first city of Khazaria, which they attacked, was Balanjar. Perhaps the Balanjar River is Ulluchay, the Balanjar Mountains are spurs of the Caucasus Range to the north of this river (these spurs are quite close to the coast here, and then it was here that the passes of Balanjar were located), and the city of Balanjar was somewhere downstream of Ulluchay . Such a respectable author, like al-Mas "udi, calls Balanjar the former capital of the Khazars, and this is another reason to identify Varachan with Balanjar. True, the sources of the 10th century, as a rule, do mention Balanjaren, but this is obviously due to the fact that in the 10th century this city lost its significance ( perhaps because of the Arab-Khazar wars of the 8th century and its proximity to the Arab-Khazar border), or perhaps it no longer existed.
In fact, Balanjar arose, obviously, as a result of socio-economic shifts in the society of the old (pre-Khazar) population of Primorsky Dagestan and as the residence of local rulers, and then the Khazar Khakans. The city was apparently already in the 7th century. pretty big. Of course, it will be possible to talk about the final solution of the issue of the population of Balanjar (and other cities of Khazars) when this city is found and explored archaeologically. (722/723) the Arab commander-Jarrah took this city. According to al-Kufi, the governor of Balanjar recognized the power of the caliph. Poat-Tabari, al-Jarrah took the fortresses from Balanjaray and expelled all its inhabitants. This can be understood as the devastation and even destruction of Balanjar. Ibn al-Asir, describing in detail the war of al-Jarrah, notes that the Muslims did not take possession of the city with the power of the sword and plundered it so that each horseman received booty in the amount of 300 dinars, and there were 30 horsemen Thousands of Occupation of Balanjar this year reports Yal-Yakubi. When, at the beginning of the 13th century, Yakut ar-Rumi collected information about Balanjar in the best libraries of the Muslim world, he could not find much information about the campaigns of Salman and Abd ar-Rahmanar-Rabi "and in the 40-50s of the 7th century ..

Samandar- another of the three most famous cities of Khazaria. There are different opinions regarding the etymology of this name. and then this word in Persian means "house, dwelling". Even more interesting is that the short "a" form in Middle Persian had the latter meaning, as well as "palace". Of these, Middle Persian is the most famous. Let's try to explain from the Iranian languages ​​the first part of the name of the city - "Saman". In modern Persian, it means "jasmine", but, for example, in Kurdish, the meaning "white" has also been preserved. Therefore, there is reason to interpret the name Samandar as "white house, palace." It was popular in Khazaria. Who is the word "white" in the Turkic languages ​​meant not only color, but also the nobility, the highest quality, cf. White Ordave XIII-XV centuries. and the name by the Turkic peoples of the Russian Tsar "White Tsar".
Where was Samandar located? A number of researchers identify it with the area of ​​Makhachkala or Tarka, others place it on the Terek or Aktam, in the place of Kizlyar. The issue remains controversial until a thorough archaeological survey of the northern part of Primorsky Dagestan, where there are many settlements of the Khazar time. But I would like to draw additional attention to a number of testimonies from sources. Firstly, there are very serious reasons to look for Samandar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Secondly, this city really was somewhere in the Nizhny Terek region - modern Makhachkala.
Thus, we can conclude that the second most important city of the Khazars, which bore the Iranian name Samandar, which corresponded to the Turkic Saryshin to the Arabic translation of kakal-Bayda, was located somewhere within the modern northern Primorsky Dagestan. Jarrahai before the campaign of Mervan in 737. The city retained its economic and, to a certain extent, political significance later. According to Ibn Haukal, Samandar was destroyed by the Russians in 968/969.

Atil- the last capital of the Khazars at the mouth of the Volga, named after this river. The city was sometimes called differently, obviously by the name of one of the three parts into which it was divided. However, Atil could have had its own second name. The word "atil", obviously, is Finno-Ugric and means "river". In modern Hungarian this word does not exist, but r. Belayav of Bashkiria is still called Ak Adil (Belayareka), and the ancestors of the Kibashkirs still in the XIII century. they spoke the Ugrian language, understandable to the Hungarians. Atil, as said, consisted of three or, more precisely, of two parts, located on both banks of the river. The third part is the island on which the residence of the king was located, although in the same castle-fortress there was an ikhakan, removed from power. This is confirmed by the data of Joseph's letter, according to which it was the king with his entourage and court who lived in the third city. It is believed that this third city, or rather, its fortified part, was the foundation of the last Khazar capital, around which then grew a kind of "postasy", which made up the other two parts of Atil in the 10th century. It is possible that only then did the name Atil appear for the entire capital, whereas earlier this center of Khazaria was called differently, obviously based on its basis, the island-fortress, where the "government" of Khazaria was located. In the sources of the 9th century. There is no Atil. The capital of the Khazars in the 9th century. was located at the mouth of the Volga (Atil) and was called Hamlidj (possibly Hamlykh). Khazaran was sometimes called the western part of Atil, where the king lived and, obviously, the Khazar nobility.
The population of Atil consisted of representatives of different ethnic groups and religions. Sources write about a large number of Muslims, even naming their number (more than 10 thousand people). Apparently, Muslims did not make up the majority of the inhabitants of Atil. Arab sources will put them in the first place. From the material-Mas "udi it is clear that the Jews were genuine Jews, mostly emigrants from Byzantium, as well as the king, his entourage and the Khazars of the royal family. It is difficult to judge the ethnic composition of the Muslim population of Atil, since, apart from people from the vicinity of Khorezm, other ethnic groups are not named. But the same al-Mas "udi writes that in Atila there are many Muslim merchants and artisans who came to the country of the Khazar king because of the justice and security prevailing there, and this is evidence that the Muslim population of the Khazar capital was recruited from among people from different countries of Islam. In Atil there was a cathedral mosque with a minaret and other mosques with schools.
Atil was taken and destroyed by the Russians in 968/969 and, apparently, was not restored. At the mouth of the Volga in the XI - early XIII century. the city of Saksin existed, but whether it was located on the site of Atil is unknown

Sarkel-Sharkil(Belaya Vezha)- Khazar fortress on the Don, near Perevoloka, now at the bottom of the Tsimlyansk Sea. The name consists of two parts: "ball" - "white" and "kel" ("kil") - Iranian "house", "fortress". fortification, tower.
The Sarkel region was of great importance, since the trade route from the Don to the Volga passed here. Therefore, even before the construction of this fortress, there was a fortification on the right bank of the Don that performed control functions along this route. It arose in the 8th century. and destroyed in the 9th century, it was he who was replaced by Sarkel. The latter was built with the help of the Byzantines, who, at the request of the Khazars, sent engineer Petrov to build this fortress. steelruses. Sarkel was, in fact, a fortress, not a city, although artisans and merchants lived there. The excavations revealed a brick fortress 186 m long and 126 m wide with powerful walls 3.75 m thick, towers and two gates. nomads, who, obviously, corresponded to the garrison mentioned by the Byzantine emperor. In 965, Prince Svyatoslav came out against the Khazars and "hailed White Vezhyu took." It can be assumed that then Belaya Vezha was for some time under the control of Russia and through it, at least until the middle of the 11th century, contacts with Tmutarakan were carried out.

Samkerts (Samkush) - Tmutarakan. The old Russian name Tmutarakan comes from the Greek form. Most researchers believe that Samkerts (Samkush) and Matarkha (Tmutarakan) are the same city on the Taman Peninsula. According to archaeological data, Tamatarkha of the 7th-10th centuries. was a populated trading city.

The emergence and development of most of the cities, and above all the last capital - Atil, is associated with transit trade. Atil arose at the mouth of the Volga, where there were no settled settlements, but where trade routes converged from the upper reaches of the Volga, Don, Caspian, and Central Asia. It is no coincidence that after the death of Atil, a new city of Saksin appeared here, and later, in the 15th-16th centuries, Astrakhan. The same role was played by Tamatarkha, to a certain extent, Balanjara and Samandara, although the latter, apparently, also grew in connection with the development of the local economy.

Another reason for the emergence of the cities of Khazars is associated with their role as state-administrative centers of the country or its individual parts. Therefore, the collapse of the Khazar state led to the decline or disappearance of such cities. This was facilitated by the motley ethnic and religious composition of their population, which, as in Atil, was formed from various alien communities and ethnic elements that were weakly associated with this territory.

ReligionsKhazar

The original Khazar paganism was a special complex amalgam of cults of different content and origin.

In the context of contacts with countries dominated by monotheistic religions (Christianity, Islam), already in the 7th century. the question arose of accepting any of these faiths, since they more corresponded to the general conditions of the era, and to the interests of the early class Khazar state.

In 737, Mervaiibn Mohammed took the Khazar capital, after which the khakan fled to the north. The Arabs pursued him, and in the end he asked for peace, promising to convert to Islam. The caliphs and their entourage, recognizing Islam as the only true faith, agreed to a certain tolerance towards religions that have recorded revelations (Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism). the practical attitude towards these religions changed, in general they remained in the position of being patronized. In addition, it must be borne in mind that there were no Muslims in Khazaria, there were few of them even in Transcaucasia and Central Asia, and the Khakan could hardly accept a religion that no one professed in his state.

A little more than a hundred years have passed, and Muslim sources fix Judaism as the state religion of Khazaria. It was at this time (approximately 50-70s of the 9th century) that the message refers, according to which, in Khazaria, Judaism was practiced by the "highest head" (i.e. khakan), shad, as well as leaders and nobility, the rest of the people adhered to a faith similar to the religion of the Turks. Thus, in the second half of the IX century. to know the Khazars professed the Jewish religion, while the people continued to adhere to the old pagan cults.

Bulan, the ancestor of the king, who bore the title "shad", managed to force the Khakan to accept Judaism, because this religion was not practiced then by the opponents of the Khazars - the Arabs and Byzantium. From the story of Joseph, it is clear that Bulan was supported by other "heads" of Khazaria, who together with him exerted pressure on the nakhakan. It turns out that the initiator of the adoption of Judaism was not the khakan, but another person (the king, in Joseph's terminology), but it was authorized by the khakan stupidly.

It is possible to date the adoption of Judaism by the time of Harun ar-Rashid, who ascended the throne in 786. Al-Mas "udi, who lived a year and a half after that, did not know a more exact date. We cannot date more precisely.

What were the reasons for the adoption of Judaism by the top of the Khazars?

The adoption of one or another monotheistic religion is a natural phenomenon in any feudalizing society, where the struggle of the central government, on the one hand, with the strong relics of the tribal system, and on the other hand, with the emerging feudal decentralization urgently required the replacement of polytheism with monotheism, sanctifying the power of one sovereign. Now the form of monotheism could be different, and this depended on many factors, including external political ones.

Taking approximately the last quarter of the 8th century as the date of the Judaization of the Khazar nobility, let's see what reasons led to this event. The Khazar shad, who initiated it, had a choice among three monotheistic religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Of these, the first two were the state religions of the two largest powers of that time, with which Khazars had the most diverse relations - Byzantium and the Arab Caliphate. Christianity was widespread among the subjects of Khazars - the inhabitants of Crimea. This faith was practiced by most of the inhabitants of Transcaucasia - Armenia, Georgia, Caucasian Albania. It would seem that it was the adoption of Christianity by the Khazars that should have been expected, especially since an attempt of this kind had already taken place in the 7th century. And yet there were reasons that did not contribute to this. If even in the first half of the 8th century Byzantium was an ally of the Khazars against the Arabs, then in the second half of this century the situation changed. This happened in the 80s of the 8th century. Moreover, Leon II of Abkhazia (758-798) annexed Egrisi, that is, a significant part of Western Georgia, to his possessions. This was a strong blow to Byzantium, and in order for good relations to be restored between it and Khazaria, it took fifty years. at least twice subjected to Khazar invasions.

Equally unfavorable were the conditions for the adoption of Islam. The caliphate remained the main opponent of the Khazars, although there were no large Arab-Khazar wars in the second half of the 8th century.

But for the adoption of the Jewish religion, the circumstances were favorable. In the conditions of Europe, which fell into decline after the barbarian invasions, the Jewish communities and Jewish trading capital not only retained their strength and influence, but also practically monopolized European trade. The Jewish merchants of the Carolingians were especially protected, who always turned to Jewish moneylenders for coercion in money. Obviously, the patronage of the Spanish Umayyads explains the same importance of the Jewish merchants in European trade. In the IX century. It was the Jewish merchants who held in their hands the transit trade between Europe and Asia. They were enterprising merchants who spoke different languages ​​(Arabic, Persian, Greek, "Frankish", Spanish-Romance, Slavic).

However, about the wide distribution of the Jewish religion among the population of Khazars, even in the tenth century. I don't have to say. The king and his entourage, who converted to Judaism, were increasingly moving away from their subjects. Strengthening in the 10th century. the influence of some of the latter, who professed Islam, and especially the guards of al-larisiya, placed the kings in an even more difficult position. As a result, the central government increasingly lost its strength and influence.

The diversity of religious cults led to the spread of various cultural influences, none of which, apparently, finally prevailed in Khazaria.

Used Books

1. “The Khazar state and its role in the history of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus” Anatoly Petrovich Novoseltsev. Electronic resource of the book.

Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation

Ural State Technical University

THE KHAZAR STATE

Essay on the course "History"

Teacher:

Student: Ishutinov D.A.

Group: R-115

It arose in the middle of the 7th century. on the territory of the Lower Volga region and the eastern part of Ciscaucasia as a result of the collapse of the Western Turkic Khaganate (see).

The Ashina dynasty established itself at the head of the Khazar Khaganate.

The capital is a city, from the beginning of the 8th century. - city of Itil.

Territory

In the second half of the 7th c. Khazars subjugated the state of Great Bulgaria, state formations, in the VIII century. - the peoples of the Volga and Don regions (, Mordovians, etc.), some Slavic tribes (glade, northerners, Vyatichi, Radimichi, etc.).

During the period of the highest power, VIII - early X centuries, the Khazar Khaganate owned the North Caucasus, the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov, most of the Crimea, the steppe and forest-steppe territory of Eastern Europe to the Dnieper River, as well as the territory of North-Western Kazakhstan.

Religion

In the Khazar Khaganate, three monotheistic religions peacefully coexisted (Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism) and. In the 8th century Islam was the state religion, at the end of the 8th - beginning of the 9th century. - Judaism (mainly among the ruling elite), from the end of the 10th century. - Islam.

Each religious community had its own judges and retained autonomy.

The basis of the economy

The economy of the Khazar Khaganate was diverse, its basis was nomadic cattle breeding.

In the valley of the Lower Volga, in the Crimea, between the Don and Donets, agriculture, horticulture, viticulture and handicrafts developed (in the cities of Itil, Belenjer, Semender).

The capital of the Khaganate Itil was an important center of international (including transit) trade. The Khazar Khaganate maintained active trade and economic contacts with Byzantium, the countries of Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Central Asia, and Transcaucasia.

The Khazar Khaganate received large incomes from duties for the transit of goods through its territory (tithes were collected from ships and trade caravans).

Large and small cattle, furs, fish glue were exported from the kaganate. Grain, expensive furs, honey and wax were delivered from the Bulgarian and Slavic lands, luxury goods, spices, silk, weapons were delivered from the countries of the East.

culture

The culture and life of the population of the Khazar Khaganate are reflected in the archaeological monuments of the Saltovo-Mayak culture. The territory of the settlement of its bearers completely coincides with the territory of the Khazar Khaganate.

The monuments of this culture are diverse: the remains of nomad camps (seasonal camps) along the low banks of rivers, the ruins of cities and fortresses on high capes, burial grounds.

Dwellings are predominantly above ground, with walls made of stone or in the form of wattle covered with clay, as well as rectangular semi-dugouts and rounded dwellings in the form of a yurt.

The capital Itil was located on both banks of the Volga and on the island where the residence of the ruler was located - a stone palace.

The townspeople lived in adobe houses or yurts. In the eastern part of the city there was a cathedral mosque, 30 parish mosques and madrasahs attached to them, as well as Christian, Jewish temples and pagan temples.

Power

Initially, the Khazar Khaganate was a typical nomadic khanate. He inherited political traditions and titles from the Turkic Khaganate. At the head of the state was a kagan, who formally had full military and administrative power, which, however, was nominal and sacred.

Until the end of the 8th century power in the Khazar Khaganate was actually concentrated in the hands of the local Khazar and Bulgarian aristocracy. After the adoption of Judaism, the real power was in the hands of the second person in the state - the bek (or khakanbek, in Hebrew "melech" - king).

social structure

The highest class in the Khazar Khaganate was the Tarkhans - the tribal aristocracy and relatives of the reigning family; the rank lower was the Eltebers - the rulers of vassal peoples and the Tuduns - the governors of the kagan in a separate territory.

Administrative-territorial division

The territory of the Khazar Khaganate was divided into regions, differing in the degree of control of the central government.

The main one was the Lower Volga region, on the territory of which the Khazars proper lived, the capital, the residence of the kagan, was located. Strategic points were controlled directly by the kagan, they housed the Khazar garrisons (the fortresses Sarkel on the Don and Samkers near the Kerch Strait).

Subordinate peoples (Alans, Hungarians, Slavs, etc.) retained their own socio-political structure. Their rulers were obliged to collect and send tribute to Khazaria, to put up an army to the kagan.

Foreign policy

The special geopolitical position of the Khazar Khaganate forced its rulers to wage a constant struggle for influence in the Black Sea and Transcaucasia, as well as for control over land and water trade routes.

In the Northern Black Sea region, the Khazars clashed with Byzantium. At the end of VII - VIII centuries. Khazars captured the Bosporus, Eastern Crimea, claimed the main Greek city of Crimea - Chersonese.

In the 8th century the Khazar Khaganate and Byzantium had a common enemy - the Arab Caliphate. The Arabs conquered Central Asia, ousted the Khazars from Transcaucasia, in 735 invaded the Caspian steppes and defeated the army of the kagan (see). However, they could not hold out for a long time in the steppes and retreated to the Transcaucasus. Kagan restored his power in the North Caucasus and other areas.

Army

An active international policy required a combat-ready army. In the VII-VIII centuries. the army consisted of a militia, which the dependent peoples were obliged to put up. The number of troops could reach 100-300 thousand people.

In the IX-X centuries. the situation changed: the Khazar rulers, having abandoned large-scale conquest campaigns, began to use mercenaries. The main force of the army was the heavy horse guard, which consisted of the Larisians, a Muslim tribe of Khorezmian origin. She served under special conditions, had her own vizier and the right not to fight with fellow believers, which allowed the khaganate to pursue an active foreign policy.

Decay

However, a strong state at the junction of Europe and Asia, pursuing an independent policy, caused opposition from neighboring countries.

The issue of state religion was of great political importance. The Arabs tried to establish Islam in the Khazar Khaganate, and Byzantium - Christianity. The ruling elite of the Khazars did not seek to bind themselves with religious relations either with the Caliphate or with Byzantium.

At the end of the VIII - beginning of the IX century. Obadiah, a descendant of Bulan, who became the head of the kaganate, declared Judaism the state religion, which caused discontent among part of the Khazar nobility and a significant part of the lower classes. A long internecine struggle began, during which Obadiah defeated the rebels and their allies, the Magyars.

The Crimean Goths, who came under the rule of Byzantium, and some other peoples who had previously paid tribute to the Khazars (including the Dnieper Slavs) took advantage of the unrest in the Khazar Khaganate.

At the end of the ninth century the Black Sea and Don steppes came under the rule of the Pechenegs. Byzantium, interested in weakening the Khaganate, began to set against the Khazars the nomads surrounding them.

At the same time, the Khazar Khaganate experienced a military onslaught from the Old Russian state: in 913-914 and 943-944. Russian troops passed through all of Khazaria and devastated the Caspian coast.

In 964-965. Prince Svyatoslav made a trip to the Volga and defeated the Khazar Khaganate: the cities of Itil and Semender were devastated, the city of Sarkel was captured.

At the end of the tenth century The Khazar Khaganate, weakened by internal strife, the campaign of Svyatoslav, the invasions of the Pechenegs and Oghuz, ceased to exist.

Until the beginning of the XIII century. a small possession was preserved in the Lower Volga region - the city and region of Saksin.

Literature

Pletneva S.A. Khazars. M., 1976.

Novoseltsev A.P. The Khazar state and its role in the history of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. M., 1990.

Sabirzyanov G.S. The peoples of the Middle Volga and the Southern Urals in the panorama of centuries. Kazan, 1995.

Fakhrutdinov R.G. History of the Tatar people and Tatarstan. Kazan, 2000.

Artamonov M.I. History of the Khazars. SPb., 2001.

Gumilyov L.N. Discovery of Khazaria. M., 2006.

Archaeologists have discovered in the Astrakhan region the capital of the ancient Khazar Khaganate - the city of Itil, which existed from the eighth to the 14th centuries, one of the leaders of the expedition, candidate of historical sciences Dmitry Vasiliev, said in an interview with RIA Novosti by telephone.

Khazar Khaganate or Khazaria - in 650-969, a medieval state created by a nomadic people - the Khazars. The capital of the Khazar Khaganate was the city of Itil.

Khazaria separated from the Western Turkic Khaganate and controlled the territory of Ciscaucasia, the Lower and Middle Volga regions, modern northwestern Kazakhstan, the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov, the eastern part of the Crimea, as well as the steppes and forest-steppes of Eastern Europe up to the Dnieper.

Initially, Khazaria was a typical nomadic khanate. The head of state was a kagan (ruler). Formally, he had full military and administrative power. The kagan was the head of a pagan cult and was endowed in the eyes of his subjects with supernatural powers. His authority was considered established by heaven.

The central part of the country was the Lower Volga region. Khazars actually lived here. The nomads of the kagan and the Khazar nobility passed through this territory. Most of the territory was administered without administrative interference. Subordinate peoples: Alans, Bulgarians, Burtases, Hungarians, Slavs, etc. retained their own socio-political structure. They had their rulers, who were obliged to collect and send tribute to Khazaria.

The population of the kaganate was divided into "white" (free) and "black" (taxable) Khazars. The top of the "whites" was formed by the tribal aristocracy (owners of large herds). There was a complex hierarchy inside it, since the Khazars did not destroy the nobility of the conquered tribes, but included it through a system of vassal relations in the ruling elite.

The basis of the economic activity of the ordinary population was nomadic cattle breeding. For the ruling elite, the main source of enrichment was originally military booty obtained by plundering neighboring countries. Interestingly, according to a yard of evidence, the Khazars did not kill the artisans of the conquered countries.

Gradually, the Khazars were reoriented to non-military sources of income. This became possible as a result of the fact that in the 2nd half of the 8th - early 9th centuries, the rise of international trade began. Control over important transit routes led to the fact that in the 9th-10th centuries, the main source of income for Khazaria began to be trade duties. The capital of Khazaria - Itil - has become the largest trading point. At the same time, the Khazars themselves retained the traditional nomadic way of life and did not engage in international trade.

The Old Russian state played a decisive role in the cessation of the existence of Khazaria. In 964, Prince Svyatoslav liberated the last Slavic tribe of the Vyatichi, dependent on the Khazars, and in 965 defeated the Khazar army headed by the kagan and captured the Sarkel fortress. Then, in 965 or, according to other sources, in 968-969, the Rus (the people who gave their name and made up the social elite of the first state of the Eastern Slavs - Rus), acting in alliance with the Oghuz (one of the three Turkic peoples of Central Asia, formed by IX century in the steppes of modern Kazakhstan), defeated Itil. This moment is considered the end of the independent Khazar state.

Archeology took up the Khazars in the 1920s-1930s. Actually Khazar finds are extremely rare: archaeologists, as a rule, are guided by the shape and typology of ceramic vessels. Since the Khaganate included both nomads and sedentary peoples, objects of these dissimilar cultures coexist in the Khazar settlements. The list of Khazar antiquities, which scientists unambiguously attribute to the Khazars, is limited to several dozen items. Among the Khazar finds, the most “famous” are the ritual ladle with scenes of a mythical battle depicted on it, several reliquaries with equally rich fairy-tale and mythological images, a brick from the Sarkel fortress with a plan of the sanctuary-labyrinth, a stone slab with a runic inscription on it, and several more similar , but only shorter and fragmentary inscriptions on the skull of a bull and fragments of dishes.

Research in the Soviet and post-Soviet times made it possible to discover a large number of proto-urban centers and fortifications. To date, only two Khazar cities have been reliably identified - Sarkel and Samkerts. The ruins of Sarkel are identified with the left-bank Tsimlyansk settlement (the territory of the Volgograd and Rostov regions). Today, the Tsimlyansk settlement is inaccessible for research - it was flooded during the construction of the Tsimlyansk reservoir in the first half of the 1950s. The ruins of the city of Samkerts are considered the Taman settlement (Taman station, Krasnodar Territory).

The identification of the Khazar cities of Belenjer and Semender is controversial. The site of Tarki, not far from Makhachkala, claims to be Semender, but perhaps, according to archaeologists, this city was located elsewhere. Another Caspian city of the Khazars, Belenjer, according to scientists, may have stood on the site known as the Verkhnechiryurt settlement. It was flooded during the construction of the Sulak hydroelectric power station (Dagestan).

The key scientific problem in studying the history of the Khazar Khaganate is the spread of Judaism in Khazaria. Archaeologists seek to find material evidence of the existence of Judaism in Khazaria and to assess the extent to which Khazar society was affected by it.

At present, there is a discrepancy in opinions in world historiography. Russian and Ukrainian experts believe that only the royal family and some of the highest nobility converted to Judaism. In turn, Western and, in particular, Israeli historians insist on the widespread existence of this religion among all the Khazars, as well as on its penetration into the environment of the peoples subordinate to the Khazars.

On the territory of Taman, tomb steles depicting Jewish symbols were found, indicating that Jews were present in this region until the 5th century. Archaeologists do not exclude the possibility of discovering traces of Khazar Judaism as a result of large-scale excavations in the Lower Don and Lower Volga basins.

In September 2008, archaeologists from a joint expedition of the Astrakhan State University and the Institute of Ethnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences announced that they had found the capital of the Khazar Khaganate - the city of Itil. According to scientists, Itil is a Samosdelskoe settlement in the Astrakhan region (the village of Samosdelka, 40 km from Astrakhan).

Works on the settlement have been carried out since 2000. The cultural layer is about three and a half meters. Archaeologists managed to establish the outlines of a brick fortress-citadel, to identify residential quarters, "yurt-like" dwellings characteristic of the Khazar time, and specific ceramics. The lower layers of the settlement date back to the VIII-IX centuries, that is, the Khazar time. A layer of a large fire was also found, which, possibly, corresponds to the time of the destruction of Itil by the Kiev prince Svyatoslav Igorevich (960s). The total area of ​​the alleged Khazar capital is large: about two square kilometers. 50-60 thousand people could live in such a settlement at the same time. By medieval standards, this is a very large city.

According to scientists, Itil ceased to exist not after the fall of the khanate, but later - around the 14th century, when it was flooded by the Volga: traces of the pre-Mongolian and Golden Horde stages in the life of the city were recorded archaeologically.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources

Today I had an extra film. I see a newspaper with color photographs, a modern newspaper, an ordinary one, like Rossiyskaya Gazeta, for example. I start to read, and I can not understand in any way what language it is written in. On the front page there is a photo of Erdogan, and the signature to it, and the text of the article, are written in a letter unknown to me. It is neither Georgian nor Armenian. Not Hebrew and not hieroglyphs. Looks more like runic writing, but I've never seen one like it before. I ask: - "What language is the newspaper in?" The answer sounds in my head: - "Khazar".

Brad what. I “turned over” so much material in search of material evidence of the existence of Khazaria, and made sure that reliable information about the Khazar writing simply does not exist.

In the morning, over a cup of coffee, I come across an unsolved crossword puzzle that my wife “tormented” last night, and in the most prominent place comes across the question “Prophetic avenger of the Khazars”, of four letters. "Oleg" - inscribed in the cells by his wife's hand. I haven't forgotten the curriculum yet. And then I remember my vision, and how it was scalded with boiling water. Sign, however. Need to think. And here is what my thoughts led to.

What do we know about Khazaria? Even if we skim mentally over the known facts, there are already very serious doubts about the existence of the Khazar Khaganate in the form that was mentioned in the textbooks. Everything, absolutely everything that is known to the average statistical citizen on this issue is based on one paragraph from the textbook, and the map of “ancient Khazaria” imprinted in the memory, which someone completely arbitrarily painted over on a modern map in one color.

Today, this version of the presence of the kaganate on the territory of modern Russia is actively exaggerated by those who are sure that the Jews want to “chop off” her ancestral lands from Russia under the guise of restitution. In general, the fears are justified. They “chopped off” Palestine only on the grounds that some kind of their Jehovah promised them this land as their property, and this promise, except for the Jews themselves, was never known to anyone.

In addition, what is actually happening now is fully consistent with these plans. Even if there are no plans, but a sane person does not doubt the Jewish expansion. It is forbidden to talk about it in the “independent” Russian media, but you can’t get away from the facts. Plans for the construction of "New Khazaria" are being implemented before our eyes.

But today we have a different task. It is necessary to understand how, in general, information about the Khazar Khaganate appeared in world history. We will not touch Pushkin, he died recently, and he hardly knew the truth about how everything really happened. What sources do we have? Again, everything rests on The Tale of Bygone Years, or rather, on its Radzivilov list, which today only the President of the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation believes, probably, and even then I doubt it.

The Cambridge Document, or otherwise Schechter's letter (after the name of the discoverer. Who would doubt it! The Kirghiz could not find a document of such importance.) - a manuscript in Hebrew. Contains a fragment of a letter from an unnamed Jew, a subject of the Khazar king Joseph, to an unnamed gentleman from a Mediterranean country. One of the two (along with the letter of Tsar Joseph) written monuments of Khazar origin.

The author at the time of writing was in Constantinople (Let's remember this important point!). The addressee of the letter with a high degree of probability is the Cordoba dignitary Hasdai ibn Shaprut, who collected information about Khazaria. The time of writing can be dated to around 949.

The letter contains unique information on the history and religion of the Khazars, the resettlement of Jews in Khazaria, the activities of the last three Khazar kings: Benjamin, Aaron and Joseph. Of particular interest is the story of the contemporary Russian-Khazar-Byzantine war in the Black Sea region, where the Russian leader is named H-l-g-w, which conveys the exact Scandinavian form of the name Oleg.

Is the mention of Prophetic Oleg in Shekhter's letter accidental? Of course no. The one who falsified this “document” was definitely familiar with the work of A.S. Pushkin, and so that no one would doubt that the letter was genuine, he could not resist the temptation to mention Oleg in it. Probably, on the eve of the First World War, it looked quite convincing, but not today.

There is one more "convincing" document... Consisting already... From one phrase in "ancient Khazar":

Allegedly, this is a Khazar official - the censor signed the Kiev letter. The inscription was translated as "I READ THIS". And can this be taken seriously?

So… What else do we have besides the works of historians of the 19th and 20th centuries? Aha! Probably, as in the cases of ancient civilization, Sumerian or Egyptian, did coins, brooches, jugs and rings with inscriptions in the Khazar language remain on the territory of ancient Khazaria? Dudki! All finds of archaeologists in this region have pronounced signs of belonging to the Scythian and Sarmatian culture. This suggests that not only were there never Jews here, but the Polovtsians and Pechenegs were not Turks, but the same Slavs as the sedentary inhabitants around them.

See what scam I found on Wikipedia. In the article about Khazaria there is a link to a certain treasure, with Khazar treasures:

The discoverer of this masterpiece, as one would expect, is again not Ivanov. Click on the link to find out what Comrade Finkelstein found there. And for some reason we get to the English-language article on Wikipedia. Okay, let's not be lazy, click on the translation of the page, and we get ....

This is what the Jews themselves call chutzpah. Proving the existence of the Khazar material culture in the Kuban, they refer to the Bulgarian Tsar! Unprecedented audacity!

Okay… What else do we have Khazar? Without a doubt, in the wake of the Ukrainian events, a small bauble became widely known to everyone, which was previously known only to specialists, mainly in the field of customs law. This is tamga.

People do not understand what a tamga is in general, and they think that this is such Hebrew Khazar money. In some ways they are right, since the word "money" itself is derived from "tamga". What is tamga?

Tamga is a seal that the publican put on bags of goods, from which the carriage duty was paid, so that at the next outpost, the merchant would not be charged a second customs duty - tamga. Thus, tamga, these are not coins, and not these pendants with tridents, but actually paid customs duty, no matter in what currency, they often paid in kind as a percentage of the transported goods. You are carrying ten jugs of oil, you gave one at the customs, for the remaining nine you received the seal “tamga”.

From the word "tamga" the word "customs" arose (a place where tamzhat - they collect tamga). And in Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish and some other languages, another name was fixed - "mytnya" (mitnya, mitnitsa), after the name of the tax collectors - tax collectors.

But it is logical that the seal of the publican changed periodically, in order to avoid fakes. Merchants at all times were cunning, and they could stick left seals on customs goods as much as they wanted. And if so, then the types of tamga - the seal was visible - invisible. But modern professors explain this issue in their own way, so as to pull the facts by the ears, so that everyone believes in the existence of the Khazars, and explain such diversity by the fact that each “Khazarin” had his own tribal tamga ... Oh, not even funny.

I don’t know who was the first to launch the “duck” about the fact that in the figure above the Khazar tamga-denga. I only know that such tablets with a trident were previously called "boxes", and served as a mandate, visa, and safe-conduct. Marco Polo writes about this in his book On the Diversity of the World.

Here again it is necessary to explain. Brothers, this is the father and uncle of Marco Polo, Marco himself was still a boy while traveling through Great Tartaria.

So. The table is not a table at all, but a drawer. Travelers came to the great Khan of Tartaria (today he would be called the President of Russia), and he gave them a personal box, a plate with his personal seal - a diving falcon. This is NOT a tamga. This is a charm confirming that foreigners travel with his personal permission, and the bearers of this enjoy immunity. By presenting the little girl to the khans and princes (in our opinion, governors and heads of regions) of the provinces through which the path of the Venets (Apennine Slavs), they are also Venetians, lay, travelers could count on every possible help. Protection, assistance, and even the provision of provisions and pit horses.

The boards also differed in the metal from which they were minted. Gold ones gave maximum powers, silver ones gave the owner less rights, and iron ones, many service people had. More recently, archaeologists in Yaroslavl discovered a wooden box that allegedly belonged to Alexander Nevsky himself. So much for the controversy about the "Mongol-Tatar yoke." The fact that the President gives the governor powers in the field by a certificate is not now considered a yoke. And the fact that Nevsky went to the Great Khan for a dschitsa (label) is called by historians almost a betrayal of the prince!

But the fact that Kiev Prince Vladimir minted coins with the seal of the Great Khan, most likely indicates that he received permission to mint his own Kiev coins from the Great Khan of Tartaria himself. Who was there before Genghis then? And Ivan himself! Son of Iapetus, grandson of Noah.

Although by blood he was, most likely, a Jew. The son of a Jewish housekeeper Malushka (Malka, Malanya) could not be Russian; among Jews, kinship is transmitted through the mother. His portrait is more than eloquent.

The surnames Malakhov, Malkov, Malkin, and their derivatives, were worn only by Jews in Russia.

And he took the "Christian" faith again from ... Constantinople. Remember, at the beginning of the note, I drew attention to the fact that the "Cambridge" document was written in Constantinople? Now I again draw attention to the fact that Prince Oleg, who went down in history as the first fighter against the Khazar ghouls, and even accepted death from them, nailed his shield to the gates of Tsaregrad. Now the question is: - why did he soak the Khazars, and hung a shield for the Byzantines?

Well, further. There is no Khazar language, no household items, no tools, no weapons, no documents, maybe there are maps somewhere? And this is a big problem. Cartography in the period to which the existence of Khazaria is attributed (650-969) was in its infancy. I have a map, presumably of the eighth century, and it has a lot of curious details, but there is no hint of Khazaria.

This is a fragment of the map of Claudius, to see it in its entirety, click on the picture.

The islands in Azov are long gone. The Riphean mountains have turned into Northern ridges, and they are not observed at all on the territory of Ukraine. Volga is quite recognizable. And the rivers Kuban and Don are indicated quite accurately. Two other rivers nearby are also quite identifiable, only now they have become very shallow, and are called Mius and Kagalnik. Ta-Dam!! Kagalnik. So there was a Kaganate!

Who says it didn't? Prince Vladimir, among other titles, was also Kagan! But this does not mean at all that at the end of the tenth century the kagans were Jewish kings. In the Bible, the Jews just have kings, or am I wrong?

Aha! Say what about the Jewish surnames Kogan, Koganovich, Cohen and Hogan? And the answer is right in front of your eyes. Kogan is written with an "O" and Kagan with an "A". and It is not the result of a linguistic transformation. Because from Persian, “Khazar” (هَزَارْ‎, hâzâr) means “thousand”, and “Kagan”, most likely, also has a Persian (Farsi) etymology.The words "caesar" and "king", according to A. Rona-Tash, appeared just from the word hazar. Why not? And Kogan, this is the surname of the Ashkenazi - German and Polish Jews, and it means ... Lyubimov. In Ukrainian, after all, even now “love” is “kokhannya”.

The theater director Yuri Lyubimov, after all, is also from Ashkenazim, and his parents probably became beloved when they received Soviet passports. At that time, all kohans (kohan) became beloved, and zukermans became sugar.

Ask why I was looking for the etymology of "Khazaria" in Farsi? So very simple. The Khazar tribes to this day live in the north of Iran, i.e. in Persia, and this is what they look like:

And you want to say that they are Jews? No, the guys are democrats... Of course, there were Khazars, and they have not disappeared anywhere. As they were a small nation, so they remained. And no Jewish empire called the "Khazar Khaganate" on the territory occupied by modern Russia has ever existed. This is confidently confirmed by DNA genealogy studies. If a Jew ruled Sarmatia for more than three hundred years, then how did it happen that there were no traces of Jewish chromosomes left in the blood of the modern primordial inhabitants of the Kuban and the North Caucasus? There can be no such thing. We have neither Mongolian traces nor Jewish ones. Consequently, the "Jewish Kaganate" is the same fiction as the "Mongol yoke".

The Khazars could live in the Kuban, and their princes could be called kagans, but they were not Jews, but the same Slavs, only their language was Persian, or Arabic, like the Pechenegs and Polovtsy. And they could periodically rob the settlements of the northern Slavs, but no one paid tribute to them for sure. And Vladimir added the position of Kagan to his titles, most likely because he became the ruler of the Khazars. This is a common practice of monarchs, with each new subject of the federation a new title was added.

Here Ivan the Terrible, went on a business trip to Pleskavia and Novgorod, and immediately became, in addition to his previous specialties, also the Prince of Pskov and the Prince of Novgorod. So is Vladimir. Isn't it okay?

In general, we are getting a retreat on all fronts. No language. No writing, no artifacts, no maps, nothing. Not a single clue giving a reasonable reason to assume the existence of a Jewish empire in the Kuban and the northern Caucasus. Maybe legends about the famous Khazar Kagans, or military leaders, have been preserved? There is. Kagan Bulan, allegedly the founder of the Khazar empire, but we know about him from the fake Radzivilov list.

And what other Presidents of Khazaria have we heard about? Hanukkah and Pesach were supposedly also Khazar leaders. Well, I don't know what to say. Purim is just not enough. And besides them, Joseph and Aaron are commemorated. But where did they rule? In Constantinople. Those. in Tsaregrad. In Byzantium. Again, all roads lead to Istanbul. By chance? No, I think. The true Jewish state was precisely Byzantium. And the true Jewish culture, this is Christianity with all the attributes now attributed to Byzantium. Well, it was necessary to fill in something missing in the history of 1000 years?

Jews have been unsuccessfully looking for traces of their culture in Palestine and the Kuban for 150 years, and they cannot find anything. Why? Yes, because they themselves were bred as suckers. They told tales about “ancient Judea”, inspired them that their culture was special, unlike anything else, but in fact, Jerusalem is Byzantium. And Jesus is the prophet Isa, he is Yusha, who came from the east, and began to teach the mind to the mind, mired in debauchery of the Jews.

And they fled not from Egypt, but from the Bosporus to Europe. Fled from the Ottomans. That is why Arab and Jewish genes are so intertwined in Asia Minor. This is where it all comes together.

And Fomenko's version that Jerusalem is Constantinople, and Jesus was crucified on the shore of the Bosporus Strait, is fully confirmed.

Yes, and the tomb of Jesus to this day exists in the suburbs of Istanbul, on Beykos Hill, which in the Bible bears the name of Golgotha.

17th century painting "Resting residents of Constantinople at the tomb of St. Jesus". In the future, the ruins of the Yoros fortress. This is the real Jerusalem.

And this is how Beikos and Jerusalem look today. View from the grave of Isa Khazarin (Yushi Khazar).

The Latin version of the 15th century Bible contains references to the fact that Jesus was executed on the Bosphorus in the area where the biblical Jerusalem was located:

Obadiah 1:20 et transmigratio exercitus huius filiorum Israhel omnia Chananeorum usque ad Saraptham et transmigratio Hierusalem quae in Bosforoest possidebit civitates austri…”

In the Ostroh Bible, however, a description of the weather of the area in which Jerusalem was allegedly located was preserved, and it has nothing to do with the desert climate of today's Jerusalem. It talks about cold, rainy-snowy weather! Under Empress Catherine, this was removed and they wrote that it was just very cold. And then this paragraph was removed altogether.

This is what Jesus' tomb looks like today:

On the sign at the entrance is the inscription: Нz. YUSA (khazreti - holy Yusha), and next to it are tablets with quotations from the Koran. For the uninitiated, it is worth explaining that in Islam Yusha - Isa (Jesus) is very revered as the one who suffered for the faith. His name is mentioned in the Holy Book of Muslims over 100 times!

The well-known old Russian text "The Journey of Abbot Daniel" contains a description of the gospel Jerusalem.

In a modern Russian translation, a fragment of this text sounds like this:

"The crucifixion of the Lord is located on the east side ON A STONE. It was high, ABOVE THE COPY. THE STONE WAS ROUND, LIKE A SMALL SLIDE.

AND IN THE MIDDLE OF THAT STONE, AT THE VERY TOP, A WELL IS CARVED AROUND AN ELBOW DEEP, AND THE WIDTH IS LESS THAN A SPAN IN THE CIRCLE (in the perimeter). THE CROSS OF THE LORD WAS PLACED HERE.

In the ground, under that stone, lies the head of the primordial Adam ... And that stone spread over Adam's head ... AND THERE IS THIS CLEVICE ON THAT STONE AND UNTIL THE PRESENT DAY ... THE CRUCIFICATION OF THE LORD AND THAT HOLY STONE ARE FUROUNDED AROUND WITH A WALL ... OF DOORS SAME (IN THE WALL) TWO".

This description by Daniel of the place of the crucifixion of Christ perfectly corresponds to what we see today on Mount Beykos on the outskirts of Istanbul. Namely, - a round stone like a small hill with a hole at the very top, in the center. Crack in this stone.

And now attention! In Turkish, "Holy Yusha" sounds like "Khazreti Yusha" (Hazreti Yusa). KHAZRETI is the same…NAZOREE? The Slavic letter H and the Latin H are written the same way, but they are read differently: one as H, and the other as X. So "H" and "X" could pass into each other, and the word NAZOREH could turn out to be HAZOREI or HAZRETI.

Those. Yusha (Jesus) was not any "Nazarene", he was not from Nazareth, but from Khazaria. Then everything fits. After all, the Bible says so amusingly that the Magi saw a star in the EAST, and followed it, found a baby, brought him gifts, etc. But in the same place in the Bible it is said that the Magi with gifts came from the EAST. Trrrroo! Stop Dawn! They saw a star in the EAST and went to the EAST, but they came again from the EAST. What is it like?

Ay! Christians, who will tell you where the wise men came from and where? Everything falls into place if in Tsaregrad they saw a star that lit up in the east, and so it was, this is a supernova explosion, the Crab Nebula, which happened in the first half of the 12th century. And then, after 33 years, Yusha came from the east. Which differed from the Byzantines in that he chopped the truth of the uterus.

He went into Christian churches, and drove out the priests selling candles and Cahors. And from the doors of the temples he drove usurers sitting on banks (folding chairs), who gave money at interest. Bankers sitting on the banks, this is the original Jewish business, isn't it?

"In the summer of 5500, the eternal king, the Lord our God Jesus Christ, was born in the flesh on December 25th. Then the circle of the Sun was 13, the Moon was 10, the index of the 15th, on a weekly day at the 7th hour of the day"(Palea, sheet 275, turnover).

“The third kingdom of Tiberius Caesar. In the summer of 5515, after Augustus, the Caesars took over the kingdom of Tivirius son of the Caulians, and reigned in Rome for 23 years. At the same time, the great coward was quick and ruined, 13 hailstones even to the ground shattered. In the 15th year of Christ FROM IVANNE IN JORDAN RETS, 30 years of age of his month of January on the 6th day at the 7th hour of the day of the indiction 15th circle to the Sun 3 of the nameless finger. And from that time I chose a disciple for myself 12, and began to work miracles, and after baptism, be on earth 3 years until my holy passion. With this Tiviria, there was also the SAved PASSION AND RESURRECTION of our Lord Jesus Christ. Years in the 18th year of the kingdom [a] of Tiviriev, our Lord Jesus Christ suffered salvation for the sake of man in the summer of March 5530 on the 30th day, on Friday at the 6th hour of the day, indiction 3, the circle of the Sun 7, the Moon 14, and Easter was a Jew "(Paley, sheet 256, turnover, sheet 257).

And then, when the Muslims found out about what the Jews had done with their beloved prophet Isa, they went to Jerusalem - Constantinople by war, and everyone who participated was taken away in earnest, as they can. But most of the bankers managed to collect 40 tons of gold, and fled to Spain - Iberia, and to the Rhine. The former became Sephardim, the latter Ashkenazi. Now you understand the roots of mutual hatred between Jews and Arabs, which is smoldering at the genetic level?

Probably, this is not all that I wanted to say about the Khazars. Yes, definitely not all. But this is not a scientific work, not a dissertation, only thoughts. To put an end to the case, which can only be stopped, but not completed, I will express a couple more considerations.

It seems to me that modern Cossacks are also Khazars. No wonder they were called "barracks" by the people! And the northern goose - goose also got its name from the Khazars. And the hussars, these are also Cossacks - the Khazars. Mobile, sharp, tough, born warriors who were the first to tame horses.

And no moneylenders.

P.S. Unbelievable but true. As soon as I posted a note, I immediately, "accidentally" came across a picture with a font that I instantly recognized! Rune-hieroglyphs from a newspaper with a photo of Erdogan in my extrafilm!

Do you know what this "doodle" is?

This is a Mongolian letter! That's what it is!