A brick minaret at Tatartup, credited to Circassians
Editorial contextOn the upper Terek, at a place called Tartartup, Güldenstädt measured five ruins: a mosque of fieldstone and brick, this minaret, a second broken tower, and two small Greek churches, one still showing painted saints on its plaster. The minaret was a brick cylinder about 9 fathoms high with 75 steps inside. Despite the name, he concludes that a large Circassian village once stood here, its people partly Muslims and partly Greek Christians, and notes that Circassians still swore by Tartartup and used it as a sanctuary.
The second, then, is this tower built cylindrically of bricks, almost 9 fathoms high, for in its inner hollow, almost 3 feet wide, there are 75 steps … The whole tower is built of very hard bricks with very strongly binding lime
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Original wording
Das zweite ist also dieser von Ziegeln cylindrisch erbauter Thurm, der fast an 9 Faden hoch ist, denn es sind in seiner innern Hole, die fast an 3 Fuß weit ist, 75 Stuffen … Der ganze Thurm ist von sehr festen Ziegeln, mit sehr bindenden Kalke aufgeführet
About Circassians (Kabardians), Muslim and Christian, in Güldenstädt's view
Keep in mind
The Circassian attribution is his reasoning; he says he learned no tradition about the people who built it. Modern scholars identify Tatartup with a Golden Horde town, and the minaret survived into the twentieth century.
A stone woman with a Nogai face
Editorial contextCrossing the steppe north of the Caucasus, Güldenstädt stopped at a crude, very stout female statue of shell conglomerate on a low mound, facing east, hands over the belly, four strings of beads round the neck and a peaked cap on the head. He thought the face and headdress Nogai, and a page later concluded that such statues were raised in memory of noble Nogais buried there. He met more of them all the way to the Donets and the Dnieper.
Here, to the right of the road, stood a shapeless female statue of ordinary human size but, in proportion, extraordinarily stout … four loosely hanging strings of corals surround the short neck; the head is very large and round, the face flat and broad, the nose quite flat … the physiognomy is Nogai
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Original wording
Hieselbst stand rechts am Wege eine unförmliche weibliche Statue, von gewöhnl. Menschengröße, aber in Proportion von ausserordentlicher Dikke … den kurzen Hals umgeben 4 schlafhängende Reihen Korallen; der Kopf ist sehr groß und rund, das Gesicht flach und breit, die Nase ganz flach … die Physionomie ist nagajisch
About Nogai Tatars (as Güldenstädt judged the makers)
Keep in mind
His Nogai attribution rests on the look of the face and headdress. Modern archaeologists usually attribute these steppe ‘stone women’ (kamennye baby) to the medieval Cumans (Polovtsians).
A Kumyk prince's new stone house ‘in the Tatar taste’
Editorial contextKumyk houses and villages, Güldenstädt says, were like other Caucasian ones: light timber frames with woven willow. At Kostek, a large Kumyk village he visited in 1770, the hereditary prince (a Russian ally holding a captain's rank and pay) lived in an old two-storey log house that the Russians had built. As it was falling down, he built himself a new residence of quarried limestone ‘entirely in the Tatar taste’.
Their houses and villages are, like the other Caucasian ones described more fully, of light timber framing with woven willows. … The prince's dwelling is a Russian house, formerly built by the Russians, two storeys high, of log-work, but old and decayed, so he built himself a new dwelling of quarried limestone, entirely in the Tatar taste
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Original wording
Ihre Wohnungen und Dörfer sind, wie die übrigen mehr beschriebenen kaukasischen, von leichten Fachwerk mit geflochtenen Weiden. … Die Wohnung des Fürsten ist ein rußisches, auch ehedem von den Russen erbauetes zwei Stockwerke hohes Haus von Blokwerk, aber alt und verfallen, daher er sich eine neue Wohnung von gebrochenen Kalksteinen, ganz im tatarischen Geschmak bauete
About Kumyk Tatars
Keep in mind
He does not say what the Tatar taste looked like.
Winter villages, summer yurts
Editorial contextIn the Georgian province of Somkhiti most inhabitants were Terekeme or Turkmen Tatars, Muslims speaking a Turkish dialect of Tatar. They lived mainly by herding: most stayed in their villages only in winter, and in summer lived out in yurts or earth huts that they moved a couple of times a year, though they also kept orchards and small rice fields. Güldenstädt thought this half-nomadic life, with their religion and language, made them unreliable subjects of the Georgian tsar.
By far the greatest part of its inhabitants consists of Terekeme or Turkmen Tatars, who speak the Tatar language in a Turkish dialect and are Mohammedans … the Tatars mostly apply themselves only to cattle-raising, and most of them live in their villages only in winter, but in summer they usually camp in the open in yurts or earth huts
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Original wording
Der bey weiten größeste Theil ihrer Einwohner besteht aus terekemenischen oder türkmenischen Tataren, die die tatarische Sprache in türkischer Mundart sprechen und Muhamedaner sind … die Tataren legen sich meistens blos auf die Viehzucht und die mehresten wohnen nur des Winters in ihren Dörfern, des Sommers aber stehen sie gewöhnlich im freyen in Jurten oder Erdhütten
About Terekeme (Turkmen) Tatars
A camp of two hundred tents on the Yegorlyk
Editorial contextGüldenstädt camped beside a Nogai aul of about 200 kibitkas (felt tents). He admired their horses, broad in croup and chest with short thick necks, and their big greyish-white cattle, but noted that most sheep had died in the war's many marches. The herders had nothing to offer but butter and sour milk, which they eagerly traded for millet, since grain was short until the harvest.
We stood here beside an aul (camp) some 200 kibitkas (tents) strong, which is part of the Onokush aul and belongs to Yedisan. … One saw here among these Nogais a great herd of horses and cattle. … Apart from butter and sour milk nothing could be had from this herding people, which they eagerly brought to us
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Original wording
Wir standen hier neben einem an 200 Kibitken starken Aaul, der ein Theil vom Onokusch Aul ist und zu Jedissan gehört. … Man sahe hier bey diesen Nagaijern ein große Heerde von Pferden und Rindvieh. … Außer Butter und saurer Milch konnte man bey diesen Hirten Volke nichts haben, das sie uns begierig zubrachten
About Yedisan Nogais (Onokush aul, chief Islam Murza)
Keep in mind
His remark on the same page that the Nogais thanked God and blessed the Russian empress for their new prosperity was written in an official report, just after Russia had brought these hordes under its control.
A Nogai murza's fresh grave of cut stone
Editorial contextOpposite the mouth of the Tashla, Güldenstädt found the new grave of a Yedisan Nogai murza buried the previous winter. Blocks of shell conglomerate, dug from the grave pit itself and squared, had been laid loose in a man-sized rectangle about three feet high. A second grave like it lay further on. It shows a living steppe people marking graves with cut stone, and on the same page he suggests the same rock could supply building blocks for the planned Russian colonies.
[the grave] of a Yedisan murza buried here last winter. Shell conglomerates cut into square blocks, taken from the pit of the grave itself, had been laid loose one on another, about 3 feet high, in an oblong rectangle proportioned to a man's size.
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Original wording
im vorigen Winter hier begrabenen Jedissanischen Mursa. Zu Quadersteinen gehauene Muschel-Conglomerate, die aus der Grube des Begräbnisses selbst genommen, waren in einen länglichten, der Menschengröße proportionirten Vierek, an 3 Fuß übereinander, loß gelegt.
About Yedisan Nogais
Kalmyk monks who write from top to bottom
Editorial contextAt the Moravian colony of Sarepta, Güldenstädt questioned two Moravian Brethren who had spent the summer living with the Kalmyk horde to learn the language. They told him the clergy had smooth-shaven heads, could read, and wrote from top to bottom on silk paper with a pointed stick; they healed only by prayer and might demand a sick man's whole property as an offering to Burchan. Kalmyks dried strips of meat for winter and preferred animals that had died on their own. Güldenstädt keeps the Kalmyks separate from the Tatars throughout.
The clergy are recognised by their completely smooth-shaven heads. They also learn to read and write; they write from top to bottom, usually on silk paper with a pointed little stick. … As payment for their cure they often demand the whole property of the sick, not for themselves but as an offering to their Burchan, as they call their idol.
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Original wording
Die Geistlichen erkennet man an dem ganz glatt abgeschornen Kopf. Diese lernen auch lesen und schreiben; sie schreiben von oben nach unten, gemeiniglich auf Seidenpapier mit einem spitzigen Stökgen. … Zur Bezahlung ihrer Cur fordern sie öfters das ganze Vermögen von den Kranken, nicht für sich, sondern zum Opfer für ihren Burchan, so nennen sie ihren Gözen.
About Kalmyks (not called Tatars by Güldenstädt)
Keep in mind
Secondhand from missionaries hoping to convert the Kalmyks. Pallas's footnote on the previous page corrects the ‘white’ and ‘black’ division: white meant families of princely blood, black the commoners.
Three Tatar nations, one language
Editorial contextIn his closing description of the Caucasus, Güldenstädt sorts the Tatars of the eastern Caucasus into three peoples: Kumyks (settled farmers, rice and cotton growers and fishermen), Terekeme or Turkmen Tatars (whose dialect is almost Ottoman Turkish), and Nogais (tent-dwelling nomads). All speak Tatar, one of the main languages of the Caucasus, in dialects that are mutually intelligible at a pinch. For him ‘Tatar’ is a label for Turkic speakers, and he compares their dialects with Turkish as Italian, Spanish and Portuguese compare with each other.
In the eastern Caucasus one finds three kinds of Tatar peoples: 1. the Kumyk, 2. the Terekeme or Turkmen, and 3. the Nogai Tatars. … The similarity of the Turkish, Terekeme, Kumyk and Nogai-Tatar dialects seems to me comparable to the similarity between the Italian, Spanish and Portuguese languages.
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Original wording
Im ostlichen Kaukasus trift man dreyerley tatarische Völker an, 1 Die Kumükischen. 2. Terekemenischen oder Truchmenischen und 3. Die Nogaischen Tataren. … Mir scheint die Aehnlichkeit des türkischen, des terekemenischen, kumükischen und nogayisch-tatarischen Dialekts mit der Aehnlichkeit zwischen der italienischen, spanischen und portugisischen Sprache vergleichbar.
About Kumyk, Terekeme (Turkmen) and Nogai Tatars
The 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.