Ruined 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.
Circassian houses of earth and boughs, and no walled towns
Editorial contextAt Terki the Tsar kept garrisons in all the towns, leaving the Circassians only open towns and villages under their own lords. Their houses were poor ones of earth and branches, plastered inside with clay. Olearius adds that they spoke the common Tartar language and were Muslims in name, though without Koran or priests.
he hath put Garrisons into all the Cities, leaving the Circassian Tartars, for their habitations, but only open Towns and Villages … Their houses are but poor ones, built, for the most part, of earth and boughs of trees, and within, plaister'd over with Clay.
About 'Circassian Tartars' (Kabardians of the Terek) under Russian rule
'The dead are really dead': a Volga 'Tartar' on the afterlife
Editorial contextOlearius lodged at Kazan in the same house as a Cheremis man of about 45, and when talk turned to the resurrection the man laughed. The Cheremis, he writes, lived in poor huts, kept no churches, priests or books, sacrificed horses and hung the skins on poles, and feared spirits rather than a hell. They were Mari, a Finnic-speaking people, but to Olearius they were one more kind of Tartar.
and said to me, Those who are dead are really dead, and will never return again, no more than my Horses and Cows, which are long since rotten. I asked him whether he knew who Created this World, and made Heaven and Earth? his answer was, … The Devil may haply know.
About Cheremis (Mari), whom Olearius counts among the Tartars
Dried fish for bread, and mare's milk from a leather bag
Editorial contextThe Nogais near Astrakhan lived on their herds, hunting and fishing. Sun-dried fish served them as bread, they ate camel and horse meat, and they prized mare's milk, which they offered the ambassadors from a leather bag. On the same page he describes their fat-tailed sheep, two-humped camels and small tough horses, and the white linen coifs hung with Russian coins worn by the women.
Their ordinary food is fish dry'd in the Sun, which serves them instead of bread. … They eat Camels and Horse-flesh, and drink water and milk. Mares milk they much esteem; with this they treated our Ambassadors, when we gave them a Visit, taking it out of a … Leather-bag, to present it to us.
About Nogai Tatars
A princess with an ox-bladder at her neck
Editorial contextThe ambassadors visited Princess Bike, mother of the Tartar prince Mussal, in a hall with earthen walls lined with vaulted niches full of silk bedding and Persian carpets, weapons hung on the pillars. She and another lady wore a blown-up ox-bladder wrapped in an embroidered scarf behind the neck: the badge of widowhood. Her servants still bore the scratches of mourning on their faces.
She wore, at her neck behind, an Ox-bladder, blown to the utmost, which was wound about towards her hair, with a rich Scarf embroider'd with Gold and Silk … Behind the Chair stood a Lady, who had also a Bladder at her neck, and we were told afterwards that it was the Badge of Widdowhood.
About Circassian Tartar nobility (Kabardians)
Tartars as runaway 'Indian lords' who came in 1212
Editorial contextBefore describing Astrakhan, Olearius turns to the Polish scholar Matthias of Miechow. Miechow said the Tartars must not be confused with the ancient Scythians and Sarmatians, since they were only known from the thirteenth century; a comet of 1211 foretold their coming, and they were 'Indian lords' who had killed their king David and fled west. Olearius then says he will stick to what he saw himself.
a Physician, and Canon of Cracow, who liv'd at the beginning of the last age, says that those, who confound the Tartars with those Nations, which the Antients called Getae, Scythae and Sarmatae, are much mistaken, in as much as the Tartars have not been known, but since the thirteenth Age. … They were certain Indian Lords, who having kill'd their King, David, got away
About Tartars in general (Crimean, Kazan, Nogai)
Keep in mind
Book learning passed on second-hand; the 'King David' story echoes medieval Prester John legends.
'Tata', because the Chinese cannot say R
Editorial contextThe appended East Indies volume includes a history of the Tartar conquests of China. It explains that the Chinese called the Tartars 'Tata' because they could not pronounce R, and then tells how the Mongols ruled China until 1368 and how a new Tartar kingdom, the Manchus of 'Niuche', overran it in the 1640s. The same word covers both conquests.
For in the year 1206, the Tartars, whom the Chineses call'd Tata, because they do not pronounce the Letter R, entred China with a powerful Army, and after a War of seventy two years became Masters of it
About Mongols (1206) and Manchus (1600s), both called Tartars
Keep in mind
Not Olearius or Mandelslo as eyewitnesses: a compiled history added to Mandelslo's travels in this edition. Mandelslo never went to China.
A 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.
The khan's statue in Moscow
Editorial contextOlearius retells the great Crimean raid of 1521: the khan besieged Moscow and forced the Grand Duke to sign himself a tributary. To prove it, the story goes, the khan set up a statue of himself in Moscow before which the Grand Duke had to bow to the ground each time he paid tribute; when the charter was later recovered, the Muscovites smashed the statue.
Mendligeri, to make it appear he was Sovereign Lord of Moscou, caused a Statue of his to be erected in the heart of the City, and would needs oblige the Great Duke, to express his subjection, to smite the ground with his head, before that Statue, as often as he paid Tribute
About Crimean Tatars
Keep in mind
History retold from older books a century after the event; the khan's name is garbled and the statue detail is not confirmed.