Circassian houses of earth and boughs, and no walled towns
Editorial contextAt Terki the Tsar kept garrisons in all the towns, leaving the Circassians only open towns and villages under their own lords. Their houses were poor ones of earth and branches, plastered inside with clay. Olearius adds that they spoke the common Tartar language and were Muslims in name, though without Koran or priests.
he hath put Garrisons into all the Cities, leaving the Circassian Tartars, for their habitations, but only open Towns and Villages … Their houses are but poor ones, built, for the most part, of earth and boughs of trees, and within, plaister'd over with Clay.
About 'Circassian Tartars' (Kabardians of the Terek) under Russian rule
Continue in this sourceOlearius's embassy down the Volga to Persia1633 to 1639 · 13 passagesA princess with an ox-bladder at her neck
Editorial contextThe ambassadors visited Princess Bike, mother of the Tartar prince Mussal, in a hall with earthen walls lined with vaulted niches full of silk bedding and Persian carpets, weapons hung on the pillars. She and another lady wore a blown-up ox-bladder wrapped in an embroidered scarf behind the neck: the badge of widowhood. Her servants still bore the scratches of mourning on their faces.
She wore, at her neck behind, an Ox-bladder, blown to the utmost, which was wound about towards her hair, with a rich Scarf embroider'd with Gold and Silk … Behind the Chair stood a Lady, who had also a Bladder at her neck, and we were told afterwards that it was the Badge of Widdowhood.
About Circassian Tartar nobility (Kabardians)
Continue in this sourceOlearius's embassy down the Volga to Persia1633 to 1639 · 13 passagesKazan Tatars in multinational Kizlyar
Editorial contextGüldenstädt describes the Russian frontier town of Kizlyar on the Terek as eight national quarters inside an earth rampart: Armenians, Georgians, baptised Nogais and Kumyks, Terek Cossacks, Muslim Kumyks and Nogais, Circassians, Persian merchants, and Tatars who had moved from Kazan, farmed, and alone paid the Russian poll tax. Most houses were thin timber frames with wattle walls plastered with clay and chopped straw; few were of logs or brick, because timber was hard to get.
The quarter of the Kazan Tatars … They moved here from Kazan, farm, and pay poll tax, which no other inhabitants on the Terek do. … Most [houses] are of thin timber framing with wattled walls, then plastered with clay and chopped straw.
Working translation
Original wording
Das Quartier der Kasanischen Tataren … Sie sind von Kasan hieher gezogen, treiben Ackerbau und zahlen Kopfgeld, welches von keinen andern Einwohnern am Terek geschieht. … Die mehresten sind von dünnen Fachwerk mit geflochtenen und denn mit Thon und gehackten Stroh beworfenen Wänden.
About Kazan Tatars; Kumyks and Nogais
Continue in this sourceGüldenstädt's travels through southern Russia and the Caucasus1768 to 1775 · 13 passagesStone statues on the burial mounds
Editorial contextAlong the Tashla Pallas saw the rough-hewn stone statues that stand on burial mounds across the steppe from the Kuban to the Dnieper, always facing east. From their dress and faces he judged that a people related to the Mongols made them. In a footnote on the next page he quotes Rubruck, who credited them to the Cumans, and argues that different monuments on the steppe came from different nations. (Most are now thought to be Cuman (Polovtsian) work of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries.)
If we may judge from the costume and form of the face, they uniformly appear to have been made by a people related to the Mongolians, who formerly inhabited those countries. … All these statues are erected on moderately large sepulchral hills, and their faces are exposed towards the East.
About a people 'related to the Mongolians'
Continue in this sourcePallas's travels through southern Russia and the Crimea1793 to 1794 · 20 passages