A Kalmyk prince with a wooden castle and a piano
Editorial contextNot every Kalmyk lord lived in a tent. Prince Sered-Dscheh, a colonel in the Russian army, had a large wooden castle on the left bank of the Volga, fortified with Russian-style outworks after the Napoleonic wars and furnished with mahogany, mirrors, clocks, a billiard table and a piano. Even so, he held court out on the steppe for part of the summer.
He resides on the left bank of the Volga, in a large wooden castle, thirty paces in front, which he fortified with Russian outworks when he returned from the French war … His castle is well fitted up in the interior, and contains a number of saloons, with mahogany furniture, lustres, mirrors, a billiard table, piano-forte, a number of clocks, &c.
About Kalmyks (Khoshut horde of Prince Sered-Dscheh)
Continue in this sourceTwo Moravian missionaries among the Kalmyk hordes of the lower Volga1823 · 19 passagesThe 'city of idols' and its tower of bells
Editorial contextFour days later the embassy passed another ruined city, Burgankoron ('idol city'), said to have been home only to the highest pagan priests. In the middle stood a tall octagonal stone tower hung with countless little bells that rang in the wind; inside were thousands of small Chinese idols, and holes in its sides were stuffed with writings in Mongol or 'East Tartar' left by passing lamas.
In the middle of the city stood a tall octagonal stone tower on which hung countless little bells which, when stirred by the wind, made a very loud ringing. In this tower was an entrance, in which we found many thousands of small Chinese idols of many shapes. On the side of the tower were many holes, full of writings in the Mongol or East Tartar language
Working translation
Original wording
Mitten in der Stadt stund ein hoher steinerner achteckigter Thurm, daran unzehlich viel Glöcklein hingen, welche, wann sie vom Winde gerührt, ein überaus laut Gethön verursachten. in diesem Thurm war ein Eingang, worin wir viele 1000 kleine Chinesische Götzen, von vielerley Gestalt fanden. An der Seite des Thurms waren viel Löcher, diese lagen voll Schrifften, welche auf Mongalisch oder Ost-Tartarische Sprache geschrieben waren
About Mongols ('East Tartars') and their lamas
Continue in this sourceAdam Brand's journey with the Russian embassy to China1692 to 1695 · 12 passagesTash Rabat: a Moghul khan's stone caravanserai
Editorial contextMirza Haidar credits Muhammad Khan, the khan who pushed the Moghuls into Islam, with building a rabat (travellers' lodge) of huge stones north of the Chadir Kul pass, with a tall entrance hall, a dome, cells and a mosque. He had seen it himself. The editor's note matches it with the ruin now called Tash Rabat and rejects a later claim that it was a converted Hindu temple, since no manuscript says so.
In the construction of this building he employed stones of great size, the like of which are only to be seen in the temples … of Kashmir. The Rabat contains an entrance hall 20 gaz in height. … The whole building is of stone, and over the doors there are huge solid blocks of stone, which I thought very wonderful, before I had seen the temples in Kashmir.
About Muhammad Khan of the Moghuls
Keep in mind
The editor's note weighs the identification with the surviving ruin and rejects a later story that it was a converted Hindu temple.
Brick houses on the plain, flat turf roofs in the mountains
Editorial contextReuilly contrasts two kinds of settled Tatar house. Plains Tatars live in small Turkish-style houses of stone or, lacking stone, brick, and burn dried cakes of turf and dung. Mountain Tatars build on steep slopes with flat turf roofs, packed so closely that each row of roofs forms a street for the row above.
they inhabit small houses built after the Turkish fashion, and make use of bricks, when they cannot procure stone… their houses, which are built on the steep sides of the mountains, are roofed with turf in a flat manner… and they are built so close together, that these flat roofs seem like a street for the row of houses which stands next above them
About Crimean Tatars (plain and mountain)
Continue in this sourceJean Reuilly's travels in the Crimea, 18031803 · 11 passagesA vanished Tatar village turned into an orchard
Editorial contextHolderness's own estate was a huge wild orchard made from the lands of a Tatar village of 1,700 people that had emptied after the Russian conquest. Only foundations, wells, the ruins of a Tatar bath and a mosque with its minaret remained. She is explicit that these ruins were a recent Tatar village, not something ancient or mysterious.
The village of Karagoss, at the time of the subjugation, contained 1700 inhabitants … Not a single house now remains within its circuit, though the foundations of them are to be found in every part … also the ruins of a Tatar bath, and a Tatar metchet, or mosque, the minaret of which, seen from all parts of the estate, embowered in wood, has a remarkably picturesque appearance
About Crimean Tatars
Keep in mind
The population figure at the conquest is presumably what she was told.
Chinese renegades build a walled town and palaces: 'bansheng' means 'house'
Editorial contextThe history says that Chinese outlaws led by Qiu Fu and Zhao Quan, who had gone over to the Mongols, gathered fugitives at Fengzhou, built a walled town to protect themselves, put up palaces and broke irrigated fields. Their settlements were called bansheng, which the history explains as the Mongol word for 'house'. Zhao Quan also taught the Mongols siege warfare.
At that time Qiu Fu and the others, living among the enemy, gathered fugitives and settled at Fengzhou. They built a walled town to defend themselves, put up palaces and opened irrigated rice fields, calling them baisheng; baisheng in Chinese means 'house'. Zhao Quan taught the enemy to become more practised in attack and warfare.
Working translation
Original wording
時富等在敵招集亡命居豐州築城自衛搆宮殿墾水田號曰拜甡拜甡華言屋也趙全教敵益習功戰事
About Tumed Mongols under Altan Khan; Chinese deserters
Keep in mind
The Siku copy writes 拜甡 for the usual 板升 (bansheng, from Mongolian baishing 'building'). 功 is a copyist's slip for 攻 ('attack').
Birch-bark tents and reindeer in the Siberian forests
Editorial contextThe note on the Kyrgyz lands of the upper Yenisei describes a forest people whose poor lived in tents of birch bark, loaded their goods on white deer (reindeer), drank deer milk, gathered pine nuts and roots, and hunted in winter on 'wooden horses' (skis). Nearby Qianzhou had a few thousand households of Mongols and Uighurs, and workshops of Chinese craftsmen moved there early in the dynasty.
The poor, who have no fixed property, all make their tents of birch bark and load their baggage on white deer. They take deer's milk, gather pine nuts and dig up the roots of mountain lilies and peonies for food. In winter they also ride 'wooden horses' (skis) to hunt... [In Qianzhou] the inhabitants, several thousand households, are all Mongols and Huihe (Uighurs); there are several workshops of craftsmen, who are Han Chinese moved there at the start of the dynasty.
Working translation
Original wording
貧民無恒産者皆以樺皮作廬帳以白鹿負其行裝取鹿乳採松實及斸山丹芍藥等根為食冬月亦乗木馬出獵…居民數千家悉蒙古囘紇人有工匠數局葢國初所徙漢人也
About Kyrgyz and forest peoples of Qianzhou (Kem River)
Keep in mind
Based on reports of the Yuan official Liu Haoli, sent there in 1270; the Siku copy re-spells the place names.
A half-millionaire who still lives in a yurt
Editorial contextIn an oval valley once held by a Tungus chief and later taken by Yakuts from the south, Wrangel found a thriving settlement: many yurts, some as big as Russian houses, two good churches with towers, and big herds of cattle and horses. The Yakut headman had paid for both churches and was said to be worth half a million roubles, yet he still lived in a yurt by an open hearth, drank kumis and ate horse-flesh.
Numerous Jurti, some approaching to the dimensions of Russian houses, two good churches with towers … owes much of its prosperity to the Jakutian Golowa or superintendent, who has built and endowed the two churches at his own expense. His fortune is said to amount to half a million of roubles, nevertheless he has in no respect altered his original national customs. He lives in a Jurte
About Yakuts (Sakha)
Keep in mind
The size of the headman's fortune is hearsay ('is said to').
Cave homes at Inkerman, later reused by Tatars
Editorial contextWebster examined the rock-cut chambers and chapel at Inkerman, near Sevastopol. From the altar, carved cross and style he judged them medieval Christian dwellings, and he noticed rafter marks showing some were part built, with a few 'reinhabited, or reconstructed by the Tartars'. He credits the builders to Christians, not Tatars, and says the Tatars reused them.
Some seem to have been partly excavated and partly built, which is proved by the marks of the rafters in the rocks, as also by these being, in a few instances, reinhabited, or reconstructed by the Tartars … the inference is natural that these excavations were the dwellings of the Christians.
About Medieval Christian cave-dwellers; later Crimean Tatars
Keep in mind
His dating ('middle ages') is his own reasonable guess; the previous page blames damage on 'Mohammedan conquerors' without evidence.
Hundreds of fallen stone castles in Dauria
Editorial contextTravelling from Nerchinsk toward the Argun, Ides saw hundreds of old, half-fallen castles of rough stone scattered through the valleys. His Tungus guides said warriors built them long ago, when Mongols and 'Western Tartars' raided the old kingdom of Nieucheu (the Jurchen or Manchu country). Iron-bound wagon wheels and millstones had also been dug up, which Ides took as a sign that a settled people once farmed and worked there.
In several scattered places in the Valleys, I observed hundreds of old, and partly fallen Castles, built with Rock-stones, which, as the Tunguzians told me, were built by several Warriours long since, when the Mongalian and Western Tartars made joint incursions into this Kingdom of Nieucheu. … And it is not long since that Waggon Wheels bound with Iron, and large Milstones were found in this Country
About Tungus informants; Mongol and 'Western Tartar' raiders
Keep in mind
Ides saw the ruins himself, but the story of who built them comes from his Tungus guides, and the idea that the Nieucheu people once lived there is his own guess.
