A Jewish king ruling Muslims, Christians and pagans
Editorial contextThe author describes Atil's four gates and a king who is Jewish, with judges from each faith: Muslim, Jewish, Christian and pagan. Most inhabitants were Muslims and Christians, and the leading citizens were Muslim merchants. On the same page he notes that their language resembles that of the Turks, glossed by the translator as 'Tartars'.
The king of this country is a Jew : he has in his train four thousand Mussulmans, and Khozrians (Christians), and Idolaters ; but his principal people are Jews … The principal persons of Atel are Mussulmans and merchants: their language is like that of the Turks (or Tartars), and is not understood by any other nation.
About Khazars
Keep in mind
'(or Tartars)' is the translator's gloss for 'Turks'.
Sarai, the Horde's capital, and its ruins on the Akhtuba
Editorial contextIn his survey of the towns of Kipchak, Hammer places Sarai, capital and residence of the khans, on the Akhtuba channel of the Volga, where ruins stretched forty versts into the steppe and at least ten versts along the river. He takes from the Persian historian Wassaf that Batu founded it, and from coins that there were several Sarais: the old and the new (the second only an extension of the first), with Gülistan apparently a suburb, and a third called Sali Serai. Elsewhere (p. 140 to 141) he says Batu built Sarai in his last years, as he had earlier built Kazan.
Sarai, the capital of Kipchak and residence of the khans of the Golden Horde, whose ruins [lie] forty versts into the steppe from the bank of the Volga and at least ten versts along the Akhtuba … There were, as the coins show, three Sarais: the old and the new, the latter being only an extension of the old, just as Gülistan, which often appears on coins, seems to have been only a suburb of the residence Sarai
Working translation
Original wording
Serai, die Hauptstadt von Kiptschak und die Residenz der Chane der goldenen Horde, deren Ruinen vierzig Werste in der Steppe vom Ufer der Wolga, und wenigstens zehn Werste längs der Achtuba … Serai gab es, wie die Gepräge ausweisen, drey, das alte und neue, welches letzte nur ein Zubau des alten, so wie das auf Münzen häufig vorkommende Gülistan nur eine Vorstadt der Residenz Serai gewesen zu seyn scheint
About Golden Horde (Jochid Mongols and their Kipchak subjects)
Keep in mind
Hammer's scheme of several Sarais, and his claim of a Batu-built 'Sarai in the Crimea', were disputed by Fraehn, whose objections he prints in his notes.
Bow to the fire and the idols
Editorial contextWhen Mikhail of Chernigov came to Batu's camp, Batu ordered him to bow to fire and to 'their idols'. Mikhail refused, mocked the idols as deaf, and was killed. The episode matches western reports that visitors had to pass between fires and honour Mongol felt images, and it made Mikhail a Russian saint.
Batu sent to Prince Mikhail, ordering him to bow down to fire and to their idols; but Prince Mikhail did not submit to their command, but reproached him and his deaf idols, and so he was stabbed to death without mercy by the impious ones
Working translation
Original wording
посла Батый къ Михаилу князю, веля ему поклонитися огневи и болваномъ ихъ; Михайло же князь не повинуся велѣнью ихъ, но укори й и глухыя его кумиры, и тако безъ милости отъ нечестивыхъ заколенъ бысть
About Batu; Prince Mikhail of Chernigov
Keep in mind
Told as a martyr story; the fuller hagiographic version is in later chronicles.
Arriving at Ayuki Khan's camp by Lake Manuto
Editorial contextAfter ten days' ride from Saratov the envoys reached the headquarters of Ayuki Khan, not a town but a camp 'at present' on the shore of a lake. The Torghut nobles, priests and chiefs lined the road with their followers, displayed their flocks and herds, set out tables of food, and knelt to offer provisions. The next day the envoys were received in the khan's 'great tent of ceremony'.
we at length arrived at the head-quarters of A-yu-ke, the Khan of the Tourgouth nation, which are situated at present upon the banks of the lake Ma-nu-to. … Their flocks and herds were also collected and displayed, and tables, covered with provisions, laid out before us. All the people had come out to a very considerable distance to meet us
About Torghut Kalmyks (Mongols)
Continue in this sourceA Qing envoy's journey to the Torghut khan on the Volga, 1712 to 17151712 to 1715 · 12 passagesHow a Kalmyk kibitka is put up
Editorial contextCamped in bitter cold above Astrakhan, Bruce's detachment was lent sixty kibitkas by the Kalmyk prince Dasan. He describes them closely: 24 feet across, folding lattice walls six feet high, a round wooden crown raised on lances with holes for the rafters, and a felt covering laid from the bottom up. He found them warmer and more weatherproof than a house.
they are all round, the sides being made of a kind of checkered wicker-work, and the cross sticks neatly jointed for folding together or extending … they raise with their lances a round board, three feet diameter, with a hole in the middle of it … the large hole serves for their chimney, the small holes receive the ends of so many strait rafters
About Kalmyks (Oirat Mongols)
Continue in this sourcePeter Henry Bruce's memoirs of service under Peter the Great1700 to 1733 · 12 passagesMuslim farmers of the Volga Bulghars
Editorial contextThe Bulghars (written Bulkar) lived on the Itil (Volga), between the Khazars and the Slavs; their king was a Muslim. Ibn Rusta says the Khazars and the Rus came to trade with them in sable, ermine and squirrel, and that they farmed wheat, barley and millet, and that most of them were Muslims with mosques and schools. Their land around Bolgar later became part of the Golden Horde and then the Kazan khanate.
They are a people who have crops and ploughing; they sow every kind of grain, wheat, barley, millet and so on. Most of them profess the religion of Islam; in their settlements there are mosques and Quran schools, and they have muezzins and imams.
Working translation
Original wording
وهم قوم لهم زرع وحراثة يزرعون كل الحبوب من الحنطة والشعير والدخن وغير ذلك واكثرهم ينتحلون دين الاسلام وفى محالهم مساجد وكتاتيب ولهم مؤذنون وائمة
About Volga Bulghars
A note on this quote
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of the Arabic is garbled); vowel marks omitted.
The ruins of 'Saroff Gorod'
Editorial contextAbout forty Russian miles below Tsaritsyn Perry notes the ruins of a large city called 'Saroff Gorod', said to have been the ancient seat of a 'Scythian King'. The name points to Sarai, the capital of the Golden Horde on the Akhtuba, though Perry does not connect it with the Tartars at all. Pallas (W005) describes the same brick ruins in detail.
…there is to be seen the Ruins of a large City, call'd Saroff Gorod, in a very pleasant Situation, and which is said to have been the ancient Residence of a Scythian King.
About unnamed builders; Perry reports 'a Scythian King'
Keep in mind
He gives only a report ('is said'); the identification with Sarai is ours, not his.
A ruined brick city 'built by Tamerlane', quarried for Astrakhan
Editorial contextSailing down the Volga, Bruce passed the ruins of a great city called Czarefgorod. He reports the local belief that Tamerlane built it, says its palace and walls were brick, and notes that the Russians had been carting the bricks away for years to build Astrakhan's walls, churches and monasteries. It was most likely one of the Golden Horde's Volga towns.
About forty miles from this, and at a small distance from the river-side, are to be seen the ruins of a great city, formerly called Czaresgorod, built, as is related, by Tamerlane : its palace and walls were all of brick, and have served the city of Astrachan with materials, these many years, for building their walls, churches, and monasteries.
About Golden Horde (credited by local tradition to Tamerlane)
Keep in mind
The Tamerlane attribution is hearsay ('as is related'); Timur sacked the Horde's Volga cities in 1395 rather than building them.
The wind that dried the sea for Möngke
Editorial contextIn the Chinese biography of Möngke, the Kipchak chief Bachman fled to an island in the sea. When Möngke arrived, a strong wind drove the water off the shallows and his army crossed; Möngke declared that Heaven itself was opening the road. Bachman, captured, refused to kneel, saying 'I was the ruler of a state' and 'am I a camel, that I should kneel?', and warned that the water would soon return. The next sentence says Möngke then marched with Batu against Rus ('Oros').
By good fortune a strong wind drove the sea water off the shallow places, so that it was possible to cross. The khan, delighted, said: 'Heaven itself opens the road for me.' … The khan ordered him to kneel; but Bachman said: 'I was the ruler of a state, and can I value my life? Besides, I am not a camel: why should I kneel?'
Working translation
Original wording
По счастію, сильный вѣтеръ согналъ морскую воду съ мелкихъ мѣстъ, такъ, что можно было переправиться. Ханъ, обрадовавшись, сказалъ: »Само Небо открываетъ дорогу мнѣ.« … Ханъ приказалъ ему стать на колѣна: но Бацимакъ сказалъ: »Я былъ обладателемъ государства и могу ли дорожить жизнію? Сверхъ сего я не верблюдъ: для чего мнѣ становиться на колѣна?«
About Mongols (Möngke) and Kipchaks (Bachman)
Keep in mind
An official dynastic history that presents the wind as a sign of Heaven's favour; not an eyewitness account.
The scan is too rough to double-check this quote by machine. Compare it with the page.
Khan Janibek's giant cooking pot
Editorial contextThe buildings of the Russian saltpetre works at Selitrennoe, Gmelin notes, were mostly built from the rubble of the Tatar ruins. Among the old boiling kettles of the works lay one so huge that the local Tatars told a tale about it: that it was a relic of their past, in which Khan Janibek had twelve oxen cooked at once for his feasts. Gmelin says flatly that it is a Crown saltpetre kettle.
[the dwellings of] some people living here are mostly built from Tatar rubble … In the boiling works there are still furnaces and kettles. Among the latter lies one … The Tatars tell a fable that it is a Tatar relic and that Khan Janibek had 12 oxen cooked in it at once at his feasts. But it is certainly a saltpetre kettle belonging to the Crown.
Working translation
Original wording
einige hier wohnenden Leute, sind meistens von tatarischen Trümmern erbauet … In der Siederey sind noch Oefen und Keßel. Unter letztern liegt einer … Die Tataren fabeln, daß er ein tatarisch Ueberbleibsel sey und daß Chan Dschanibek in demselben, bey seinen Schmausen, 12 Ochsen zugleich kochen laßen. Es ist aber gewiß ein der Krone gehöriger Salpeter-Keßel.
About Tatars of the lower Volga
Keep in mind
A local legend that Gmelin rejects on the spot.
The camel's tower and a pipeline of mare's milk
Editorial contextPallas was told of a great heap of bricks on the steppe, called by Russians the 'hill of the house of prayer' and by Kalmyks 'the camel's tower'. The Kalmyks said that Janibek Khan (who ruled the Golden Horde 1342 to 1357) kept mares here and piped their milk to his residence. Pallas dryly replies that the burial mounds all around show what the building was really for.
…there is a large heap of bricks, called by the Russians, Metshetnoi Bugor, or the hill of the House of Prayer, and by the Kalmuks, Temahne Balgasum, or the camel's tower. The Kalmuks give the following account of this place: Dshanibek-Khan kept here a number of mares, whose milk was conveyed by tubes, from this tower to his residence.
About Kalmyk tradition about Janibek Khan of the Golden Horde
Keep in mind
A Kalmyk legend that Pallas reports and rejects.
A hill heaped over a Tartar emperor by soldiers' helmets
Editorial contextBelow Samara the Russians pointed out a round hill called Sanol Kiergan and told de Bruyn it was the tomb of a Tartar emperor named Mammon, who came up the Volga with seventy other Tartar kings to conquer Russia and died there. His soldiers filled their helmets and shields with earth to raise the mound. The name may echo Mamai, the Golden Horde warlord of the 1370s; Struys (W249) heard a version in 1669.
The Russians told us it was the tomb of a king or emperor of Tartary named Mammon, who had come up the Volga with seventy other Tartar kings to seize all Russia. That this prince having died in that place, the soldiers … filled their helmets and shields with earth to raise him a tomb, from which this mountain had been formed.
Working translation
Original wording
Les Russiens nous dirent que c'étoit le tombeau d'un Roi, ou d'un Empereur de Tartarie, nommé Mammon, qui avoit monté le Wolga avec 70. autres Rois Tartares, pour s'emparer de toute la Russie. Que ce Prince étant mort en ce lieu-là, les soldats … remplirent leurs casques & leurs boucliers de terre, pour lui dresser un tombeau, dont cette montagne avoit été formée.
About a legendary 'Emperor of Tartary' called Mammon
Keep in mind
A folk legend told by Russian boatmen; the hill may be natural.
Silent trade with unseen people in the Land of Darkness
Editorial contextAt Bulgar he was told of a Land of Darkness forty days north, reached only by dog-sledges over ice, where there were no trees, stones or houses. Merchants left their goods and withdrew; next day they found sable and ermine in their place, and could take the furs or leave them. Nobody ever saw the other party, so the merchants did not know if they traded with men or demons. He did not go.
each man, leaving what he has brought with him, goes back to his appointed station. On the morrow they return to look for their goods, and find, instead of them, sable, ermine, and the fur of the sinjab. … for the merchants know not whether it is with mankind or demons that they have to do ; no one being seen during the transaction.
About Unknown northern peoples; Golden Horde merchants
Keep in mind
Hearsay; he says he decided not to make the journey. Modern scholars also doubt that he reached Bulgar itself.
How a Kalmyk felt tent is put together
Editorial contextPallas gives a step-by-step account of the Kalmyk tent, keyed to an engraved plate: folding lattice walls of willow rods tied into a circle, a wooden crown ring lifted on long roof rods, the frame painted red, and a large cut felt thrown over the roof like a raincoat. In summer the sides stay open; in cold weather they are wrapped in felt or reed mats.
Then the frame, whose parts are usually painted red, is finished. Over its roof a large felt, cut to fit, is laid round like a raincoat and fastened with ropes slung over it. The sides stay open in summer, but when it is cold pieces of felt or reed mats, or both, are laid around them.
Working translation
Original wording
Alsdenn ist das Gerüste, dessen Theile roth angefärbt zu seyn pflegen fertig. Ueber das Dach desselben wird ein grosser, darnach zugeschnittener Filz, wie ein Regen-Mantel herum gelegt, und mit darüber geschlungenen Seilen befestigt. Die Seiten bleiben im Sommer offen, wenn es aber kalt ist, so werden Stücken Filz, oder Schilfmatten, oder auch beyde darum gelegt
About Kalmyks (Torghut Kalmyks of the Volga)
Continue in this sourcePallas's journey through the provinces of the Russian Empire1768 to 1774 · 20 passagesTatar tents that ride on two-wheeled carts
Editorial contextAlong the Akhtuba Pallas saw the camps of the Kundurov Tatars, Nogais from the Kuban who had stayed behind when many Kalmyks fled east in 1771. Unlike Kalmyk tents, their round felt-and-reed huts could not be taken apart and were small enough to set whole onto a tall two-wheeled cart (arba), which they covered like a parasol. He compares them to the wagon-dwelling 'Hamaxobii' of the ancient geographers and quotes Horace on the Scythians whose carts drag their wandering homes.
Their yurts are very different in shape and construction from those used by the Kalmyks and other Asian nomads. They cannot be taken apart piece by piece, but are all the more lightly built and only so large that they can be set over a big cart.
Working translation
Original wording
Ihre Jurten sind in der Gestalt und Bauart, von denen bey Kalmücken und andern asiatischen Nomaden gebräuchlichen sehr verschieden. Sie können nicht stückweise aus einander genommen werden, sind aber desto leichter gebaut und nur so groß, daß sie über einen grossen Karren gesetzt werden können
About Kundurov Tatars (Nogais from the Kuban)
Continue in this sourcePallas's journey through the provinces of the Russian Empire1768 to 1774 · 20 passagesAtil: a capital of tents with one brick palace
Editorial contextThe Khazar capital on the Volga is described as mostly tents. Only a few market halls and bathhouses were of clay, and the king's residence was the only burnt-brick building in the country, because nobody else was allowed to build in brick. It is a precise picture of a steppe capital before the Mongols, on the same river where Sarai and Astrakhan later stood.
Here are many tents ; and in this country there are but a few edifices of clay, such as bazars (market-places) and bathing houses. … it is constructed of burnt bricks ; and this is the only building of such materials in all the country : they will not allow any body but the king to erect such a dwelling.
About Khazars
Keep in mind
The Khazars are not called Tartars in the original; this is the pre-Mongol Volga.
A hill made of the bones of a Tartar emperor and seventy kings
Editorial contextPassing a hill called Sariol-Kurgan, Struys records a Russian tradition: the place was once a plain where an Emperor of Tartary came with seventy kings and a countless army to seize Muscovy, and was beaten there with all his men. The mountain, the story ends, is made of their bones (the OCR of those last words is damaged). Cornelis de Bruyn heard a version of the same legend in 1703 (W251).
one of them, called Sariol-Kurgan, if one believes the tradition of the Muscovites, was made in a very strange way. This place, they say, was once a vast plain, where an Emperor of Tartary came down with seventy kings and a countless army to seize Muscovy, and was beaten and defeated there with all who accompanied him
Working translation
Original wording
l'une appelée Sariol-Kurgan, si l'on en croit la tradition des Moscovites, a été faite d'une manière fort étrange. Ce lieu disent-ils, étoit autrefois une vaste plaine, où un Empereur de Tartarie étant descendu avec soixante & dix Rois & un armée innombrable pour se s'emparer de la Moscovie, il y fut battu & défait avec tous ceux qui l'accompagnoient
About a legendary 'Emperor of Tartary'
Keep in mind
A local legend told by Russians; a kurgan is a burial mound, but nothing here dates it or names its builders.
What the Kalmyks call Tatars, Russians and themselves
Editorial contextPallas ends his notes on Mongol learning with a list of Kalmyk names for peoples and places. The Kalmyks call the Tatars 'Manggot', a word meaning a goblin, which the Buryats and Mongols apply to the Russians instead; the Kalmyks call Russians 'Orross' and themselves 'Oelöt' or 'Chalmik'. The list also gives Tobolsk as 'Toboltora' and Bukhara as 'Chotton', 'the towns'.
Manggot, the Tatars, a name which, however, means a goblin, and which the Buryats and Mongols give to the Russians; the latter, on the other hand, are called Orross by the Kalmyks … and themselves, finally, Oelöt or Chalmik
Working translation
Original wording
Manggot, die Tataren, welchen Namen aber, der einen Kobolt bedeutet, die Buraten und Mongolen den Russen beylegen; Orroß werden leztere hingegen von den Kalmücken … genannt … sich selbst endlich Oelöt oder Chalmik
About Kalmyks (Oirats); Tatars; Russians
Continue in this sourcePallas's historical collections on the Mongol peoples1769 to 1773 · 6 passagesCrimean guides who led a Turkish army to starve
Editorial contextAsked how the Muscovites had inflicted a great defeat on the Turks when a river diversion was attempted, Possevino's informant said it was not the Muscovites but the Crimean Tatars who did it. Though allies of the Turks, they feared a heavier yoke if the scheme succeeded, so they offered themselves as guides and led the Turkish troops through vast forests and foodless country until nearly all died of hunger and toil.
... the Muscovite had inflicted [so great a defeat on the Turks], when he had ordered the Don to be diverted into the Borysthenes: he answered that this was done not by the Muscovites but by the Precop Tartars, though allies of the Turks, who resented the scheme because they foresaw a heavier yoke hanging over them. So, offering themselves as guides to the Turkish forces, they led them round through huge forests and places without supplies, so that almost all of them perished of hunger and toil.
Working translation
Original wording
cladem Moscus intulisset, cùm Tanaim deriuari iussisset in Boristhenem: respondit, hoc non à Moscis, sed à Tartaris Præcopensibus, licèt Turcarum fœderatis, accidisse, ægrè ferentibus id fieri, vnde grauius sibi iugum pendere prospicerent. Quamobrem cùm sese duces itineris Copijs Turcicis exhibuissent, per ingentes syluas, & loca commeatus egena, eas circumduxisse, vt fame, ac labore pleræq; omnes fermè interierint.
About Crimean ('Precop') Tatars; Ottoman Turks
Keep in mind
Hearsay. The river named is garbled: the real 1569 Ottoman plan was a Don to Volga canal to reach Astrakhan (a reader of this copy wrote 'Volgam' in the margin).
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR garbled); long s normalized.
Walls of ice at Astrakhan, and Timur's razing of Sarai
Editorial contextAfter defeating Tokhtamysh, Timur resolved to level Astrakhan. Its people used the hard winter to build walls of ice blocks cemented by pouring water over them, but Timur marched through the deep snow, emptied the town, razed it and had its headman (kelanter) Mahmudi drowned under the ice that was meant to protect him. He then went on to Sarai, capital and residence of the khans, and laid it waste, as revenge for the Horde's earlier destruction of a city of the Chagatai realm. The loot of both cities was divided among the army.
In spite of the severe winter, which still gave the inhabitants of Astrakhan the advantage of fortifying themselves with walls of ice, joined together by pouring water over them, and in spite of the deep snow, he marched on Astrakhan, emptied the town of its inhabitants and had it razed … From Astrakhan Timur moved to Sarai, the capital of Kipchak and residence of the khans, and laid it waste
Working translation
Original wording
Trotz des strengen Winters, welcher den Bewohnern von Astrachan noch den Vortheil gewährte, sich mit Eismauern, welche, mit Wasser übergossen, zusammengefügt wurden, zu befestigen, und trotz des tiefen Schnees marschierte er auf Astrachan, leerte die Stadt von ihren Bewohnern, liess sie schleifen … Von Astrachan zog Timur nach Serai, der Hauptstadt von Kiptschak und der Residenz der Chane, und verheerte dieselbe
About Timur's army; townspeople of the Golden Horde
Keep in mind
Told from the victor's side: Hammer follows Sharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi's Zafarnama, written in the 1420s for Timur's grandson, through Pétis de la Croix's French version.
The vegetable lamb of the Volga
Editorial contextHerberstein's most famous marvel: a Russian informant said his father, on an embassy to the Tartar king, saw a seed that grew into a lamb-like plant called 'boranetz' (little lamb) with wool, blood and hoofs, which grazed until the grass around it ran out. Herberstein admits it sounds incredible but repeats it because trustworthy people vouched for the wool. Editor Major adds that it was a fern (Polypodium baromez) trimmed to look like a lamb.
he had seen in the island a certain seed, somewhat larger and rounder, but not unlike the seed of a melon, from which, when planted, grew up something very like a lamb, of the height of five palms, and that it was called in their language " boranetz", which signifies a lambkin
About Tartars of the Great Horde (Savolha)
Keep in mind
Thirdhand (informant's father); Herberstein calls it 'almost incredible'.
'The Golden Horde': stone Tatar mosques on the Akhtuba
Editorial contextIn one line the book marks the ruins of the Golden Horde's capital: 90 versts along the Akhtuba from Tsaritsyn lies 'the Golden Horde, stone Tatar mosques'. By 1600 the city was a field of ruins, and Muscovite clerks named both the builders (the Horde) and the material (stone).
And along the river Akhtuba, 90 versts from Tsaritsyn, is the Golden Horde, stone Tatar mosques.
Working translation
Original wording
А по рѣкѣ по Ахтубѣ на 90 верстахъ отъ Царицына, Золотая орда, мечети Татарскія каменныя.
About The Golden Horde (its ruined capital)
Keep in mind
The book gives no date or builder name beyond 'Golden Horde'; the identification with Sarai (Tsarev settlement) is by later scholars.
The Khazar king's tomb under a river, its builders beheaded
Editorial contextThe Khazar excerpt says that when the supreme king died, a great building with twenty rooms was raised over a river, with a grave dug in every room, so that no one would know which held the king. The men who buried him were then beheaded. The tomb was called 'paradise'. A page later (n30) it adds that a king was killed if he reigned a day beyond forty years.
When the supreme king dies, a great palace divided into twenty rooms is built, and a grave is dug in each one… Once the king is buried, the necks of those who buried him are cut, so that no one may know in which of the rooms his grave lies.
Working translation
Original wording
Regi supremo mortuo magnum exstruatur palatium in viginti divisum conclavia, inque singulis sepulchrum fodiatur… Sepulto Rege, colla eorum, qui eum composuere, amputantur, ne quis sciat, in quonam eorum conclavium ejus sepulchrum sit.
About Khazars
Keep in mind
Hearsay about a court the author had not seen.
Sarai, the lost capital of the Golden Horde
Editorial contextIn Saratov a local official showed Haxthausen coins and ornaments dug from the 'supposed ruins' of Sarai. He then retells its history: Batu founded the city, the khans built magnificent palaces, and Russian grand dukes came to kneel there. On the next page he marvels that nobody could yet say for certain where this great capital had stood.
Batu Khan, the Grand Khan of the Golden Horde, who ruled over the half of two hemispheres, founded in the thirteenth century a powerful city, Sarai, and fixed his residence there. He and his successors built palaces of fabulous magnificence. Princes, among others the Grand Dukes of Russia, were obliged to come and bend the knee before their lord and swear fealty to him
About Khans of the Golden Horde (Mongols and Tatars)
Keep in mind
The history is Haxthausen's summary of received accounts, not something he saw; 'palaces of fabulous magnificence' is his phrase, not a description of surviving remains.
'Worse than evil is Tatar honour'
Editorial contextThe chronicler breaks off to lament what homage meant: a great prince who ruled Kiev, Vladimir and Galich now knelt and was called a slave, and paid tribute in fear for his life. He adds that the Tatars had poisoned Grand Prince Iaroslav of Suzdal and knifed Mikhail of Chernigov for not bowing to the bush. Daniil stayed 25 days before he was sent home with his lands confirmed.
O, worse than evil is Tatar honour! Daniil Romanovich was a great prince, who ruled the Russian land, Kiev and Vladimir and Galich, with his brother, and other lands: now he sits on his knees and is called a slave, and they want tribute, he does not expect to live, and threats come.
Working translation
Original wording
О злѣе зла честь Татарьская! Данилови Романовичю князю бывшу велику, обладавшу Рускою землею, Кыевомъ и Володимеромъ и Галичемъ, со братомъ си инѣми странами: нынѣ сѣдить на колѣну и холопомъ называеться, и дани хотять, живота не чаеть и грозы приходять.
About Batu's Horde; Prince Daniil of Galicia
Keep in mind
The poisoning of Iaroslav is the chronicler's claim (Carpini reports a similar suspicion); it is not proven.
Kalmyk fishing camps of felt tents
Editorial contextSailing down the Volga to the Caspian, Hanway slept within pistol-shot of a Kalmyk settlement and describes their round tents (kibitkas) of canes covered with thick camel-hair felt, with the fire in the middle and the smoke going out at the top. These were poor Kalmyks living by fishing, seven or eight tents together under a chosen chief; others migrated south for the winter.
At night we slept within pistol-shot of a Khalmuck settlement. The habitations of these people are round tents, which they call khabitka's, raised with canes in the form of a cone, and covered with wilocks. These tents are of 10, and some of 15 yards in circumference, and about 12 feet high; they make their fires in the center of the tent,
About Kalmyk Tartars
Continue in this sourceJonas Hanway's history of British trade over the Caspian1743 to 1745 · 17 passagesFelt tents that beat army canvas
Editorial contextBergmann explains the Kalmyk hut: a lattice wall, a wooden roof ring, poles between them, and felt covers tied on with strong bands of camel wool; when a fire is lit, the felt is simply pulled back from the roof ring to let the smoke out. He insists these huts keep out rain and storm, stay warmer in winter and cooler in summer than soldiers' canvas tents, and are ideal for nomads who rarely stay more than a week in one place, since they come apart easily and travel on camels.
Outside, such huts are covered with felt, and the felts are fastened with strong bands of camel wool. … They withstand rain and gale, are far warmer in winter and protect far better against the heat in summer than ordinary soldiers' tents of sailcloth. … which can be taken apart with little trouble and carried on by camel.
Working translation
Original wording
Auswendig sind dergleichen Hütten mit Filzdecken umzogen, und diese mit starken Bändern von Kameelwolle befestigt. … Sie widerstehen dem Regen und Sturmwinde, halten im Winter weit wärmer, und schützen im Sommer weit mehr gegen die Hitze, als die gewöhnlichen Soldatenzelte von Seegeltuch. … die sich mit leichter Mühe aus einander nehmen, und auf Kameelen weiter fortschaffen lassen.
About Volga Kalmyks (Torghut and Dörbet Mongols)
Continue in this sourceBergmann's wanderings among the Kalmyks1802 to 1803 · 11 passagesA Tartar emperor buried under his soldiers' helmets of sand
Editorial contextNear Samara the Russians showed Olearius a sand hill called Sariol Kurgan. They said a Tartar emperor named Momaon, who meant to invade Muscovy with seven kings, died there, and his soldiers heaped sand over him with their helmets and shields until the grave became a hill. A tale about a burial mound, told to him by Russians.
The Muscovites call it Sariol Kurgan, and affirm, that a certain Tartarian Emperour, named Momaon, who had a design to enter Muscovy, together with seven Kings of the same Nation, dy'd in that place, and that his Soldiers, instead of burying him, fill'd their Head-pieces and Bucklers with Sand, and so cover'd the body that it became a Mountain.
About Tartars (a Golden Horde ruler)
Keep in mind
Russian folk explanation of a natural or man-made hill; 'Momaon' may be a memory of Mamai, the Horde commander of the 1370s, but the source does not say so.
Blue-glazed stone at Selitrennoe: who taught the Tatars enamel?
Editorial contextAt the saltpetre works of Selitrennoi Gorodok, Gmelin walked over the ruins of a Tatar town some 3 versts long, which the Tatars called Dschigit-Adschi after a young pilgrim said to have built it. He found heaps of bricks, old masonry and the remains of a large vaulted building 10 by 5 fathoms whose stones were skilfully cut, glazed blue and inlaid with small coloured stones, and he asks who could have taught the old Tatars enamelling. Human bones lay everywhere from treasure-digging, which had turned up gold and silver objects, earrings, rings, coins and seals.
The old remains themselves consist of … the wreckage of a sizeable building 10 fathoms long and 5 fathoms wide, with cavities or vaults. Many stones of the ruined building are not only artfully cut but also glazed blue, and partly inlaid very painstakingly and skilfully with other smaller coloured stones. Who, one wonders, taught the old Tatars to enamel with smalt?
Working translation
Original wording
Die alten Ueberbleibsel selbst bestehen in … Trümmern von einem ansehnlichen Gebäude welches 10 Faden lang und 5 Faden breit ist und Höhlen oder Gewölber hat. Viele Steine der Trümmer des Gebäudes sind nicht nur künstlich gehauen, sondern auch blau glasiret und theils mit andern kleinern, gefärbten Steinen sehr mühsam und geschikt ausgelegt. Wer hat wohl den alten Tataren das Emailliren mit Smalte gelehret?
About 'The old Tatars' (the town the Tatars call Dschigit-Adschi)
Keep in mind
Pallas, as editor, calls Gmelin's account of the name 'inaccurate' and refers readers to his own description of the site. The question about enamel is Gmelin's rhetorical doubt, not an answer.
Ruins of an imperial city, its stones carried off to build Astrakhan
Editorial contextNear Tsaritsyn Struys passed the ruins of Czaresgorod, the 'Imperial City', which he says Tamerlane destroyed. It had been built of hard stone, some remains of which could still be seen, but most of it had been carried off to Astrakhan to build that city. This matches the known reuse of brick and stone from the ruined Golden Horde capital, though Struys does not say who built it.
we passed near the ruins of Czaresgorod, or Imperial City, which was destroyed by Tamerlane during the war we spoke of above. It was built of hard stones, of which some remains are still seen, but most were carried to Astrakhan and served to build it.
Working translation
Original wording
nous passâmes prés des ruines de Czaresgorod ou Ville Impériale, qui fut détruite par Tamerlan pendant la guerre dont nous avons ci-dessus parlé. Elle étoit bâtie de pierres dures dont on voit encore quelques restes, mais la plupart furent portées à Astracan, & servirent à la construire.
About Golden Horde (not named as such)
Keep in mind
Struys saw ruins from the river; the Tamerlane story and the stone reuse he had from others.
Prince Michael refuses to bow to Chinggis Khan's image
Editorial contextCarpini tells how Michael of Chernigov, a great Russian prince, came to submit to Batu. He was first made to pass between two fires, then told to bow southwards to the image of Chinggis Khan. He answered that he would gladly bow to Batu and his servants, but not to the image of a dead man, since Christians may not; after repeated refusals he was kicked in the chest until he died.
So it recently happened that Michael, one of the great dukes of Russia, when he went to submit to Batu, was first made to pass between two fires; after this they told him to bow to the south to Chinggis Khan. He answered that he would willingly bow to Batu and even to his servants, but he would not bow to the image of a dead man, because Christians may not do so
Working translation
Original wording
undè nuper contigit quod Michael, qui fuit unus de magnis ducibus Rusciæ, cùm ivisset ad reddendum se Bati, fecerunt eum priùs inter duos ignes transire; post hoc dixerunt ei quod ad meridiem Chingis-can inclinaret: qui respondit quòd Bati et servis suis etiàm inclinaret libenter, sed imagini hominis mortui non inclinaret, quià non licet hoc facere christianis
About Mongols of the Golden Horde; Russian princes
Keep in mind
Carpini reports this as recent news, not as something he witnessed; Michael was later venerated as a martyr, so the story also served Christian purposes.
Raising a khan on white felt
Editorial contextSchiltberger says the Great Tartars sow only millet, eat no bread and drink no wine, but drink mare's and camel's milk and eat horse and camel meat. The khan and his people live in the open fields winter and summer. A new khan is set on a white felt and lifted up three times, carried round the tent, and given a golden sword.
It is also to be noted, that when they choose a king, they take him and seat him on white felt, and raise him in it three times. Then they lift him up and carry him round the tent, and seat him on a throne, and put a golden sword in his hand.
About Tartars of the Golden Horde
Keep in mind
He witnessed several quick changes of khan while with Chekre, but does not say which enthronement he saw.
The Khazars' Jewish king and Turk-like people
Editorial contextIbn Rusta says the Khazars had a king called Isha who ran the army, while the supreme king, the Khazar Khaqan, had only the name. The supreme ruler was of the Jewish religion, as were Isha and the commanders and nobles who followed him; the rest followed a religion like that of the Turks.
They have a king called Isha; the supreme king is the Khazar Khaqan, but he has nothing of the Khazars' obedience except the name … Their supreme chief follows the religion of the Jews, and so do Isha and those commanders and great men who lean his way; the rest of them follow a religion like the religion of the Turks.
Working translation
Original wording
ولهم ملك يقال له ايشا والملك الاعظم انما هو خزر خاقان وليس له من طاعة الخزر الا الاسم … ورئيسهم الاعظم على دين اليهود وكذلك ايشا ومن يميل ميله من القواد والعظماء والبقية منهم على دين شبيه دين الاتراك
About Khazars
Keep in mind
Copied from an earlier report; the Khazar state was destroyed c.965, long before the word Tartar came into use.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of the Arabic is garbled); vowel marks omitted.
Timur tears down Sarai, Saraichuk and Astrakhan
Editorial contextAfter defeating Toqtamish, Timur's raiders reached Azaq (Azov), and he destroyed Sarai, Saraichuk and Hajji Tarkhan (Astrakhan) and the surrounding lands. The line is short, but it records in plain words that the Golden Horde's cities were destroyed by Timur, not lost to any natural catastrophe.
… of wealth, captives and goods; his raiding parties reached Azaq, and he demolished Sarai, Saraichuk and Hajji Tarkhan and those regions.
Working translation
Original wording
من الاموال والاسرى والمتاع ووصلت طراشته الى ازاق وهدم سراي وسرايجوق وحاجي ترخان وتلك الآفاق
About Golden Horde (Toqtamish's realm)
Keep in mind
Ibn Arabshah was a child in Damascus in 1395; he learned this from others, later.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of this print is garbled); vowel marks and the asterisk dividers of the rhymed prose omitted.
Batu's 'Mongol' army had very few Mongols
Editorial contextIn footnotes to his account of Batu's conquest of Russia and sack of Kiev in 1240, Klaproth points out that Batu's army contained very few Mongols and that he ruled as prince of the Kipchak Tartars. The khans of Kipchak called themselves Tartar sultans and lived at Sarai on the Akhtuba; after their empire split, the khans of Kazan, Astrakhan and Crimea kept the title.
Batu-chan had very few Mongols in his army, and had become prince of the Kipdschak Tartars… The chans of Kipdschak styled themselves Tartar sultans, and resided in the city of Sarai or Saratschik on the river Achtuba; an arm of the Wolga, till the division of their extensive dominions.
About Kipchak Tatars; Golden Horde
Continue in this sourceJulius Klaproth's travels in the Caucasus and Georgia1807 to 1808 · 14 passagesUnwashed lamb and mare's milk that 'stank most horribly'
Editorial contextHiding from the khan's search on a Volga island, the starving Contarini was fed by his Tatar guide's people. They killed a lamb for him and cooked it without washing it, saying washing spoils the flavour. They pressed mare's milk on him as a strengthening drink, and were offended when he refused it.
a lamb was killed in my honour, which was partly roasted and partly boiled, but no trouble whatever was taken to wash the flesh, as they say that washing takes all the flavour away … Mare's milk was also brought, which they hold in great esteem … as they say it gives great strength to man; but, as it stank most horribly, I refused to taste it
About Tatars of the Astrakhan steppe
Continue in this sourceTwo Venetians among the Tatars: Barbaro at Tana and Contarini at Astrakhanc. 1436 to 1479 · 19 passagesWishing an enemy a house and a job
Editorial contextBell describes the Volga Kalmyks as herders who despise settled work. They have no craftsmen except armourers, and their worst curse is that a man should live in one place and labour like a Russian. On the same page he praises their language for lacking oaths and quotes their proverb 'Though a knife be sharp it cannot cut its own handle'.
They have no mechanics, except those who make arms. They avoid all labour as the greatest slavery; their only employment is tending their flocks, managing horses, and hunting. If they are angry with a person, they wish he may live in one place, and work like a Russian.
About Kalmyk Tartars
Continue in this sourceJohn Bell's travels from St Petersburg across Asia1715 to 1738 · 18 passages'Kalmyk': a Tatar word for those who stayed behind, or turned away
Editorial contextBergmann spells the name 'Kalmük' after the pronunciation of the Russians and Tatars, because the name itself comes from Tatar. The Kalmyks once called themselves Oelöt (Oirats). He rejects Strahlenberg's idea that the name comes from kalpak, a cap, and follows the Khivan historian Abulghazi: the Tatar word means either 'those left behind' or 'apostates'. On the next page he guesses that Tatars and Mongols once shared one religion, and that when the Mongols turned to Lamaist Buddhism the Muslim Tatars called them apostates.
Far more likely is the derivation from the word khalimak. Abulghazi himself seems to confirm this by giving this people the name Khalmak. According to this Tatar expression, the name Kalmyk means either apostates or those who remained behind.
Working translation
Original wording
Weit wahrscheinlicher ist die Herleitung von … Worte Chalimäk. Abulhasi selbst scheint das dadurch zu bestätigen, daß er diesem Volke den Namen Khalmak beilegt. Dem eben angeführten tatarischen Ausdrucke nach, bezeichnet der Name Kalmük entweder Abtrünnige oder Nachgebliebene.
About Kalmyks (Oirats), named by their Tatar neighbours
Keep in mind
An etymology argued from earlier writers; the religious explanation on the next page is Bergmann's own hypothesis.
Elephant bones by the Volga: war elephants, not the Flood
Editorial contextA broken elephant tusk nearly a metre long had washed out of a river bank, and human bones and broken iron spearheads had been found nearby. Lepekhin sets aside the theories that the far north was once hot, that the Flood carried the beasts there, or that they were freaks of nature. He argues instead that Asian peoples trained elephants for war, that these animals were buried only a few hundred years ago, and that Tatar-style armies would never have bothered to saw off the tusks.
That some of the Asiatic peoples trained elephants for fighting and battle is, in my opinion, surely a well-known fact. Accordingly my view is that these foreign corpses were buried not far from the Volga not many thousands but a few hundred years ago. … [another thing is] to saw off elephant tusks and drag them away, especially when we consider the way the Tatars are used to going to war.
Working translation
Original wording
Daß aber die asiatischen Völker zum Theil Elephanten zum Gefecht und zur Schlacht abgerichtet haben, ist ja wohl, meines Erachtens, eine bekannte Sache. Und diesemnach ist meine Meynung, daß diese ausländischen Leichen nicht vor vielen tausend, sondern vor etlichen hundert Jahren nicht weit von der Wolga begraben worden sind. … Elephantenzähne abzusägen und mit fortzuschleppen, zumal wenn wir die Art bedenken, wie die Tatarn zu Felde zu ziehen pflegen.
About 'Asiatic peoples' and Tatar armies (Lepekhin's theory)
Keep in mind
He saw the tusk; the war-elephant explanation is his own guess. Such tusks are now known to be fossil mammoth ivory, and he himself mentions 'mammoth bones' from Siberia on the same page.
Homes on eight-foot wheels
Editorial contextWhen the camp moves, Perry says, women and children ride in covered carriages on two great wheels about eight feet across, high enough to ford small rivers, and they live in these as well as in their tents 'like as in Houses'. Bactrian camels ('dromedaries') pull them. People of rank have several such carriages for baggage and servants.
…Wives and their Children are drawn on covered Machines fixed on two large Wheels of about 8 Foot diameter, … so that they can easily ford over small Rivers; in which, as well as their Tents, they live like as in Houses; and Persons of Distinction have several of these for their Baggage and Retinue. They are drawn by Dromedaries,
About Kalmyks and other steppe Tartars
Continue in this sourceCaptain John Perry on the state of Peter the Great's Russia1698 to 1712 · 11 passagesHorsemeat, mare's milk and 'no lies' among the Sarai Tatars
Editorial contextOn the Tatars around old Sarai, Evliya writes that they love horseflesh above all, some boiling it and some eating it raw with the blood running, and drink boza, kumiss (mare's milk) and camel's milk. He claims they know no backbiting, slander or lies, since they fear no one. All these Tatars are desert-dwellers who move with their camel-carts, and they became Muslims (Hanafi and Shafi'i) after Chinggis Khan.
What all of them love most is horse meat: many tribes cook horse meat, and many tribes eat the meat raw with the blood running. Instead of water they drink boza, mare's-milk kumiss and camel's milk … and all the Tatars are desert-dwellers; they mount their camel-carts and migrate.
Working translation
Original wording
همان جملهسی زیاده محبت اتدکلری آت اتیدر ونیجه قبیلهسی آت اتن بشررلر ونیجه قبیلهسی قانی آقیده آقیده اتی چیك یرلر صو یرینه بوزا وآت سودی قمزی ودوه سودی ایچرلر ... وجمله تاتار صحرا نشینلردر دوه عربهلریله بنوب کوچرلر
About Nogay and other Tatars of the Volga (the 'Sarai Tatars')
Keep in mind
Mixes observation with stock claims; Evliya's Volga journey is thought partly invented or exaggerated.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR is partly garbled); bracketed variant markers omitted.
Sorcery, Chinggis Khan's dreams and bowing to a bush
Editorial contextOn his way to Batu, Daniil passed through the camp of the commander Kuremsa and was horrified by Tatar religion as a Christian saw it: shamans' 'kudesy' (sorcery), the 'dreams' of 'Chigizakon' (Chinggis Khan), and visiting kings and princes being led around a bush to bow to the sun, the moon, the earth and the souls of their ancestors. At Batu's camp Sangur, a man in the service of Prince Yaroslav, told him that his 'brother' Yaroslav had bowed to the bush and he must do so too.
for he saw them possessed by the devil: their foul sorcerers' ravings and the dreams of Chigizakon, his foul blood-drinkings, his many witchcrafts; the kings and princes and nobles who came were led around a bush to bow to the sun and moon and earth, to the devil and to their fathers and grandfathers and mothers who have died and are in hell
Working translation
Original wording
видя бо обладаемы дьяволомъ: скверная ихъ кудешьская бляденья и Чигизаконова мечтанья, скверная его кровопитья, многыя его вольшбы; приходящія цари, и князи и велможѣ, солнцю и лунѣ и земли, дьяволу и умершимъ въ адѣ отцемъ ихъ и дѣдомъ и матеремъ, водяше около куста покланятися
About Tatars of Kuremsa and Batu; Prince Daniil of Galicia
Keep in mind
A hostile Christian description; the chronicler learned it from Daniil's party, not from Mongol informants.
A khan's burial mound heaped up with helmets and shields
Editorial contextSailing down the Volga below Simbirsk in May 1703, the traveller saw a high, almost treeless round hill called Sariolkiergan. Russians told him it was the tomb of a Tatar king named Mamon (Mamai), who had come up the Volga with seventy Tatar princes to conquer Russia, and that his soldiers had carried the earth for the mound in their helmets and shields. It is a local legend about a kurgan, reported as hearsay.
The Russians told us that there lay the tomb of a Tartar king or emperor named Mamon, who had come up the Volga with seventy other Tartar princes, intending to make himself master of all Russia. But because this prince died here, the soldiers he had brought in great numbers raised this tomb in his honour, and carried the earth to this hill in their helmets and shields.
Working translation
Original wording
Die Russen berichteten uns, daß daselbst das Begräbniß eines Tartarischen Königs oder Kaysers, Namens Mamon, wäre, welcher mit siebenzig andern Tartarischen Prinzen die Wolga herauf gekommen, in der Absicht, sich von ganz Rußland zu bemeistern. Weil aber dieser Prinz hier gestorben, hätten seine in grosser Menge mitgebrachte Soldaten ihm zu Ehren dieses Grabmahl errichtet, und in ihren Sturm-Hauben und Schildern die Erde zu diesem Berge angetragen.
About Tatars (the Golden Horde)
Keep in mind
Cited from the 1744 reissue, which reprints the 1721 text page for page with clearer OCR. A legend told by Russians; no Mamai burial is known there.
Honoured by the number of dogs
Editorial contextHanway reports that the Kalmyks threw their dead into open fields for dogs to eat, and that a body eaten by more than six dogs did honour to the dead. He also describes their small wooden idols dressed in rags, caressed in good seasons and beaten in bad ones. Near Astrakhan he later saw many human skulls lying on the steppe, 'for the Khalmucks always leave their dead uninterred'.
They throw their dead into open fields, to be devoured by dogs; of which many run wild, and some are kept for this purpose. If their bodies are thus devoured by any number exceeding six, they think honourably of the state of the deceased; otherwise he is a disgrace to his relations.
About Kalmyk Tartars
Keep in mind
Partly hearsay; Hanway admits he could not talk with them and judges only 'the externals of a religion'.
'Drink our black milk, mare's kumiss'
Editorial contextInside Batu's tent Batu asked Daniil whether he drank 'black milk, our drink, mare's kumiss'. Daniil said he never had, but would if ordered. 'You are now one of us, a Tatar: drink our drink,' said Batu. Then Daniil went to pay respects to Batu's senior wife Barakchin, who sent him a cup of wine because, she said, he was not used to milk.
'Do you drink black milk, our drink, mare's kumiss?' He said: 'Until now I have not drunk it; now, since you order it, I drink.' And he said: 'You are already one of us, a Tatar; drink our drink.' And he drank and bowed, according to their custom
Working translation
Original wording
«пьеши ли черное молоко, наше питье, кобылій кумузъ?» Оному же рекшу: «доселѣ есмь не пилъ, нынѣ же ты велишь, пью.» Онъ же рче: «ты уже нашь же Татаринъ, пій наше питье.» Онъ же испивъ поклонися, по обычаю ихъ
About Batu; Prince Daniil of Galicia; Batu's wife Barakchin
Continue in this sourceThe Hypatian Chronicle: Kiev, Galicia and the Horde852 to 1292 · 13 passagesCrowning a khagan by half-strangling him
Editorial contextWhen a new Khazar khagan was made, a silk cord was tied tight around his throat and he was asked how many years he would reign. If he outlived the number he named, he was put to death. The author also says the khagan had a golden throne and pavilion, and that nobles would kill themselves on his order.
they bring him forth, and tie a piece of silk about his throat, so tight that he can scarcely draw his breath. At that moment they ask him, how long he will hold the sovereignty ? He answers, " so many years." … when that space is fulfilled, they put him to death.
About Khazars
Keep in mind
Reported by hearsay; similar sacred-kingship customs are described by other Arabic writers.
Ruined Tatar towns along the Volga
Editorial contextOn the left bank of the Volga, Haxthausen says, the Tatars were not only nomads: they had fixed towns and farms, as shown by ruins and by place names. The Akhtuba valley where Sarai stood is covered with ruins for about 85 versts (roughly 90 km). When the Horde broke up, the towns were destroyed and the settlers driven off by Kirghiz and Bashkir raiders, leaving only ruins and broken mosques.
This is evident not merely from the ruins of cities (the whole district on the Akhtuba, where Sarai stood, for eighty-five versts, is covered with ruins), but the names of nearly all denote that the Tatars had fixed settlements here. When the Mongol-Tatar empire was dissolved, the cities were destroyed … only here and there a ruin or dilapidated mosque bore witness to their former existence.
About Tatars of the Golden Horde
Keep in mind
He reports this from local knowledge and place names while passing through the Saratov region; he did not visit the Akhtuba ruins himself.
The ruined city at Selitrennoye
Editorial contextOn the Akhtuba, a branch of the lower Volga, Pallas found an abandoned saltpetre works standing among the ruins of a great city: rubbish heaps, traces of buildings and brick tombs spread over a strip one to two versts wide and more than ten versts long. He calls it 'an extensive city of the Nagays'. Historians today usually identify the site as Sarai, the capital of the Golden Horde founded in the thirteenth century.
…here, along the banks of the Akhtouba, on a place from one to two versts broad, we discovered in every direction heaps of rubbish, traces of buildings, and tombs of brickwork, being the ruins of an extensive city of the Nagays. There had been a small fort erected on a hill, which unquestionably contained the principal and most elegant buildings of the place,
About 'Nagays' in Pallas's words; the site is Sarai, capital of the Golden Horde
Keep in mind
Pallas credits the city to 'Nagays'; the identification with Sarai is modern, not his.
Tsarev: the ruined seat of the 'King of Great Tartary'
Editorial contextSome forty versts below the silk plantation near Tsaritsyn, on the edge of the steppe by the Akhtuba, Gmelin found the ruins of 'an ancient city' that had been the seat of Achmet, 'King of Great Tartary'. He describes many dug-over mounds built not of earth but of bricks covered with earth, traces of courtyards and walls, a 'house of a certain queen', and a high hill everyone took for the royal palace, all stretching 38 versts along the steppe. He adds that history says the place was taken under Grand Prince Ivan Vasilievich and razed a few years later by the Nogais, and that local people still carry off its bricks to build their houses and sometimes find small gold or silver coins, rings and earrings.
there are the remains of a very ancient city, which was the seat of Achmet, King of Great Tartary, and which bear witness to how changeable human fortunes are … The Russians call these remains Tsarevy [pody], or Royal Meadows.
Working translation
Original wording
befinden sich die Ueberbleibsel einer uralten Stadt, welche der Sitz des Königes der großen Tatarey Achmets war, und die ein Zeugniß … wie wandelbar die Umstände der Menschen seyen … Die Russen nennen diese Ueberbleibsel Zarewei oder Königliche Wiesen.
About Golden Horde Tatars (the 'Great Tartary' of Khan Achmet)
Keep in mind
The right edge of these pages is cut off in the scan. The historical dating is Gmelin's reading of Russian history, not something he found on site.
Why the Torghuts left the Volga: conscription, hostages and religion
Editorial contextThe emperor gives the Torghuts' reasons for leaving Russia: the Russians kept demanding soldiers, had taken Ubashi's son as a hostage, and had a different religion and no regard for the Lamas' faith the Torghuts followed. On the same page they set out with wives, children and baggage, crossed the Kazakh country and the deserts by Lake Balkhash, and after eight months and more than ten thousand li reached the Ili frontier. The volume's preface puts their number at 500,000.
The Russians never ceasing to demand soldiers from him … and lately having taken his own son from him as a hostage, being moreover of a different religion from his and making no account of the religion of the Lamas which the Torghuts profess, Ubashi and his people at last resolved to shake off a yoke
Working translation
Original wording
Les Russes ne cessant point d'exiger de lui qu'il leur fournît des soldats … en dernier lieu lui ayant enlevé son propre fils pour leur servir d'otage, étant outre cela d'une religion différente de la sienne, & ne faisant aucun cas de celle des Lamas dont les Tourgouths font profession, Oubaché & les siens se sont enfin déterminés à secouer un joug
About Torghuts (Volga Kalmyks) under Ubashi Khan
Keep in mind
The emperor's version stresses a free and willing submission to himself; Amiot's own note (n438) adds that the nation reached Ili in rags, with nothing to live on.
A Kalmyk princess in a silk-lined felt tent
Editorial contextSent to treat the widowed Kalmyk princess, held under Russian guard in a dispute over the khanate, Cook entered a very large beehive-shaped tent covered with felt and lined with Persian silk. She lay on a down bed covered with silk, with priests and chiefs standing round. He decided her illness was confinement and grief.
In company with the major, the governor's only son, I went to a very large tent, in form of a bee-hive, covered with felt, and lined with Persian silk. When I entered into the tent, the Princess was lying on a bed of down covered with silk; her face was from us. Many Kalmucks well dressed were standing with great decorum
About Kalmyks (Oirat Mongols)
Continue in this sourceJohn Cook's travels as a doctor on Russia's Tartar frontier1730 to 1749 · 11 passagesA Kalmyk khan asks if Manchus and Mongols were once one people
Editorial contextIn his long interview Ayuki Khan asked the envoys a question about origins: Manchus and Mongols look so alike that they must spring from one source, so how did they become separate nations? He asked them to put it to the emperor. The envoys promised to do so. He went on to ask about Manchu writing and why there were 'old' and 'new' Manchus.
"The Mantchoos and the Mongals bear a great resemblance to each other: I imagine therefore that they sprang anciently from the same origin. But how has it happened that they have since formed separate states and nations? The causes of this, are no doubt well known to your Emperor.
About Torghut Kalmyks; Manchus
Continue in this sourceA Qing envoy's journey to the Torghut khan on the Volga, 1712 to 17151712 to 1715 · 12 passagesA camp laid out in streets and lanes
Editorial contextTravelling in bands of up to twenty thousand, the Kalmyks pitched their tents 'in Streets and Lanes' like a town or village, each family knowing its place. Perry's homely proof: he saw their cows stop at their own tents when driven home to be milked. A clear eyewitness picture of the steppe camp as a moving town.
…sometimes 20000 of them or more in a Body, and pitch their Tents in Streets and Lanes, in the same regular Manner as in a Town or Village, and every one knows their due Place and Order; so that I have seen the Cows stop at their own Tents, when they drive them home to milk them.
About Kalmyks and other steppe Tartars
Continue in this sourceCaptain John Perry on the state of Peter the Great's Russia1698 to 1712 · 11 passagesThe Sugar Lake and the khan's clever wife
Editorial contextBeside the ruined 'queen's house' at Tsarev lies a lake the Tatars call the Sugar Lake, and Gmelin retells their story. A khan (his name is cut off in the scan) was persuaded to put aside his beautiful low-born wife; she outwitted him by carrying him, drunk after a feast, into her own chamber, so he sent her to live in a house by this lake. Knowing he loved falconry, she threw sugar into the lake every day to draw swans and geese, so the khan came daily to hunt and rest with her until death. Gmelin notes drily that the lake really is sweeter than other waters, which may be how the tale began.
so every day she threw a great quantity of sugar into the lake by the house, and so drew a great number of swans and geese, … so that he appeared daily at the lake and rested with the queen after the hunt … It is indeed true that this lake has sweeter water than other rivers
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so warf dieselbe alle Tage eine große Menge Zucker in den angeführten bey dem Haus befindlichen See, und lockte dadurch eine große Anzahl von Schwanen und Gänsen herbey, … daß er bey dem See täglich erschien, nach geendigter Jagd bey der Königin ausruhte … Es ist würklich an dem, daß ermeldeter See ein süßeres Waßer bey sich führet, als andere Flüße
About Tatars (a tale about a khan of 'Great Tartary')
Keep in mind
A local Tatar legend, told as such.
Melons that burst open with a lamb inside
Editorial contextOdoric reports the 'vegetable lamb': melons on the 'Caspean Mountains' that ripen and split to reveal a little lamb. He admits he did not see it and heard it from others. Yule's note traces the later 'Tartar lamb' or borametz legend, which Scaliger placed among the Tartars of the Zavolha horde, and identifies the likely source as a woolly fern root.
Another passing marvellous thing may be related, which however I saw not myself, but heard from trustworthy persons. For 'tis said that in a certain great kingdom called Cadeli there be mountains called the Caspean Mountains, on which are said to grow certain very large melons. And when these be ripe, they burst, and a little beast is found inside like a small lamb
About Land of 'Cadeli' (the Volga country)
Keep in mind
Hearsay, and Odoric says so himself. Yule identifies Cadeli with the Volga (Athil) country.
A pillar built of horse skulls
Editorial contextOn a conical hill above the Akhtuba, Kalmyks stationed at the military posts had built a circular column entirely of horse skulls and jawbones, with a low wall and ditch decorated with more bones and a huge horse head on top pointing east. The bones came from an epidemic that had killed the post's horses and those of the wintering Kirghiz.
…the Kalmuks who were stationed here at the military posts have erected a singular monument. It is a circular column, raised on the very summit of the hill, and constructed entirely of the skulls and jaw-bones of horses, closely adapted to one another:
About Kalmyks of the Russian frontier posts
Continue in this sourcePallas's travels through southern Russia and the Crimea1793 to 1794 · 20 passagesWinter in the towns, summer on the steppe
Editorial contextHaving named the Khazar towns (Sarighshin and a second, garbled name) as the people's winter quarters, Ibn Rusta continues that in spring they go out to the steppe and stay there until winter comes. The two towns held many Muslims, with mosques, imams, muezzins and Quran schools. It is a pattern of town and pasture later seen among the Golden Horde.
[these two] towns. When spring comes they go out to the steppes and stay there until winter approaches. In these two towns there is a multitude of Muslims, who have mosques, imams, muezzins and Quran schools.
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المدينتين فاذا كان ايام الربيع خرجوا الى الصحارى فلم يزالوا بها الى اقبال الشتاء وفى هاتين المدينتين خلق من المسلمين لهم مساجد وائمة ومؤذنون وكتاتيب
About Khazars
Keep in mind
The sentence begins on the previous page, which names the towns.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of the Arabic is garbled); vowel marks omitted.
Nogais, Cheremis, Mordvins and 'Chircasses': other 'Tartars'
Editorial contextFletcher files several quite different peoples under 'Tartar': the Nogais (the best warriors, but the most savage), the Cheremis (actually the Finnic-speaking Mari), the Mordvins (also Finnic) and the 'Chircasses'. He says they differ more in name than in way of life, except the Chircasses, who border south-west towards Lithuania, follow Polish fashions, are far more 'civil', and are partly subject to the king of Poland and Christian. That description fits the Dnieper Cossacks, whom Russians called Cherkasy, better than the Circassians of the Caucasus.
There are divers other Tartars that border upon Russia, as the Nagais [Nogais], the Cheremissens, the Mordwites, the Chircasses, and the Shalcans, which all differ in name more then in regiment or other condition from the Chrim Tartar, except the Chircasses
About Nogai, Cheremis (Mari), Mordvins, 'Chircasses' (probably the Dnieper Cossacks, Russian Cherkasy)
Keep in mind
A good example of 'Tartar' as a catch-all: the Mari and Mordvins are not Turkic peoples at all, and the Christian 'Chircasses' near Lithuania were probably Cossacks.
Tents 'round like a pigeon-house'
Editorial contextPerry, an English engineer, watched Kalmyk hordes camp across the Volga every summer while he dug the Volga to Don canal. He describes their tents as round lattice-work frames that fold into narrow panels, covered with thick felt ('wylock'), with a door, a smoke hole and a fire in the middle; with the door and hole shut, he says, the tent is 'as warm as a stove'. He adds that a chief's tent could be lined with Persian silk.
The common Tents, in which the Cullmicks and other forementioned Tartars live and move, with their Camps, from Place to Place, are made of small Lettice-Work, round like a Pidgeon-House, … and which when they strike, folds together in narrow Pannels. They cover them over with Wylock, … matted together like Felt or Hat-Work,
About Kalmyks and other steppe Tartars
Continue in this sourceCaptain John Perry on the state of Peter the Great's Russia1698 to 1712 · 11 passagesRuined cities on the Volga, blamed on Tamerlane
Editorial contextSailing below the Kama, the embassy passed rich, empty grassland where only the ruins of cities and villages could be seen. Olearius was told they had been destroyed by Tamerlane; nearby hills were named after vanished cities, and on the previous page he notes the site of a former 'City of Tartary' with a saint's tomb still visited by locals. A treasure stone with a joke inscription on its underside is told on the same page.
On the right hand, we had the view of a spacious and very delightful Champain Country, the ground very rich, with a high grass on it; but it was not inhabited, and there could be seen only the ruins of Cities and Villages, which had been heretofore destroy'd by Tamberlane.
About Former Tartar (Volga Bulgar and Golden Horde) towns
Keep in mind
He saw the ruins from the ship; who destroyed them is local tradition.
A patent from Batu: 'be the eldest of all princes'
Editorial contextFive years after the conquest the grand prince rode 'to the Tatars, to Batu', and sent his son Konstantin on to the Great Khan ('Kan') in Mongolia. Batu received him with honour and named him senior over all Rus princes. The chronicle records the start of the system in which Rus princes held their thrones by the khan's word.
Grand Prince Iaroslav went to the Tatars, to Batu, and sent his son Konstantin to the Kan; Batu honoured Iaroslav with great honour, and his men, and let him go, saying to him: 'Iaroslav! be thou the eldest of all princes in the Russian nation.'
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Великый князь Ярославъ поѣха въ Татары къ Батыеви, а сына своего Костянтина посла къ Канови; Батый же почти Ярослава великою честью, и мужи его, и отпусти й, рекъ ему: «Ярославе! буди ты старѣй всѣмъ княземъ въ Русскомъ языцѣ.»
About Batu, khan of the Golden Horde; Grand Prince Iaroslav Vsevolodich
Continue in this sourceThe Laurentian Chronicle: the Mongol storm over Suzdal Rusc. 852 to 1305 · 14 passagesFelt temples on the Volga, stone temples in Mongolia
Editorial contextOpening his chapter on Buddhist temples, Pallas contrasts the Volga Kalmyks, who because of their wandering life still kept their images in portable sacred felt tents, which he compares to the Tabernacle of the Israelites in the desert, with the Mongols under Chinese rule, who had long had permanent temples, some of stone. He adds that under the Mongol khans who ruled China, buildings for Lamaist worship were raised in the eastern Mongol steppes, but after the empire broke up the Mongols returned to a moving life.
but the Volga Kalmyks, because of their unsettled way of life, still keep their idol worship, as the Mongols also formerly did, in movable sacred felt huts (Burchanin-Orgö), which could be compared to the Tabernacle of the Israelites still living as nomads in the wilderness … The Mongols who are under China have long had permanent temples in various places of their land, some of them built of stone
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die wolgischen Kalmücken aber halten, wegen ihrer unstäten Lebensart, ihren Götzendienst noch izt, so wie sonst auch die Mongolen thaten, in beweglichen heiligen Filzhütten, (Burchanin-Orgö) welche der Stiftshütte, bey denen in der Wüste, noch nomadisch lebenden Israeliten verglichen werden könten … Die Mongolen, welche unter China stehn, haben vorlängst an verschiednen Orten ihres Landes beständige und zum Theil von Stein erbaute Tempel gehabt
About Volga Kalmyks; Khalkha and Inner Mongols
Continue in this sourcePallas's historical collections on the Mongol peoples1769 to 1773 · 6 passagesRuined cities between Kazan and Astrakhan, their stones reused
Editorial contextNear Simbirsk de Bruyn was told of very old and important cities between Kazan and Astrakhan, among them 'Achtoeba'. Nothing of it remains, he says, because all its stones were carried away to build Astrakhan and other places. The name almost certainly points to the Akhtuba branch of the Volga, where the ruins of the Golden Horde capital lay; Struys (W249) reported the same stone-robbing in 1669.
Moreover, it is said that there are very ancient and very considerable cities between Kazan and Astrakhan, among others Achtoeba … It is also known that the town of Achtoeba stood on this river, but not the least trace of it remains, all the stones having been carried away to build Astrakhan and some other places.
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Au reste on affirme qu'il y a des villes fort anciennes & fort considerables entre Casan & Astracan, & entr'autres Achtoeba … On sait aussi que la ville d'Achtoeba étoit située sur cette riviere, mais il n'en reste pas les moindres vestiges, toutes les pierres en aiant été transportées pour bâtir Astracan & quelques autres places.
About unnamed ancient builders (the Golden Horde)
Keep in mind
Hearsay; de Bruyn says he could learn nothing certain about these cities.
Allies, not subjects: the Kalmyks and Russia
Editorial contextExplaining why Russian generals let irregular cavalry plunder freely, Cook says these troops were Cossacks, Kalmyks or other Tartars on the borders. The Kalmyks owned no subjection, only Russian protection, and could not be forced to move; even their khan could not act without the consent of his many elders, some of them lords of five or six thousand fighting men.
The Kalmucks acknowledge no subjection, but only live under the protection of Russia. They are barbarous to a great degree, but yet they must be treated with great lenity ; for, if they do not incline to leave their own country, the whole force of Russia is not able to oblige them, nor even their prince, unless with the approbation of their seniors
About Kalmyks and other Tatars serving as Russian irregulars
Continue in this sourceJohn Cook's travels as a doctor on Russia's Tartar frontier1730 to 1749 · 11 passagesThe horde: a town of 500 felt huts with a bazaar
Editorial contextA Kalmyk horde, Bergmann explains, was laid out like a moving town: the huts stood well apart to leave grazing, with three main quarters, the prince's, the priests' and the market, called bazar in Kalmyk as in Tatar and Russian, and the ordinary huts around them. His horde, of about 500 felt huts, was the chief one on the Volga because the head of all the Dalai Lama's followers in Russia lived there. He adds that since the vice-khan Ubashi led more than 70,000 Kalmyk households out of Russia in 1771, no new khan had been named until recently.
[the market,] which in Kalmyk, as in Tatar and Russian, is called bazar. … The horde in which I am is the foremost of all the Kalmyk hordes on the Volga, not so much because of the number of felt huts, which is about 500, as because the head of all the Kalmyk followers of the Dalai Lama living in Russia has set up his seat in it.
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im Kalmükischen, so wie im Tatarischen und Russischen, den Namen Basar führt. … Die Horde, zu welcher ich mich … ist die vorzüglichste von allen kalmükischen Horden an der Wolga; nicht sowohl wegen der Anzahl der Filzhütten, die aus ungefähr 500 besteht, als weil das Oberhaupt aller in Rußland lebenden kalmükischen Anhänger des Dalai Lama, seinen Sitz darin aufgeschlagen hat.
About Volga Kalmyks
Continue in this sourceBergmann's wanderings among the Kalmyks1802 to 1803 · 11 passagesDog-headed men and people who live on smells
Editorial contextBenedict the Pole's short report lists the peoples beside the friars' route: Mordvins, Bashkirs, and then the Cynocephali with dogs' heads and the Parossites who cannot chew and live on the smell of food. He also notes the rich city of Ornarum taken by the Tartars with floods of water. Rockhill's note traces the monsters to Pliny and Solinus.
then the Cynocephales, who have dogs' heads ; and then the Parocitae, who have a small narrow mouth, who can masticate nothing, but who live on liquids and sustain themselves on the odours of meats and fruits.
About Peoples on the northern edge of the Tartar lands
Keep in mind
Book-learned legend placed on the map, not something Benedict saw.
1771: why the Volga towns escaped the Kalmyk flight
Editorial contextBergmann retells the great flight of the Torghut Kalmyks from the Volga back towards Zungharia in 1771. The common people were told the march would only go as far as the Emba, as a threat to win concessions from Russia, and were promised plunder of Russian property. Because the hordes on the western bank could not cross to join the rest, the Russian towns on that side were saved, and the fleeing Kalmyks contented themselves with plundering the stores of the Russian, Armenian and Tatar merchants in the horde's bazaar.
Whatever prevented the western hordes from crossing saved the Russian towns lying on that side of the Volga. Their destruction would have been unavoidable if the Kalmyks on this side and that had been able to join hands.
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Was den Uebergang der westlichen Horden verhinderte, rettete die russischen Städte, die auf derselben Seite der Wolga lagen. Die Zerstörung derselben wäre unvermeidlich gewesen, wenn die Kalmüken auf dieser und jener Seite im Stande gewesen wären, sich einander die Hände zu bieten.
About Torghut Kalmyks under vice-khan Ubashi
Keep in mind
Retrospective history written thirty years later from informants and documents.
What ‘the Horde’ meant
Editorial contextSchlözer explains that orda, from which the German word Horde was corrupted, is Turkish and Tatar ordu: first a field camp, then the sutlers' quarter of the camp and everyone who trailed after the army. Because the Mongols and Tatars of Kipchak long stayed nomads and warriors, Russian annals added a third meaning: the headquarters of the khan to whom the Russians paid tribute. ‘Going to the Horde’ meant appearing before the overlord as supplicant, vassal or litigant, just as Greek princes after 1453 went ‘to the Porte’ of the sultan.
Because the Mongols and Tatars in Kipchak long remained nomads and mere warriors, a third meaning arose in the Russian annals, by which Orda denoted the headquarters of the Tatar commander, namely the one under whose yoke the Russians stood. To go to the Horde now meant to appear before the supreme ruler as a supplicant, as a vassal, as a defendant or as an accuser.
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Weil nun die Mogolen und Tataren in Kaptschak lange Zeit Nomaden und blosse Krieger blieben: so kam in den rußischen Annalen eine IIIte Bedeutung auf, nach der Orda das Hauptquartier des tatarischen Heerführers, und zwar desjenigen, unter dessen Joche die Russen stunden, bezeichnete. In die Orde gehen, hieß nun so viel, als wie Supplicant, wie Vasall, wie Beklagter, oder wie Ankläger, vor dem Ober Regenten erscheinen.
About Mongols and Tatars of the Kipchak khanate
Continue in this sourceSchlözer's history of Lithuania (Northern History, part two)1771 · 4 passagesThe Cheremis: 'Tartars' who speak Russian
Editorial contextStruys files the Cheremis under 'Tartars' (his chapter title calls them 'Tartares nommés Czérémisses'), yet on this page he says their everyday language is Russian and that they only understand, and in places speak, Tatar. They were in fact the Mari, a Finno-Ugric people. He also calls them rough and stupid, a sample of the book's contempt.
These peoples are rough, coarse and stupid … Their ordinary language is Muscovite [Russian], but they understand Tartar and even speak it in some places. They have neither priests nor churches, nor do they celebrate any of the mysteries of the Gospel.
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Ces peuples sont rudes, grossiers & stupides … Leur Langue ordinaire est la Moscovite, mais ils entendent le Tartare, & le parlent même en quelques endroits. Ils n'ont ni Prêtres ni Eglises, ni ne célèbrent aucun des mistéres de l'Evangile.
About Cheremis (Mari people), called Tartars
Keep in mind
Much of the Cheremis chapter follows Olearius, so this may be borrowed rather than observed.
Limestone walls of a Mountain Tatar settlement
Editorial contextThe Russian village of Kostychi, Lepekhin was told, had once belonged to the 'Mountain Tatars' of the Volga. Three ruined walls of the Tatar settlement still stood, with the steep Volga bank serving as protection on the south side. He notes they were built of limestone quarried on the Volga (he could tell from the veins of mineral pitch in the stone), and that the old walls now simply fenced the churchyard and its wooden church.
but in olden times it belonged to the Volga Mountain Tatars. … Of the Tatar settlement traces could still be seen to this hour, consisting of ruined walls. There were only three of them; on the south side the steep bank of the Volga served as protection. They were built of limestone quarried on the Volga
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vor Alters aber gehörte er den wolgaischen Bergtatarn. … Von dem tatarischen Wohnplatze waren noch bis diese Stunde Spuren zu sehen, welche in verfallenen Mauern bestanden. Es waren ihrer nur drey an der Zahl; auf der Mittagsseite aber diente das steile Ufer der Wolga zum Schutz. Sie waren von Kalksteinen, die man an der Wolga gebrochen hatte, aufgeführt
About 'Volga Mountain Tatars' (Tatars of the Volga's high right bank)
Continue in this sourceLepekhin's journal of the Volga and Ural journey1768 to 1770 · 14 passagesA khan who 'received the edict kneeling'
Editorial contextTulishen writes that Ayuki Khan knelt to receive the Chinese emperor's letter and turned north to wish him well. The translator Staunton adds a sharp footnote: it is very unlikely that an independent prince would humble himself so in his own court; the Chinese claim to rule the whole world simply required every letter from the emperor to be described as received on bended knee.
Nothing certainly can be more improbable than that an independent prince, in the midst of his own court, should have voluntarily subjected himself to such a humiliation; … but it seems that the assumed attribute of universal sovereignty, which occasions every communication from the Emperor of China to claim the authority of an Edict, also requires that such an edict should be supposed to have been received
About Torghut Kalmyks
Keep in mind
The translator doubts the author's official version of events.
A horse stuffed with straw and worshipped
Editorial contextBarbaro says the northern lands of Zagatai and Moxia were inhabited by Tartars who were mostly idolaters, then describes a Moxii rite: a horse staked down and shot with arrows, eaten, its hide stuffed with straw and propped up as if alive. On the next page he says it was set on a scaffold in a tree and worshipped, with furs hung as offerings, and that other idolater Tartars worship images carried on their carts.
At a certein tyme of the yere they vse to take a horse : which they laie alonge on the plaine. … Than they stufe the hyde so full of strawe, that it seemeth hole again ; and in every of his legges putt a pece of woodde ; and so sett him afoote againe, as though he were on lyve.
About The Moxii (Moksha Mordvins), grouped by Barbaro with northern 'idolater' Tartars
Keep in mind
The Moksha are a Finnic people, not Tatars; Barbaro says he 'learned' this, not that he saw it.
Jochi's share: 'as far as the hoof of the Tatar horse has reached'
Editorial contextDescribing how Chinggis Khan divided his realm among his sons, Juvaini says the eldest, Jochi, received everything from Qayaligh and Khwarazm to the far edge of Saqsin and Bulghar on the Volga, and westward 'as far as the hoof of the Tatar horse has reached'. This is the land that became the Golden Horde. Here 'Tatar' is simply another word for the Mongol cavalry.
And to his elder son Tushi he gave the lands from the region of Qayaligh and Khwarazm to the farthest parts of Saqsin and Bulghar, and in that direction as far as the hoof of the Tatar horse has reached.
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و پسر بزرگتر توشیرا از حدود قیالیغ و خوارزم تا اقصای سقسین و بلغار و از ان جانب تا انجا که سم اسب تاتار رسیدست بدو داد
About Jochi (Tushi) and the Mongols, called Tatars
Continue in this sourceJuvaini's History of the World-Conqueror13th century · 8 passagesThe captain bound in raw cowhide
Editorial contextDuring the 1771 flight the Kalmyks captured a detachment under Captain Dudin, and, Bergmann says, Ubashi had the officer's head and hands bound in strips of fresh cowhide, which tightened as they dried. Bergmann heard this from one of Dudin's own Cossacks, a Persian by birth, who later escaped from Kalmyk and then Kazakh captivity and saw his officer two months after his capture, still bound and awaiting death. What became of Dudin was never known.
One of his Cossacks, a Persian by birth, from whose own mouth I learned of this act of cruelty, saw his captain again two months after his capture, with the strips of cowhide round his head and hands, in the most terrible state, expecting death at every moment, though death seemed to flee him.
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Einer seiner Kosaken, ein gebohrner Perser, … aus dessen eigenem Munde ich diesen Zug von Grausamkeit erfahren habe: sah seinen Rittmeister zwey Monate nach der Gefangenschaft wieder, mit den Streifen von Kuhhaut um Kopf und Hände, in dem schrecklichsten Zustande, alle Augenblicke seinen Tod erwartend, der ihn zu fliehen schien.
About Torghut Kalmyks and a captured Russian officer
Keep in mind
A single informant's account of wartime cruelty, told decades later.
Sarai, the khan's great capital
Editorial contextReturning from Constantinople, Ibn Battuta found the khan had moved to his capital, El Sarai, which he calls very handsome and very large. He met its leading scholar, a Khwarezmian imam whom the khan visited every Friday. The abridged text gives little more about the city itself.
This city of El Sarai is very handsome and exceedingly large. Of its learned men is the Imam, the learned Nooman Oddin, El Khavarezmi. I met him in this place.
About Golden Horde (Uzbek Khan)
Keep in mind
The full Rihla describes Sarai's quarters and peoples at much greater length; this abridgement cuts it down.
A friar goes to Sarai to learn the language
Editorial contextKuun cites the Franciscan Pascal of Vitoria, who in 1337 went to the 'ancient city of Sarai on the bank of the Volga' to learn Turkish among the Cumans and studied it there for a whole year. Sarai was the capital of the Golden Horde, and the story shows missionaries living in the Horde's own city.
Friar Pascal of Vitoria in 1337, as he himself says, hurried to the Cumans in the ancient city of Sarai on the bank of the Volga in order to learn the Turkish language, and there worked as hard as he could at the study of the language for one whole year.
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Fra Pascal de Victoria anno 1337 in antiquam urbem Serai ad ripam Volgae, uti ipse ait, linguae turcicae ediscendae causa ad Cumanos contendit et illic per unum annum integrum studiis linguae quam maxime operam navabat.
About Cumans in the Golden Horde capital
Keep in mind
Kuun paraphrases Pascal's letter; Pascal was killed in Central Asia in 1340.
Checked against the page image.
Coins struck at Sarai, capital of the Golden Horde
Editorial contextKlaproth reads the coins found at Madzhar: nearly all were minted at Sarai or New Sarai, the Golden Horde capitals, under khans from Mengu-Timur to Tokhtamysh and Pulad (1270s to 1408), some with names in Mongol script. One is struck at Astrakhan. The latest coin helps date the town's end to about 1400.
The great Ssulthan Ghajats Eddunia (the prop of the world) Toktégu-chan, the Just… Coined at Ssarai, the capital, in the year 715; that is, A.D. 1315.
About Golden Horde (Genghisid khans)
Keep in mind
The Arabic legends are garbled in the OCR; the translations are Klaproth's.
Nogai river raiders attack an English barge
Editorial contextForty miles above Astrakhan, the English barge was attacked by about 300 Nogai Tatars in eighteen boats, armed with swords, spears and bows. After a two-hour fight the English firearms drove them off, and the English later heard from an escaped Russian prisoner that 120 raiders had died. Banister, the editors note, survived thanks to a mail shirt.
the Nagaian Tartares, being a kind of theeuish and cruell people, made an assault vpon them with 18. boates of theirs, each of them being armed, some with swords, some with speares, and some others with bowes and arrowes, and the whole number of them they discouered to bee about 300. men.
About Nogai Tatars
Keep in mind
Written down secondhand from a participant; the casualty figure came from a prisoner.
Tatar log houses with a broad bench and a built-in cauldron
Editorial contextThe book says the houses of settled Tatars are built of logs and laid out like Russian ones. Inside, a broad bench (urunduk) serves as table, bed and chairs, covered with carpets for the rich and felt for the poor, and there is a hearth (chuval) with an iron cauldron built into it. It adds that the Tatars keep their very simple homes very clean. On the same page the author declines to count the Caucasus 'Mountain Tatars' as Tatars, saying their origin is too uncertain.
The houses of the settled Tatars resemble the Russian ones in being built of logs … Their rooms contain a broad bench (urunduk), which serves as table, bed and chairs and is covered with carpets among the rich and felt among the poor, and a hearth (chuval) with a built-in iron cauldron (tagan), and some chests with clothes, utensils and the like.
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Die Häuser der ansäßigen Tataren gleichen in der Bauart von Blokwerk … den rußischen. Ihre Stuben enthalten eine breite Ruhebank, (Urunduk) die Tisch, Bette und Stühle vertrit und bey reichen mit Teppichen, bey armen mit Filzdecken belegt ist und einen Kamin (Tschuwal) nebst eingemauerten eisernen Kessel (Tagan) und einige Kasten mit Kleidern, Geräte u. d. gl. enthält.
About Settled Tatars of the Russian Empire (Kazan, Astrakhan and Siberian)
Keep in mind
This part closely follows Georgi's own Description of All the Nations (W282).
OCR normalized (checked against the page image; the OCR text is badly garbled).
Not a single house between Saratov and Astrakhan
Editorial contextBelow Saratov Bruce entered Kalmyk country on the left bank of the Volga. He says the whole huge tract had not one house: the Kalmyks lived in tents, moved with horses, camels, cattle and sheep, grew no crops and ate meat (especially horse), fish and game, with plenty of milk and a strong clear spirit made from mare's milk.
in all which immense tract there is not so much as one single house to be seen, as they all live in tents, and remove from one place to another in quest of pasturage for their large herds of cattle, consisting of horses, camels, cows, and sheep ; they neither sow, nor reap, nor make hay for their cattle, so that they live without bread
About Kalmyks (Oirat Mongols)
Continue in this sourcePeter Henry Bruce's memoirs of service under Peter the Great1700 to 1733 · 12 passagesThe Volga, 'the river on which the city of Sarai stands'
Editorial contextIn his list of rivers al-Umari describes the Athil (Volga) as the river on which the city of al-Sarai is set, flowing through 'the deserts of the Qipchaq' into the Caspian. Sarai was then the capital of the Golden Horde, with which the Mamluks were allied.
Among them is the river Athil. It is the river on which the city of al-Sarai is set. Its source is a spring welling up at the foot of Mount Qaquna; then it turns south, heading west through the deserts of the Qipchaq, north of the silver mines, until it flows into the Sea of Tabaristan [the Caspian].
Working translation
Original wording
ومن ذلك نهر أثيل . وهو المركب عليه مدينة السراى . ومخرجه من عين تنبع فى ذيل جبل قاقونا ، ثم يقتبل الجنوب آخذا بغرب فى صحارى القبجاق على شمالى معادن الفضة ، حتى يصب فى بحر طبرستان
About Golden Horde (Qipchaq steppe)
Keep in mind
Geographical summary; the source and course are partly traditional.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR is partly garbled); vowel marks omitted.
Kalmyks and Nogais: no fixed homes, and horsemeat softened under the saddle
Editorial contextAt Saratov Struys first met the Kalmyks, whom he calls the ugliest of men. Kalmyks and Nogais, he says, have no fixed dwellings and move camp as the grazing allows; they prefer horsemeat and eat it after softening it under the saddle. The saddle-meat story is an old European stereotype about steppe riders. On the same page he wrongly calls the Kalmyks Muslims; they were Buddhists.
They have no fixed dwellings … but of all meats, horse is most to their taste. All the preparation they give it is to put it under the saddle, where, being a little softened by the horse's warmth, they take it out and make their best meals of it.
Working translation
Original wording
Ils n'ont point de demeures fixes … mais de toutes les viandes, celle de cheval est plus à leur goût. Tout l'aprêt qu'ils y font, est de la mettre sous la selle, où étant un peu amollie par la chaleur du cheval, ils l'en retirent, & en font leurs meilleurs repas.
About Kalmyks and Nogais
Keep in mind
The saddle-meat tale is repeated from much older writers, and the page is openly hostile.
Mountain Tatars who move house by cart
Editorial contextZwick visited a small Tatar clan that had once been vassals of the Kalmyks and were now Russian crown subjects. Their felt huts were just like Kalmyk ones, but when they moved they carried their women and children in wooden huts set on carts (arbas). He also describes the women's face cloth fastened just under the eyes.
The women wear full cotton dresses, and a cloth hanging from the top of the head to the waist behind, and fastened in front just under the eyes, so as to cover the face. Their manner of removing from one place to another with their herds, differs from the Calmucs, in as much as they make use of a great many arbas, upon which wooden huts are placed
About Cunduran-Mangut or 'Mountain Tartars' (a Nogai-type Tatar clan)
Continue in this sourceTwo Moravian missionaries among the Kalmyk hordes of the lower Volga1823 · 19 passagesA skin on a pole to plead with God
Editorial contextBruce calls the Mari (Cheremis) of the middle Volga 'Tartars' and describes them as heathens without churches or priests. When they sacrificed a horse, cow or sheep they hung its skin on a high pole and prayed to it to intercede with God for more cattle. He adds details on naming, polygamy and dress.
when they offer a sacrifice to God, they kill a horse, cow, or sheep, and extend its skin on a high pole, which they implore to intercede for them with God, that he may increase the number of their cattle. They have a high veneration for the sun and moon … They make use of no churches, priests, or books
About Mari ('Ceremisse Tartars')
Keep in mind
The Mari are a Finnic people, not Tatars; this account closely matches Olearius and is probably borrowed.
A ten-year-old breaks a wild stallion
Editorial contextAt Prince Tumene's, Kalmyk riders lassoed wild horses from the herd and rode them bareback, clinging to the mane, until they were caught up by other horsemen. Then a boy of about ten did the same on a huge white stallion. Adèle adds that even Kalmyk women practise the sport.
But what was our amazement when we saw a boy of ten years come forward to undertake the same exploit! They selected for him a young white stallion of great size, whose fiery bounds and desperate efforts to break his bonds, indicated a most violent temper.
About Kalmyks
Continue in this sourceThe Hommaire de Hells in the Caspian steppes and the Crimea1838 to 1841 · 17 passagesThe Kalmyk khan dines with Peter the Great
Editorial contextOn the way to Derbent, Peter the Great met Ayuka, khan of the Volga Kalmyks, on a galley on the river. Bell watched the khan arrive on horseback with his sons and fifty horsemen, and the queen arrive in a covered wagon with her daughter. He describes Ayuka as a wise old man, the princess as a Kalmyk beauty in Persian brocade, and notes that the khan promised Peter five thousand horsemen on the spot.
Soon after the Ayuka-Chan was got on board the galley, the Queen arrived on the shore, in a covered wheel-machine, attended by one of the princesses her daughter, and two ladies, who were also escorted by a troop of horsemen. … The Ayuka-Chan is an old man, about seventy years of age, yet is hearty and chearful.
About Kalmyks under Ayuka Khan
Continue in this sourceJohn Bell's travels from St Petersburg across Asia1715 to 1738 · 18 passagesSome Tartars in houses, others in tents
Editorial contextPerry sorts the Tartars into those who live in houses and stay put all year (the 'Bogdoi', Uzbek and Bukharan Tartars towards China) and those who live in tents and migrate north and south with the seasons (the Kalmyks and western hordes). He compares the nomads' life to the patriarchs in Moses: they neither plough nor sow.
The Bogdoi, Yousbeck, and Bucharsky Tartars, more towards China, live in Houses, and continue Winter and Summer in the same place; but the Cullmick, and several Hordes of Western Tartars, who border more towards the C'zar's Dominions, live in Tents, and move Northward and Southward, according to the Seasons of the Year,
About Manchus ('Bogdoi'), Uzbeks and Bukharans versus Kalmyks and western hordes
Keep in mind
He saw the Kalmyks himself; what he says of the Uzbeks and 'Bogdoi' is from report.
Kalmyks swim for bread thrown from the boat
Editorial contextSailing back up the Volga, de Bruyn saw Kalmyks fishing with lines along the bank, with two-humped camels around them, and threw them bread, which they swam out to fetch. Ashore, Kalmyk men and women could not stop staring at his clothes and handling them. His boat kept to the east bank to avoid the Tartars on the other side, whom he calls great thieves.
We saw several Kalmyks along the bank fishing with lines, and we threw bread into the water for them, which they swam out to fetch. There were two-humped camels around them … we found several Kalmyks, both men and women, who could not tire of looking at my clothes
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Nous vîmes plusieurs Calmuques le long du rivage pêchant à la ligne, & nous leur jettâmes dans l'eau, du pain qu'ils allèrent prendre à la nage. Il y avoit des chameaux à 2. bosses autour d'eux … nous trouvâmes plusieurs Calmuques tant hommes que femmes, qui ne pouvoient se lasser de regarder mon habillement
About Kalmyks
Continue in this sourceDe Bruyn's travels down the Volga to Astrakhan, 17031701 to 1708 · 13 passagesThe Hill of the White Stallion and the Khan's Well
Editorial contextDescribing a caravan road from Chorny Yar on the Volga to Madshar, day by day, Güldenstädt passes on the names of its waymarks. One big hill was called Kok Aigir, ‘White Stallion’, because a Tatar khan, overjoyed at the birth of a son, had a white stallion slaughtered there. The next stage reached the Khan's Well, covered by a great stone pierced with holes through which water was drawn, and ringed by stone statues like those he had seen between Mozdok and Cherkassk. He gives this as a route report, not as a journey of his own.
On the 9th day one arrives early at a large hill, called in Tatar Kok Aigir, that is, White Stallion, in memory of the event when a Tatar khan, for joy at the birth of a son, had a white stallion slaughtered here … Chan Schokrak, that is, the Khan's Well, which is covered with a large stone in which various holes are cut, through which the water is drawn up.
Working translation
Original wording
Am 9ten Tage kommt man zeitig an einen großen Hügel, genannt tatar. Kok Aigir d. i. Schimmel-Hengst, zum Andenken der Begebenheit, da ein tatarischer Chan aus Freude über die Geburt eines Sohnes hieselbst ein Schimmel-Hengst schlachten ließ … Chan Schokrak d. i. Chansbrunnen, der mit einem großen Stein bedekt ist, in den verschiedene Löcher gehauen, durch die das Wasser heraufgezogen wird.
About Tatars (an unnamed khan); Kalmyks
Keep in mind
A place-name story passed on by informants; no khan or date is named.
Horse meat is cooked, not eaten raw
Editorial contextBell corrects a common European belief that Tartars eat raw meat. On campaign the Kalmyks live on balls of dried curd dissolved in water, and when that fails they kill spare horses and roast the meat on broken arrows. Their smoked or sun-dried horse meat, he says, cannot fairly be called raw, and he tasted it himself.
They broil or roast the flesh before the fire, on pieces of broken arrows, and never eat it raw, as is commonly believed, unless compelled by necessity. They have indeed large thick pieces of horse-flesh, smoked or dried in the sun, which they eat; but this cannot properly be called raw.
About Kalmyk Tartars
Continue in this sourceJohn Bell's travels from St Petersburg across Asia1715 to 1738 · 18 passagesThe newly married bride's horn with a bell
Editorial contextCheremis brides, the book says, wear a horn a yard long planted in the middle of the forehead, with a silk tassel and a little bell whose sound reminds the bride that she has just changed her state. The same paragraph then repeats a lurid slander about fathers and their daughters, likened to a tale told of Ceylon.
newly married women add an ornament all their own: a horn a yard long, which they plant in the middle of the forehead; at its end is a silk tassel, and in the middle of this tassel a little bell, whose sound serves to remind the bride that she has lately changed her state.
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les nouvelles mariées ajoûtent un ornement qui leur est tout particulier: c'est une corne longue d'une aune qu'elles se plantent au milieu du front; au bout de laquelle il y a une houpe de soie, & au milieu de cette houpe une clochette, dont le bruit sert à faire souvenir la mariée qu'elle a depuis peu changé d'état.
About Cheremis (Mari people), called Tartars
Keep in mind
Probably taken from Olearius. The horned bridal headdress is plausible; the slander that follows is not evidence of anything.
Sarra, capital of Comania, 'almost all laid waste'
Editorial contextIn his geography of Comania (the Kipchak steppe, the Golden Horde's land) Hayton names its chief city Sarra, 'once a very good city', which the Tartars have almost entirely ruined. The editor identifies Sarra with Sarai on the Volga, and later in the book Hayton says the Tartar king Toqta holds his seat in a city called 'Sera'.
The chief city of the kingdom of Comania is called Sarra, which was once a very good city, but the Tartars have laid it almost entirely waste.
Working translation
Original wording
La maistre cité du roiaume de Comaine est apellée Sarra, laquele fu ancienement molt bone cité, mès les Tartars l'ont presque toute gastée.
About Tartars (Golden Horde)
Keep in mind
Sarai is usually credited to the Golden Horde itself (founded under Batu in the 1240s to 1250s), so Hayton's 'once good, now wasted' is puzzling; he may mean another Kipchak town or be confused.
A sacrifice thrown against a hide on a post
Editorial contextOn holy days the Cheremis tie the freshly flayed hide of a cow, sheep or horse to a post, roast the meat, and throw a dish of it and a cup of mead against the hide while murmuring prayers. The page adds that they revere the sun, fire and water above all visible things.
For this they have holy days, on which they begin the ceremony by tying to a post the hide of a cow, sheep or horse flayed for the purpose; they put the meat on the coals, and when it is roasted they cut it into small pieces, fill a dish with them, take it in one hand and a cup of mead in the other, then throw the whole against the hide
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Original wording
Ils ont pour cela des jours consacrés, ausquels ils commencent la cérémonie par attacher à un poteau, une peau de vache, de mouton ou de cheval écorché exprès: ils en mettent la chair sur la braise; & quand elle est rôtie, ils la coupent par petits morceaux, dont ayant rempli un plat, ils le prennent d'une main & une tasse d'hidromel de l'autre, puis jettent le tout contre la peau
About Cheremis (Mari people), called Tartars
Keep in mind
Very close to Olearius's description of the Cheremis, so probably copied.
A grave mound with furnaces: laboratory or metalworker's tomb?
Editorial contextNear a Don Cossack farmstead Lepekhin examined a grave mound that had been dug open. The top of the page is damaged, but it can be made out that inside were furnace-like structures, slag, pieces of crucibles and a human skeleton, and that much iron had been found. He decides it is more likely a tomb than a workshop, because 'the old Tatars' buried people of rank with the tools of their trade, and concludes that the old inhabitants of the Volga were skilled in all the useful arts.
that the old Tatars had the custom of burying persons of distinguished rank and station with all the tools and gear they had chiefly worked with in their lifetime. For the rest, this mound may be a Tatar laboratory or the tomb of a famous metallurgist among them; it is all one to me.
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Original wording
daß die alten Tatarn im Gebrauch hatten, Personen, deren Rang und Stand sich auszeichnete, mit alle dem Geräthe und Zubehör zur Erde zu bestatten, womit sie in ihrem Leben vornehmlich zu schaffen gehabt hatten. Uebrigens mag dieser Hügel ein tatarisches Laboratorium, oder das Grabmahl eines berühmten Metallurgen unter ihnen seyn; das ist mir einerley.
About 'The old Tatars' and the ancient inhabitants of the Volga country
Keep in mind
Calling the mound Tatar is Lepekhin's inference from what he had read about Tatar burial; the damaged scan hides the full description of the finds.
Turkic peoples who are called Tartars
Editorial contextStrahlenberg lists the Turkic-speaking peoples who 'are call'd Tartars': the Budjak, Crimean, Kuban, Kazan and Kasimov Tatars, the Nogais, the Astrakhan and Bashkir Tatars, the Tatars of Tyumen, Tobolsk and Tomsk, the Uzbeks, Turkmens, Kazakhs and others. On the same page he adds that, according to learned Bukharans, they took the name from the original Tartars without being descended from them.
Secondly, we find, in Europe, the Budziack, and Crimm-Kubann … Casan- and Cassinowan Tartars, and, in little Nagai, Nagaian Tartars: And in Asia and Great Nagai, the Astracan, Ovinian and Baskirian Tartars. … All these are Mahometans: … However, they, like the former, have, as it were, one Dialect with the Turks. All the Nations mention'd in this Paragraph are call'd Tartars.
About Turkic-speaking 'Tartars' (Crimean, Kazan, Nogai, Siberian, Uzbek and others)
Continue in this sourceStrahlenberg's description of Russia, Siberia and 'Great Tartary'1709 to 1729 · 18 passagesThe vegetable lamb was really cotton
Editorial contextWatching Bukharan cotton being sold at the Nizhny Novgorod fair, Erman explains the old story of the Baranets, a plant that grew a living lamb, told near the Caspian and repeated by Herberstein in the 1500s. He was sure it came from an embellished description of the cotton plant, and he quotes Herberstein's Latin, including Herberstein's remark that nothing is impossible for the Creator.
It appears to me quite certain that the story of the zoophytic plant, called Baranez, or lamb-plant, (formed as a diminutive, from Baran, a sheep,) originated in some embellished account of the cotton plant. Herberstein relates it at full length and unchanged, just as he had heard it
About Bukharan traders; Russian and European writers
Keep in mind
Erman's cotton theory is one explanation among several; others point to a fern (Cibotium barometz) whose woolly rhizome was sold as the 'Tartarian lamb'.
Sarai in 1666: nine thousand reed-roofed houses under Moscow
Editorial contextEvliya says the Sarai of his day was a city full of all kinds of Tatars, now in Muscovite hands. Half the subjects and soldiers were Muslim Kazan Tatars ('Hashdek') and half Muscovite Christians. The town had about nine thousand wretched houses of planks, rushes and reeds and seven monasteries. He names Nogay, Yaman, Teb and Yishdak Tatars living there as subjects of Moscow since its conquest.
(On the buildings of the city of Sarai.) In all there are nine thousand wretched houses covered with planks, rushes and reeds, and there are seven great monasteries in all … Today this city of Sarai is a city filled with every kind of Tatar people.
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( دربیان عمارت شهر سرای ) جمله طقوز بیك تخته وساز وقامش ایله مستور خانهٔ منحوسلردر جمله یدی عدد دیر معظملر واردر ... حالا بو سرای شهری قوم تاتارك اجناسیله مملو بر شهردر
About Tatars of Sarai under Muscovite rule
Keep in mind
Evliya's Volga itinerary is doubted by modern scholars; which town he calls Sarai is unclear, since the Golden Horde capital had long been in ruins.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR is partly garbled); bracketed variant markers omitted.
Left behind with a sheep and a jar of water
Editorial contextBruce says the Kalmyks feared smallpox like the plague. When someone caught it they struck camp and fled, leaving the sick person in their worst kibitka with a killed sheep, water and firewood; few survived. On the same page he describes being served roast and boiled suckling foal by Prince Dasan, and calls it delicious.
The small-pox is as much dreaded among the Kalmucks as the pestilence amongst us : when any of them are seized with it, they immediately break up their camp and fly, leaving the sick person in one of their worst kibbets with a killed sheep, part of which is roasted and part raw, and a jar of water and some wood for fire
About Kalmyks (Oirat Mongols)
Continue in this sourcePeter Henry Bruce's memoirs of service under Peter the Great1700 to 1733 · 12 passagesMilk that makes you drunk: a German chemist scoffs
Editorial contextLepekhin describes how the baptized Kalmyks distil fermented mare's milk into a spirit, with two kettles joined by a tube sealed with clay, and says he saw it more than once, as Professor Gmelin had reported. Foreign chemists called this a fable. His German translator adds a footnote quoting the chemist Caspar Neumann, who had never seen a Kalmyk or Tatar: Neumann found it hard to believe that the 'Tartars' could achieve such a thing and thought the recipe (with millet and barley added) looked 'truly Tartarish'. The translator uses the quotation to show how prejudice misled even a careful scientist.
that such a rare thing should be brought about by the Tartars, who, as far as I know, have shown the world few or no physical or chemical discoveries and are hardly likely to; … whereupon I cannot deny that at first sight the ingredients struck me as truly Tartarish
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Original wording
daß dergleichen seltene Begebenheit von den Tartarn zuwege gebracht würde, als welche, meines Wissens, wohl wenig oder keine physikalisch-chymische Erfindungen der Welt dargethan, auch wohl nicht leicht darthun werden; … da ich denn nicht läugnen kann, daß mir im ersten Anblick die Ingredientien wahrhaftig recht tartarisch vorkamen
About Baptized Kalmyks, and 'Tartars' in general as imagined by a German chemist
Keep in mind
The sneer is Neumann's, quoted in order to refute it; Lepekhin himself vouches for the milk spirit from what he saw.
Prisoners tied beneath the horses' bellies
Editorial contextIn revenge for a Kalmyk raid, some 15,000 Karakalpaks crossed the frozen Volga, killed Kalmyk old and young and carried off the youths. Cornered by a Russian force, they broke through and fled, leaving about three hundred Kalmyk prisoners bound to horses by their feet. The Kalmyks then rode off with thousands of the Russians' own horses and camels.
they, being about fifteen thousand, made a very sudden unexpected attack upon the Russians, and actually, bravely broke through them, got over the ice, and fled to the desart, leaving about three hundred Kalmuck prisoners fixed to their horses, by tying their feet with cords to one another under the horses bellies.
About Karakalpaks, Kalmyks, Russian Cossacks and Tatars
Keep in mind
Cook was at Astrakhan but not with the troops; numbers are reported.
Was the yurt copied from a bird's nest?
Editorial contextBergmann offers his own 'hypothesis' about how the Mongol peoples invented the felt tent. Living in treeless country, they could neither dig caves nor build huts of branches, so perhaps one of them copied the hanging, bag-shaped nest that the penduline tit weaves from plant wool. Because a house cannot hang from a branch, the Mongols set it on the ground and put the door at the bottom. He presents this frankly as a guess.
This remarkable bird makes from a kind of wool an oblong bag, which it fastens to twigs so skilfully that neither wind nor weather can damage its hanging home. This method, I fancy, the forefathers of the Kalmyks used, to make huts for themselves after the example of the remez [penduline tit], which they afterwards tried to perfect more and more and to support ever better with woodwork.
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Dieser merkwürdige Vogel bereitet aus einer Art von Wolle, einen länglichen Sack, den er so geschickt an Zweige befestigt, daß weder Wind noch Wetter im Stande sind, seine schwebende Wohnung zu beschädigen. Diese Methode, dünkt mich, benutzten die Voreltern der Kalmüken, um sich nach dem Beispiele des Remes Hütten einzurichten, die sie in der Folge immer mehr zu vervollkommnen und mit Holzwerk immer besser zu stützen suchten.
About Ancestors of the Kalmyks and Mongols (Bergmann's theory)
Keep in mind
Bergmann's own speculation, not a Kalmyk tradition.
Kalmyk women pitch the tent and saddle the horse
Editorial contextPallas describes the inside of the tent, with its iron tripod over the fire and cast-iron pans bought from Russian ironworks, then the division of labour. Men only make and mend the tents; women milk, dress hides, sew, strike and raise the tent, and even saddle the husband's horse.
Housework falls on the female sex alone. The men busy themselves with nothing but mending and making the huts… The women must take down the hut, pack up everything and put the hut up again. The wife must even saddle her husband's horse and lead it to the hut when he wants to ride out.
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Die häusliche Arbeit liegt bloß dem weiblichen Geschlecht ob. Die Männer bemühen sich in nichts, als in Ausbesserung und Verfertigung der Hütten… Das Weibsvolk muß die Hütte abnehmen, alle Sachen aufpacken, und auch die Hütte wieder aufstellen. Sogar muß das Weib dem Manne das Pferd satteln und vor die Hütte führen, wenn er verreisen will.
About Kalmyks
Continue in this sourcePallas's journey through the provinces of the Russian Empire1768 to 1774 · 20 passagesProud heirs of Chinggis Khan
Editorial contextBergmann reports that the Kalmyks counted themselves one people with the Mongols, remembered with pleasure the deeds of their forefathers under Chinggis and his successors, and that most of their princes traced their blood to him. No Kalmyk doubted that the heirs of that heroic stock could match those deeds again if there were more of them. He then records a Kalmyk asking him whether the Prussians had not been defeated by the Kalmyks, since some 4,000 had served in the Russian army against Prussia.
The Kalmyks count themselves as one [Mongol] people. They think with pleasure of the deeds of their ancestors under Chinggis and his successors. Most of the present Kalmyk princes honour in themselves the blood of that great hero from whom they derive their descent. No Kalmyk doubts that the descendants of the Mongol heroic line could equal the deeds of old, if greater numbers backed up their courage.
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Die Kalmüken rechnen sich zu einem … Volke. Sie denken mit Wohlgefallen an die Thaten ihrer Vorältern unter Tschingis und dessen Nachfolgern. Der größte Theil der jetzigen Kalmükenfürsten ehrt in sich selbst das Blut jenes großen Helden, von welchem sie ihre Abkunft herleiten. Kein Kalmük zweifelt daran daß die Nachkommen des mongolischen Heldenstamms, die ehemaligen Thaten erreichen könnten, wenn eine größere Anzahl ihren Muth unterstützte.
About Volga Kalmyks and their princes
Keep in mind
One word is lost in the scan after 'zu einem'.
What 'Orda' meant
Editorial contextNikitin passes 'the Orda' on the Volga. The editor explains that 'orda' (horde) was the name for the seats of the Tartar kings who ruled Russia, and later for the successor kingdoms such as the Golden Horde and the Crimean Horde. It shows that 'horde' named a royal seat or state, not just a mob of riders.
This is the name formerly given to the seats of the Tartar kings that ruled over Russia ; subsequently it was also applied to the different kingdoms that sprung up from the immense empire of Baty in the beginning of the fifteenth century ; as the Zolotaia Orda (golden or great orda), Krimskaia Orda, the Ordea of Crimea, etc, etc.
About Tartar khans who ruled Russia; the Golden Horde and Crimean Horde
Continue in this sourceAfanasy Nikitin and other fifteenth-century travellers to Indiac. 1466 to 1472 · 6 passagesTorghuts, Eleuths and the four branches of the Dzungar nation
Editorial contextThe emperor's monument explains who the Torghuts were: one of the branches of the Eleuths. Four branches once made up the whole Dzungar ('Tchong-kar') nation; they split, the Eleuths dominated the rest, and in Kangxi's time the Torghut chief Ayuki fled with his people into Russian territory and settled on the 'Etchil', which Amiot's note identifies as the Volga.
The Torghuts are one of the branches of the Eleuths. Four different branches once formed the whole nation of Dzungar. It would be hard to explain their common origin, about which nothing very certain is known. These four branches separated and each became a nation of its own.
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Les Tourgouths sont une des branches des Eleuths. Quatre branches differentes formoient autrefois toute la nation de Tchong-kar. Il seroit difficile d'expliquer leur commune origine, sur laquelle d'ailleurs on ne sait rien de bien certain. Ces quatre branches se séparerent, & firent chacune une nation à part.
About Torghuts (Volga Kalmyks), Eleuths (Dzungars)
Continue in this sourceMemoirs of the Peking missionaries, with Amiot on the Dzungars and the Torghut exodus1755 to 1771 · 10 passagesWhere the Chuvash smear fat on the shrine
Editorial contextCaptain Woodroofe's journal calls the Chuvash 'the poorest and most wretched of all mortals', tributary to Russia and heavily taxed. He could not learn their beliefs, but saw that they stick part of their food over doors and windows, and that when they kill an animal the priest eats some of the fat, greases himself and smears their place of worship with it. He adds that the neighbouring Tartars eat horse meat.
We could not discover what notions the chuvashins have of religion, but observed when they dress victuals, they stick part of it over their doors and windows; and when they kill an animal, … their priest takes out the fat, and after eating some of it and greasing himself, he smears over their place of worship,
About Chuvash ('Chuvashin Tartars')
Continue in this sourceJonas Hanway's history of British trade over the Caspian1743 to 1745 · 17 passagesA Buddhist temple of stuccoed brick on the Volga
Editorial contextAt Prince Tumene's island seat, Adèle attended a service in the Kalmyk 'pagoda'. She describes the din of drums, gongs, conch shells and three-metre trumpets, and the building itself: large windows, slender columns of stuccoed brick, a domed gallery and walls hung with painted tapestries of spirits and monsters. This was a settled Kalmyk prince's temple, not a tent.
The temple, lighted by a row of large windows, is adorned with slender columns of stuccoed brick work, the lightness of which reminds one of the graceful Moorish architecture. A gallery runs all round the dome, which is also remarkable for the extreme delicacy of its workmanship.
About Kalmyks (Prince Tumene's people)
Continue in this sourceThe Hommaire de Hells in the Caspian steppes and the Crimea1838 to 1841 · 17 passagesThe 'wild Tartars' with waist-long hair
Editorial contextContarini separates the Tatars of the 'Lordo' between the Don and Volga, whom he calls brutes who live on milk and meat, from another numerous people beyond the Volga, called 'wild Tartars', with hair to their waists. He admits he did not visit the Lordo himself and relies on what he was told.
But there is said to be another tribe of Tartars living beyond the Volga, in an east-north-easterly direction, who are supposed to be very numerous. They wear long hair reaching to their waists, and are called wild Tartars. They wander in search of pasturage and water like the others; and, in the winter, when there is much cold and ice, they are said to come as far as Citracan
About Tatars between the Don and Volga; 'wild Tartars' east of the Volga
Keep in mind
Hearsay; Contarini's dislike of the Tatars shows throughout.
Painted wagons for the women
Editorial contextPallas notes that each wealthy Tartar family on the lower Volga keeps two tents, one for guests and one for the women, and one or more covered two-wheeled chariots painted in various colours, with a chest of best clothes on the front. The women ride in them on migrations, drawn by oxen, while carts called araba carry the tents and chests.
…each wealthy Tartar family commonly has two tents, one for the reception of their visitors, and the other appropriated to their females. … they usually have one or more covered two-wheeled chariots for their wives and daughters. These chariots are painted of various colours; and on the fore-part there is commonly placed a chest covered with ornamental tapestry,
About Kundure Tartars (a Nogai remnant) and Kirghiz
Continue in this sourcePallas's travels through southern Russia and the Crimea1793 to 1794 · 20 passagesA great khan at Samarkand, heir of Tamerlane
Editorial contextPerry reports that the lands between Siberia and the Caspian hold many hordes of Tartars, each with its own chief, but many recognise one principal khan at Samarkand said to descend from Tamerlane. He adds that their religion is close to Islam, except that they eat horse meat, which the Turks and Crimean Tartars refuse. By 1700 Samarkand had no such overlord; this is hearsay.
Many of them acknowledge one principal Cham as their Chief, who has his Residence at Samarcand, … and derives his Pedigree, as 'tis said, from the Great Tamerlane.
About Bukharans, Mongols, Kalmyks and other 'Hordes of Tartars'
Keep in mind
Hearsay; Perry never went east of the Volga steppe.
Nogai 'Kundurov Tatars': felt tents in summer, houses in winter
Editorial contextIn his section on the Nogais, Klaproth traces how the Kalmyks drove them west from the steppe between the Tobol and the Yaik, how Peter the Great moved most of them to the Kuma and Kuban, and he lists their tribes and numbers of tents (5,849 felt tents north of the upper Kuban and Kuma, 4,286 between the Terek and the Kuma). The Kundur tribe, called 'Kundurov Tatars' by the Russians, wandered in felt tents like the Kalmyks along the Akhtuba but spent the winter in houses near Krasny Yar on the Caspian.
The Kundur tribe (called Kundurov Tatars by the Russians) now wanders in felt tents like the Kalmyks along the Akhtuba, an arm of the lower Volga, but lives in winter in houses around Krasny Yar near the Caspian Sea.
Working translation
Original wording
Der Stamm Kundur (von den Russen Kundurowsche Tataren genannt) zieht jetzt in Filzzelten wie die Kalmüken, an der Achtuba, einem Arme der unteren Wolga herum, lebt aber im Winter in Häusern um Krasnojarsk am Kaspischen Meere.
About Nogais of the Kundur tribe ('Kundurov Tatars')
Continue in this sourceKlaproth's map of the languages of Asia1700 to 1808 · 4 passagesKuban means wild hog
Editorial contextWoodroofe says the Chuvash were descended from the Kuban Tartars and explains that 'Kooban' means a wild hog in Russian, a name given for their fierce nature, because Ivan the Terrible found them harder to subdue than the Crimean or Nogai Tartars. It is a folk etymology (the Kuban is a river), but a vivid example of how names for Tartar groups were explained.
Kooban, in the Russian language signifies a wild hog; which name was given to these Tartars on account of their fierce and savage nature, having cost Ivan Wassilowitz more trouble to subdue them,
About Chuvash and Kuban Tartars
Keep in mind
A folk etymology: the Kuban Tatars were named after the Kuban river, and the Chuvash are not descended from them.
