A brick minaret at Tatartup, credited to Circassians
Editorial contextOn the upper Terek, at a place called Tartartup, Güldenstädt measured five ruins: a mosque of fieldstone and brick, this minaret, a second broken tower, and two small Greek churches, one still showing painted saints on its plaster. The minaret was a brick cylinder about 9 fathoms high with 75 steps inside. Despite the name, he concludes that a large Circassian village once stood here, its people partly Muslims and partly Greek Christians, and notes that Circassians still swore by Tartartup and used it as a sanctuary.
The second, then, is this tower built cylindrically of bricks, almost 9 fathoms high, for in its inner hollow, almost 3 feet wide, there are 75 steps … The whole tower is built of very hard bricks with very strongly binding lime
Working translation
Original wording
Das zweite ist also dieser von Ziegeln cylindrisch erbauter Thurm, der fast an 9 Faden hoch ist, denn es sind in seiner innern Hole, die fast an 3 Fuß weit ist, 75 Stuffen … Der ganze Thurm ist von sehr festen Ziegeln, mit sehr bindenden Kalke aufgeführet
About Circassians (Kabardians), Muslim and Christian, in Güldenstädt's view
Keep in mind
The Circassian attribution is his reasoning; he says he learned no tradition about the people who built it. Modern scholars identify Tatartup with a Golden Horde town, and the minaret survived into the twentieth century.