The Tatars take Sudak, the Crimean trading port
Editorial contextIn a note d'Ohsson translates the Arab historian Ibn al-Athir on the first Mongol raid into the western steppe. The 'Tatars' reached Sudak, a Qipchaq port on the Black ('Khazar') Sea where ships called and where Qipchaqs traded slaves and furs of fox, beaver and squirrel for cloth. They took the town; its people fled to the mountains or by sea to Seljuk Anatolia. The note then describes the Tatars' feigned retreat before crushing the Russians.
The Tatars advanced as far as the town of Sudak, which belongs to the Qipchaqs and from which they draw their grain; it lies on the Khazar Sea and ships put in there. Cloth is found there, which the Qipchaqs come to buy, giving in exchange slaves of both sexes and fox skins … The Tatars took Sudak, whose inhabitants fled
Working translation
Original wording
Les Tatares s'avancèrent jusqu'à la ville de Soudac, qui appartient aux Kiptchacs, et d'où ils tirent leurs grains; elle est située sur la Mer Khazarienne, et les vaisseaux y abordent. On y trouve des étoffes, que les Kiptchacs viennent acheter, donnant en échange des esclaves des deux sexes et des peaux de renard … Les Tatares s'emparèrent de Soudac, dont les habitants prirent la fuite
About Tatars (Mongol army of Jebe and Subutai); Qipchaqs
Keep in mind
Ibn al-Athir wrote in Mosul from reports; d'Ohsson's own footnote explains that Crimea was then called Khazaria.
'No abiding city': entering another world
Editorial contextThree days after leaving the Crimean port of Soldaia (Sudak), Rubruck met the first Tartars and felt he was entering another world. His opening line about them turns a verse from the Letter to the Hebrews ('here we have no abiding city, but we seek one to come'): the Tartars have no abiding city anywhere, and know nothing of the city to come.
So on the third day after we left Soldaia we came upon the Tartars, and when I went in among them it truly seemed to me that I was entering another world. I will describe their life and customs to you as best I can. Nowhere do they have an abiding city, and of the city to come they know nothing.
Working translation
Original wording
Postquam ergo recessimus de Soldaia tertia die invenimus Tartaros, inter quos cum intravi visum fuit michi recte quod ingrederer quoddam aliud seculum, quorum vitam et morem vobis describo prout possum. Nusquam habent manentem civitatem, sed futuram ignorant.
About Tartars (Mongols of the Golden Horde)
Continue in this sourceCarpini and Rubruck in the original Latinc. 1245 to 1329 · 19 passagesTerraced Tatar villages with clay roofs
Editorial contextIn the mountain villages of Toklouk, Kooz and Otouz, Xavier found flat-roofed Tatar houses built against the valley sides, so that the roofs formed terraces where people worked and visited each other. The roofs are stout timber covered with a thick bed of clay. At evening whole villages gathered on them.
the terrace tops of their houses, where they regularly carry on their work, and which are formed of stout carpentry covered with a thick bed of clay. Nothing can be more picturesque than the appearance, at evening, of all these terraces rising in gradations one above the other.
About Crimean Tatars (mountain Tatars)
Continue in this sourceThe Hommaire de Hells in the Caspian steppes and the Crimea1838 to 1841 · 17 passagesRuins the Tatars call the 'Shepherds' Fortress'
Editorial contextOn a headland of the Crimean south coast, Hablizl saw the remains of old columns and fallen masonry. The Tatars called the ruins Choban-kale, 'the shepherds' fortress', not after whoever built them but because the herds grazing there used them as a shelter. It is a small example of how Tatar place names often describe present use rather than claim ancient origins.
On the summit of the headland one still sees the remains of former columns and ruined masonry, which ruins are called by the Tatars Choban-kale, or the Shepherds' Fortress, because they serve as a refuge for the herds grazing there.
Working translation
Original wording
Auf dem Gipfel des Vorgebirges sieht man jetzt noch die Trümmer von ehemaligen Säulen und verfallenes Mauerwerk, welche Ruinen von den Tataren Tschoban-kale oder die Hirten-Festung genannt werden, weil sie den dort weidenden Heerden zum Zufluchtsorte dienen.
About Crimean Tatars (naming older ruins)
Continue in this sourceHablizl's natural history of the Crimea1784 to 1785 · 6 passages