Mangup: a ruined mountain city of many peoples
Editorial contextWith a Tatar guide Alexander climbed to Mangup Kale, a deserted fortress-city on a table mountain. He credits its battlemented walls to the Genoese and reads the ruins as layers of occupation: a Tatar mosque, a synagogue, a small church, and Muslim, Jewish and Christian graves. The only living things were a few grazing Tatar horses.
passed through some noble remains of battlemented walls of Genoese architecture, flanked with square and round towers. Before us were the remains of a Tartar mosque, a Jewish synagogue, a small church, and the tombs of Moslems, Israelites, and Christians, pointing out the successive occupiers of this strange city, the ruins of whose habitations were very numerous
About Crimean Tatars and earlier occupants of the site
Keep in mind
'Genoese' is his guess: Mangup was the capital of the Orthodox principality of Theodoro until the Ottomans took it in 1475.
'Tartaric battlements' where no Tartars came
Editorial contextAt Novgorod, Alexander saw citadel walls topped with what he calls 'Tartaric battlements', copied from the Kremlin's, and notes that the Tartars never reached Novgorod, so its church crosses have no crescent beneath them. He repeats the popular idea that a crescent under a cross marks the Tatar period, and calls Moscow's Kremlin battlements 'Tartaric' as well. He also uses the label for a tower in the Genoese fortress at Balaklava.
The walls of the citadel were surmounted by Tartaric battlements, in imitation of those of the Kremlin; yet the Tartars in their invasions never penetrated to Novogorod, and the crosses on the churches do not, therefore, surmount a crescent
About Medieval Tartars (Mongol-Tatar invaders of Rus)
Keep in mind
'Tartaric' is his style label: the Moscow Kremlin's brick walls and swallow-tail merlons were built by Italian masters in the 1480s and 1490s. The crescent-under-the-cross explanation is a popular belief that most historians reject.
Black sarcophagi with white turbans
Editorial contextTwo domed mausoleums beside the palace held the remains of a long line of khans. Inside, Alexander was startled to find black sarcophagi on the floor with white turbans at their heads; outside, the graves had carved marble headstones topped with turbans, shaded by cypresses.
a burial ground attached, contained the remains of a long line of khans : on entering the former it was rather startling to see black sarcophagi on the floor, with white turbans at the head. In the open air the tombs were adorned with carved and turbaned headstones of marble, which, with the accompanying cypress, give such effect to Moslem cemeteries.
About The Crimean Tatar khans (Giray dynasty)
Village houses built into the hillside
Editorial contextOn the south coast, below the Baidar pass, Alexander found houses unlike any he had seen: roofs carried on low stone walls on three sides, with the fourth side set against the slope like Swiss chalets, among fruit trees and poplars. The villagers wore the same Tatar dress as before, but he thought their features Grecian and both men and women very handsome.
The houses, as well as their inhabitants, were now totally different from what we had hitherto seen : the roofs were supported on three sides by low stone walls, and the fourth rested against the side of the declivity (after the manner of Swiss chalets) … but their features were Grecian, and both men and women were extremely handsome.
About Crimean Tatars of the south coast
Nogay herdsmen, 'inhabitants of waggons'
Editorial contextCrossing the sandy steppe on the way to the Crimea, Alexander passed herds of horses guarded by Nogay Tartars and their dogs. He likens them to the wagon-dwellers Herodotus described among the Scythians, notes their two- and four-wheeled carts drawn by horses, oxen or camels, and describes their sheepskin caps, grey coats and sandals of leather or linden bark.
passed several taboons of horses guarded by wild-looking Nogay Tartars and their dogs: these are the Hamaxobitii, or inhabitants of waggons, of Herodotus : their arbas are two or four-wheeled, and drawn by horses, oxen, or camels. The dress of these nomade tribes harmonises well with the Scythian deserts which they frequent ; a rough sheep-skin cap, a grayish surcoat reaching below the knees
About Nogay Tartars (Nogais)
Keep in mind
The Herodotus comparison is Alexander's classical flourish, not evidence that the Nogays descend from Scythians.
Koumis, chess and music in a Tartar coffee-house
Editorial contextDrawn in by music, Alexander entered a Tatar coffee-house in Akmetshet. Greeks and Tatars sat cross-legged on carpets, smoking long pipes and drinking coffee; an old man urged a youth to drink koumis, which Alexander calls a spirit distilled from mare's milk; two men played chess; and three musicians played a stringed instrument and a drum and sang.
on entering it, I found it divided into compartments by railings, and Greeks and Tartars were sitting cross-legged on carpets, and smoking cherry-stick chebouks and drinking coffee. A gray-beard, in a corner, was encouraging a youth to drink koumis or spirits, distilled from mare's milk. A grave-looking pair were engaged at chess ; and in the window-seat were three musicians
About Crimean Tatars and Greeks
Keep in mind
Koumis is fermented mare's milk; the distilled spirit made from it is a different drink, and Alexander may be running the two together.
An old Tartar woman's welcome
Editorial contextAt the village of Koochook Koi (Kuchuk-Koy) an old Tatar woman invited Alexander in for bread and bekmes, a thick pear syrup. He records her dress closely: a white headcloth over hair in six long plaits, a coloured petticoat under a blue knee-length coat held by a patterned belt, and silk trousers gathered at the ankle. A little girl nearby wore a red fez with silver coins sewn on the front.
a clean old Tartar woman invited me to eat some bread and bekmis with her : her head was enveloped in a white handkerchief … her hair, in six long plaits ; her coloured petticoat was covered with a blue surcoat reaching below the knees, and confined round her waist with a figured belt ; her trousers were of silk, drawn in at the ancles
About Crimean Tatars of the south coast
The Nogays: a fragment of the Golden Horde
Editorial contextAlexander describes the Nogays' faces and then explains who they are: a part of the Golden Horde scattered by Timur (Tamerlane), whose wars shattered the Horde in the 1390s. It is a short, fairly accurate piece of steppe history attached to a first-hand description.
Their noses are short, eyes elongated, and beards scanty : such are the Nogays, a party of the Golden Horde dispersed by Timoorlung (Tamarlane).
About Nogay Tartars (Nogais)
Keep in mind
The physical description reflects the racial typing common in travel books of his day.
A khan's descendant from Edinburgh University
Editorial contextIn Simferopol an English gig drove into a courtyard and out stepped an old fellow-student of Alexander's from Edinburgh University: Sultan Katty Gherry Crim Gherry, of a branch of the Tatar khans of the Crimea, born in the Caucasus. On the next page Alexander adds that a missionary brought him to Britain, that he married a Miss Nelson of Edinburgh, and that he now had an imperial pension and estates on the south coast.
One day I was surprised to see an English gig drive into their court, with a mounted servant behind. A dark good-looking gentleman then alighted, and I recognised an old fellow-student at the University of Edinburgh, the Sultan Katty Gherry Crim Gherry. He was born in the Caucasus, of a branch of the Tartar Khans of the Crimea, was brought to Britain
About Sultan Katty Gherry, of the Crimean khans' family (Giray)
A carter's boast exposes a Tartar plot
Editorial contextAlexander heard from a civilian that in 1828 the Crimean Tatars were ready to revolt, stirred up, he guessed, by the Turks. A Karaite Jewish merchant of Bakhchysarai grew suspicious when his Tatar carter refused well-paid work, followed him home and overheard him telling his mother to wait until the Russians lost at Anapa. The man was arrested and confessed to a plot, spies were set to work and the leaders punished.
Russians are defeated before Anapa, and you'll see that we will be masters of the Crimea again. I have cast an eye at the Karaémee's house and garden; his tribe, as well as the Muscovites, will ere long not possess a foot of the country." On this the Tartar was taken up, and he confessed that there was a plot on foot to rise against the Russians
About Crimean Tatars under Russian rule
Keep in mind
Secondhand anecdote from the Russian side; the 'confession' may have been forced. On the previous page Alexander says he himself saw no cause for Tatar complaint.
Bones of those who hid from a Tartar invader
Editorial contextIn the cave monastery at Kiev, after oil-weeping skulls and a supposed relic of the Holy Innocents, the monks showed Alexander walled-up cells, fitted with glass panes, holding the bones of a thousand priests and townspeople. They were said to have hidden from a Tartar invader and been suffocated in their refuge.
In cells which were built up, with a thick piece of glass in the wall, were the bones of one thousand of the unfortunate priests and people of Kiev, who thought to conceal themselves from a Tartar invader, but who were inhumanly suffocated in their sanctuary.
About Medieval Tartars (Mongol-Tatar invaders of Rus)
Keep in mind
He saw the bones; the story of how they died is the monks' tradition, told alongside other relics he plainly doubted.