A brief outline of the history of the Crimean Khanate. Crimean Khanate

CRIMEA KHANATE(1441/1443–1783), medieval state in Crimea. It was formed on the territory of the Crimean ulus of the Golden Horde during the period of its collapse. The founder of the Crimean Khanate was Hadji Giray (1441/1443–1466). The borders of the Crimean Khanate during the period of its power (mid-15th century) included the territories of the Northern Black Sea region from the mouth of the Dniester in the West to the right bank of the Don in the East, to the Vorskla River in the North.

The administrative division of the Crimean Khanate was traditional for the medieval Turkic-Tatar states and consisted of four large possessions of the Argyn, Baryn, Kipchak and Shirin clans. The nomadic possessions of Yedisan, Budzhak, and Small Nogai depended on the Crimean Khanate. During its heyday, the Khanate was divided into beyliks, which united the lands of several settlements and were ruled by representatives of various Tatar clans.

The capital is the city of Bakhchisarai - a large religious, political and commercial center. There were other large cities: Solkhat (Iski-Crimea), Kafa, Akkerman, Azak (Azov), Kyrk-Er (Chufut-Kale), Gezlev, Sudak. All of them were centers of beyliks and the focus of administrative power, crafts, trade, and religious life.

Tatars, Greeks, Armenians, Karaites, and Crimeans lived on the lands of the Crimean Khanate; There are also Italian merchants in port cities.

The nobility called themselves Tatars, sometimes with the addition of “Krymly” (that is, Crimean), and the main population most often defined themselves on religious grounds - Muslims.

The main language in the Crimean Khanate was Turkic; office work, diplomatic correspondence and literary creativity were also carried out in it; Since the 16th century, numerous Ottomanisms began to penetrate into it.

The economic activities of the population of the Crimean Khanate were strictly zoned: agriculture, gardening and viticulture were cultivated in the southern foothills, semi-nomadic cattle breeding - in the steppe part of Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region. Wheat, barley, millet, rice, and lentils were grown. Peaches, pears, apple trees, plums, cherries, and nuts were grown in the gardens. The population was engaged in beekeeping, fishing and hunting. Cities, especially port cities, were centers of highly developed crafts such as ironworking, weapons, weaving, leatherworking, woodworking, pottery, jewelry, and construction. Trade ties were developed with Turkey, Russia, Poland, and the countries of Transcaucasia. The main items exported from the Crimean Khanate were wheat, honey, and slaves; import - weapons, fabrics, spices, luxury goods. Famous trade fairs are in Cafe, Gezlev, Sudak and Or-Kapu (Perekop).

The supreme power in the Crimean Khanate belonged to the khans from the Girey clan, descendants of Khan Jochi. The tamga (coat of arms) of the Crimean Khanate was a sign in the form of a trident comb, and the tughra was a calligraphically written tamga, preserved in various forms in the diplomatic correspondence of the Crimean khans. After the establishment of vassal dependence of the Crimean Khanate on the Turkish Empire in 1475, a different system of power was formed here. The real ruler of Crimea was the Turkish Sultan, who had the right to remove and appoint khans, control all international relations of the Khanate, and also call upon Crimean troops to go on campaign. Formally, the khans of the Crimean Khanate were autocratic monarchs, but in reality their power was limited by the Turkish sultans and ruling clans. The khans sealed all the laws of the country with their seal and performed other representative functions. The basis of the khan's wealth was his ulus, located in the valleys of the Alma, Kacha and Salgir rivers. The residence of the khans from the end of the 15th century was in Bakhchisarai. The second most important representative of the Gireys was the heir to the throne - kalga, usually the eldest representative of the clan after the khan. His residence and administration were located in Ak-Mosque. Ownership of kalga - kalgalyk was not inherited, but was state property. Since 1578, another heir to the throne appeared in the Crimean Khanate - Nuraddin, the third in importance; his possessions were located in the Alma valley in Kachi-Saray. In fact, power in the Crimean Khanate belonged to the Tatar nobility, in which there were 4 ruling families: Shirin, Argyn, Baryn and Kipchak (Yashlav). Later they were joined by the Nogai clans Mangyt (Mansur) and Sidzheut. In the 16th–18th centuries, there was probably a rotation of clans, when the Mangyts ousted the Argyn, Kipchak or Baryn clans from power structures. The form of influence of the aristocracy on state affairs was the council under the khan - the divan. It included Kalga, Nuraddin, Shirin Bey, Mufti, representatives of the highest Tatar nobility led by Karachibeks from four ruling families, the rulers are the serakesirs of three nomadic hordes (Budzhak, Yedisan, Nogai). The Divan was in charge of all state affairs, and also resolved complex legal cases that were not subject to the jurisdiction of estate and local courts; was involved in determining government expenditures, including for the maintenance of the khan and his court.

The highest administrative and military power was exercised by Ulug Karachibek from the Shirin clan, his residence was in Solkhat. Ensuring the external security of the state was carried out by the or-bek, whose residence was in Perekop. Financial affairs and taxes were in charge of the khan-agasy (vizier), as well as various officials: kazandar-bashi, aktachi-bashi, defterdar-bashi, killardzhi-bashi. After establishing dependence on the Turkish Empire, the representative of the Sultan began to play an important role in the life of Crimea.

The social organization of the nobility in the Crimean Khanate had a hierarchical system related to the rights to land ownership or levying a certain tax, for which the owners were obliged to serve their overlord. Ownership was divided into conditional - iqta, suyurgal and unconditional - tarkhan (exemption from all or part of taxes and duties). The highest stratum of the nobility consisted of the descendants of the Gireys - Kalga, Nuraddin, Sultans, Murzas, Beks and small serving nobility - Emeldyashi and Sirdashi. The army of the Crimean Khanate consisted of the Khan's guard (kapy-kulu) and militias of Tatar clans, as well as troops of nomadic tribes with a total number of 4 thousand to 200 thousand soldiers. The basis of the army was the serving nobility, which comprised a cadre of military leaders and professional warriors, mainly heavily armed cavalrymen, whose total number reached 8–10 thousand people. At the beginning of the 16th century, under the khan, a permanent professional army began to form, similar to the Turkish one, consisting of detachments of infantrymen armed with muskets (janissry and tyufenkchi), as well as field artillery (zarbuzan). Artillery was used in field battles and in the defense of fortifications. Combat and transport fleets were used for crossings and battles on rivers. In the 16th–18th centuries, the detachments of the Crimean Khan most often acted as part of the Turkish troops. In field battles, operational maneuvers, flanking, and false retreats were used. During the battle, the Tatars tried to maintain their distance, hitting the enemy with arrows.

The bulk of the population consisted of the tax-paying class, which paid taxes to the state or feudal lord, the main of which was yasak, traditional for the Tatar states. There were other taxes, fees and duties: supplies of provisions to the troops and authorities (anbar-mala, ulufa-susun), yam duty (ilchi-kunak), taxes in favor of the clergy (gosher and zakat). Large revenues to the treasury of the Crimean Khanate were provided by payments for the participation of military contingents of the Crimean Tatars in the campaigns of the Turkish sultans, monetary indemnities from Poland and Russia issued to prevent raids on their territory, as well as military booty.

The state religion in the Crimean Khanate was Islam. The head of the clergy was a mufti from the Sayyid family. Muftis and seyids actively participated in the political life of the country and were also involved in legal proceedings. The clergy were also in charge of religious educational establishments- mektabs and madrassas. In them, the bulk of the country's population learned to read and write and the basic canons of religion. Data have been preserved about the existence of handwritten libraries and book copyists at the madrasah and the khan’s court. The literacy and culture of the population are evidenced by preserved objects with inscriptions, tombstones with epitaphic inscriptions, and documents on office work. Literature was actively developing. A collection of poems and poems “The Rose and the Nightingale” by Khan Gazi-Girey has been preserved. Khans Bogadyr-Girey and Selim-Girey were also poets. There was an official historiography in the Crimean Khanate. In the 16th–17th centuries, “The History of Khan Sahib-Girey” by Remmal Khoja, the anonymous “History of Dasht-i Kipchak”, around 1638, and “The History of Khan Said-Girey” by Haji Mehmed Senai appeared. The famous fundamental work of the 18th century “Seven Planets” by Sayyid Muhammad Riza. The main motive of these works is the desire to prove the intrinsic value of Tatar history, to determine the role and place of the Crimean khans in the history of Turkey.

Construction and architecture were at a high level of development, for example, white-stone Bakhchisaray was famous for its mosques - Takhtaly-Jami (1704), Yeshel-Jami (1764), Khidzhi-Jami (1762–1769). The Jumi-Jami mosque (XVI century) was created in Yevpatoria. Mausoleums (dyurbe) of the Crimean khans and khan-bike - Turabek-khanum, Mengli-Gireya, Muhammad-Gireya were also built. The art of stone carving reached a high level; tombstones with floral ornaments were made. Music developed; famous musicians were some representatives of the Girey family who were educated in Turkey: Sahib-Girey, Gazi-Girey.

The population of the Crimean Khanate became the basis for the formation of the modern Crimean Tatar nation, laying down its main political, cultural and linguistic traditions.

The Crimean Khanate pursued an active foreign policy. Having strengthened the internal position in the state, Hadji Giray and his immediate descendants fought with the khans of the Great Horde, and often entered into an alliance with the Russian state. However, during this period the influence of the Ottoman Empire sharply increased, which extended its power to the entire Black Sea coast. On June 1, 1475, the Turkish fleet captured Cafa and other Italian colonies and Gothic fortresses. From that time on, the Crimean Khan became a vassal of the Turkish Sultan. In the first third of the 16th century, as Turkey strengthened and Russia began to expand in the Volga region, Russian-Crimean contradictions intensified. They sharply intensified after the deposition of the Russian protege Shah-Ali in Kazan and the elevation of Khan Sahib-Girey to the throne. The installation of Sahib-Girey and then his younger brother Safa-Girey on the Kazan throne caused a series of conflicts and wars between Moscow and the Crimean Khanate. Russian military campaigns became more frequent after the death of Safa-Girey in 1546 and ended with the conquest of Kazan (1552). Wars between the Crimean Khanate and Russia began, in which the main demand of the Crimean Khan was the return of khans from the Girey clan to Kazan. In these wars, the Crimean Khanate was supported by Turkey, which, in an effort to expand its influence in the North Caucasus, undertook an unsuccessful campaign against Astrakhan (1569). In 1571, Khan Devlet-Girey approached Moscow and burned it, but in 1572 he was defeated in the Battle of Molodi, which forced him to sign peace with Moscow. All attempts to liberate Kazan from Russian rule were unsuccessful. In the 17th–18th centuries, the Crimean Khanate participated in all military enterprises of the Turkish Empire: in wars against Hungary, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia, Austria and Iran. The territories of Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Wallachia were subjected to repeated attacks by Crimean troops.

At the end of the 17th century, during the war with Turkey, Russia launched Crimean campaigns (1687, 1689), which ended in vain. In 1711, the troops of the Crimean Khanate took part in the war with Russia, which ended with the Prut Peace Treaty, which ensured the preservation of the Crimean Khanate. At the end of the 18th century, the aggressive policy of the Russian Empire led to a series of Russian-Turkish wars. According to the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace Treaty of 1774, the Crimean Khanate ceased to be a vassal of Turkey and moved into the sphere of influence of Russia. The policies of Khan Shagin-Girey (1777–1783) caused discontent among the population and aristocracy and provoked an uprising. Under the pretext that the new khan was not approved by Russia, Russian troops were brought into Crimea. In 1783, the Crimean Khanate was annexed to the Russian Empire. On April 8, 1783, Empress Catherine II issued a manifesto, according to which Crimea, Taman and Kuban became Russian regions. The population formally retained its former rights and was ensured a peaceful life and justice. A new era began for Crimea - the period of Russian colonization and the gradual displacement of the Tatars.

Hadji Giray (1443–1466)
Nur-Devlet (1466–1469, 1474–1477)
Mengli-Girey I (1469–1515, with a break in 1474–1478)
Janibek-Girey I (1477–1478)
Muhammad-Girey I (1515–1523)
Gazi-Girey I (1523–1524)
Saadet Giray I (1524–1532)
Islam Giray I (1532)
Sahib Giray I (1532–1551)
Devlet-Girey I (1551–1577)
Muhammad-Girey II (1577–1584)
Islam Girey II (1584–1588)
Gazi-Girey II (1588–1597, 1597–1608)
Fath Giray I (1597)
Selamet-Girey I (1608–1610)
Janibek-Girey II (1610–1622, 1627–1635)
Muhammad-Girey III (1622–1627)
Inet-Girey (1635–1638)
Bahadur-Girey (1638–1642)
Muhammad-Girey IV (1642–1644, 1654–1665)
Islam Giray III (1644–1654)
Adil-Girey (1665–1670)
Selim Giray I (1670–1677, 1684–1691, 1692–1698, 1702–1604)
Murad-Girey (1677–1683)
Hadji Giray II (1683–84)
Saadet-Girey II (1691)
Safa-Girey (1691–92)
Devlet-Girey II (1698–1702, 1707–13)
Gazi-Girey III (1704–07)
Kaplan-Girey I (1707, 1713–16, 1730–36)
Kara-Devlet-Girey (1716–17)
Saadet-Girey III (1717–24)
Mengli-Girey II (1724–30, 1737–39)
Fath Giray II (1736–37)
Selim Giray II (1743–48)
Arslan-Girey (1748–56, 1767)
Maksud-Girey (1767–68)
Halim-Girey (1756–58)
Crimea-Girey (1758–64, 1767–69)
Selim Giray III (1764–67, 1770–71)
Devlet-Girey III (1769–70, 1775–77)
Kaplan-Girey II (1770)
Maksud-Girey II (1771–72)
Sahib-Girey II (1772–75)
Shagin-Girey (1777–83)

Russia. In 1478, after the Ottoman military expedition to Crimea, the Khanate became a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. After the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774, under the terms of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi peace of 1774, Crimea became independent state; Russia and the Ottoman Empire pledged not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Khanate and to withdraw their troops from there, while recognizing the spiritual authority of the Sultan as the head of the Muslims (caliph) over the Crimean Tatars. In 1783, the Russian Empire conquered the territory of the Crimean Khanate and a year later formed the Tauride region in the Crimean part of the occupied territories. The ownership of Crimea by the Russian Empire was finally recognized by the Ottoman Empire after the Russian-Turkish War of 1787-1791.

Capitals of the Khanate

The main city of the Crimean Yurt was the city of Kyrym, also known as Solkhat (modern Old Crimea), which became the capital of Khan Oran-Timur in 1266. According to the most common version, the name Kyrym comes from Chagatai qırım- pit, trench, there is also an opinion that it comes from the Western Kipchak qırım- “my hill” ( qır- hill, hill, -ım- affix of belonging to the first person singular).

When a state independent from the Horde was formed in Crimea, the capital was moved to the fortified mountain fortress of Kyrk-Era, then to Salachik, located in the valley at the foot of Kyrk-Era, and finally, in 1532, to the newly built city of Bakhchisarai.

Story

Background

The multinational population of Crimea then consisted mainly of Kypchaks (Cumans), Greeks, Goths, Alans, and Armenians living mainly in cities and mountain villages who lived in the steppe and foothills of the peninsula. The Crimean nobility was mainly of mixed Kipchak-Mongol origin.

Horde rule for the peoples inhabiting the present-day Crimean peninsula was generally painful. The rulers of the Golden Horde repeatedly organized punitive campaigns in Crimea when the local population refused to pay tribute. Nogai’s campaign in 1299 is known, as a result of which a number of Crimean cities suffered. As in other regions of the Horde, separatist tendencies soon began to appear in Crimea.

There are legends that in the 14th century Crimea was repeatedly ravaged by the army of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Grand Duke of Lithuania Olgerd defeated the Tatar army in 1363 near the mouth of the Dnieper, and then invaded the Crimea, devastated Chersonesus and captured valuable church objects there. A similar legend exists about his successor named Vytautas, who in 1397 reached Kaffa in the Crimean campaign and again destroyed Chersonesus. Vytautas in Crimean history He is also known for the fact that during the Horde turmoil of the late 14th century he provided refuge in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to a significant number of Tatars and Karaites, whose descendants now live in Lithuania and the Grodno region of Belarus. In 1399, Vitovt, who came to the aid of the Horde Khan Tokhtamysh, was defeated on the banks of the Vorskla by Tokhtamysh’s rival Timur-Kutluk, on whose behalf the Horde was ruled by Emir Edigei, and made peace.

Gaining independence

Vassalage to the Ottoman Empire

Wars with the Russian Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the early period

Since the end of the 15th century, the Crimean Khanate made constant raids on the Russian Kingdom and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Crimean Tatars and Nogai mastered the tactics of raids to perfection, choosing a path along watersheds. The main route to Moscow was the Muravsky Way, which ran from Perekop to Tula between the upper reaches of the rivers of two basins, the Dnieper and the Seversky Donets. Having gone 100-200 kilometers into the border region, the Tatars turned back and, spreading wide wings from the main detachment, engaged in robbery and the capture of slaves. The capture of captives - yasyr - and the trade in slaves were an important part of the economy of the Khanate. Captives were sold to Turkey, the Middle East and even European countries. The Crimean city of Kafa was the main slave market. According to some researchers [ ], more than three million people, mainly Ukrainians, Poles and Russians, were sold in the Crimean slave markets over two centuries. Every year, Moscow gathered up to 65 thousand warriors in the spring so that they would carry out border service on the banks of the Oka until late autumn. To protect the country, fortified defensive lines were used, consisting of a chain of forts and cities, ambushes and rubble. In the southeast, the oldest of these lines ran along the Oka from Nizhny Novgorod to Serpukhov, from here it turned south to Tula and continued to Kozelsk. The second line, built under Ivan the Terrible, ran from the city of Alatyr through Shatsk to Orel, continued to Novgorod-Seversky and turned to Putivl. Under Tsar Fedor, a third line arose, passing through the cities of Livny, Yelets, Kursk, Voronezh, Belgorod. The initial population of these cities consisted of Cossacks, Streltsy and other service people. A large number of Cossacks and service people were part of the guard and village services, which monitored the movement of the Crimeans and Nogais in the steppe.

In Crimea itself, the Tatars left little yasyr. According to the ancient Crimean custom, slaves were released as freedmen after 5-6 years of captivity - there is a number of evidence from Russian and Polish documents about returnees from Perekop who “worked out”. Some of those released preferred to remain in Crimea. There is a well-known case, described by the Ukrainian historian Dmitry Yavornitsky, when the ataman of the Zaporozhye Cossacks, Ivan Sirko, who attacked Crimea in 1675, captured huge booty, including about seven thousand Christian captives and freedmen. The ataman asked them whether they wanted to go with the Cossacks to their homeland or return to Crimea. Three thousand expressed a desire to stay, and Sirko ordered them to be killed. Those who changed their faith while in slavery were released immediately. According to Russian historian Valery Vozgrin, slavery in Crimea itself almost completely disappeared already in the 16th-17th centuries. Most of the prisoners captured during attacks on their northern neighbors (their peak intensity occurred in the 16th century) were sold to Turkey, where slave labor was widely used, mainly in galleys and in construction work.

XVII - early XVIII centuries

Prince V.M. Dolgorukov, who commanded the second Russian army, entered Crimea, defeated Khan Selim III in two battles and within a month captured the entire Crimea, and captured a Turkish seraskir in Kef. Bakhchisarai lay in ruins. Dolgorukov's army devastated Crimea. A number of villages were burned and civilians were killed. Khan Selim III fled to Istanbul. The Crimeans laid down their arms, bowed to the side of Russia and presented Dolgorukov with a letter of oath with the signatures of the Crimean nobility and notification of the election of Sahib II Geray to the khans, and his brother Shahin Geray to the kalgi.

Most of the lands outside the Crimea were sparsely populated steppes, over which cavalry could move, but where it would be difficult to build the fortresses required to constantly control the captured territories. Urban settlements were located in the Volga region and on the Crimean coast and were influenced by other khanates and the Ottoman Empire. All this significantly limited the growth of the economy and political influence of the Khanate.

The Crimean khans were interested in developing trade, which provided significant profits to the treasury. Among the goods exported from Crimea are raw leather, sheep's wool, morocco, sheep's coats, gray and black smushki. A significant role was played by the slave trade and ransoms for those captured in the lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Russian Kingdom. The main buyer of slaves was the Ottoman Empire.

Bakhchisarai Kaimakanism
Ak-Mechetsky kaymakanship
Karasubazar kaymakanism
Gezlevsky or Evpatoriya Kaimakanism
Kafinsky or Feodosian kaymakanism
Perekop Kaimakanism

Kaymakans consisted of 44 Kadylyks.

Army

Military activity was mandatory for both large and small feudal lords. The specifics of the military organization of the Crimean Tatars, which fundamentally distinguished it from the military affairs of other European peoples, aroused special interest among the latter. Carrying out the tasks of their governments, diplomats, merchants, and travelers sought not only to establish contacts with the khans, but also tried to familiarize themselves in detail with the organization of military affairs, and often their missions had the main goal of studying the military potential of the Crimean Khanate.

For a long time, there was no regular army in the Crimean Khanate, and all the men of the steppe and foothills of the peninsula who were able to bear arms actually took part in military campaigns. From an early age, Crimeans became accustomed to all the hardships and hardships of military life, learned to wield weapons, ride horses, and endure cold, hunger, and fatigue. The Khan, his sons, and individual beys carried out raids and got involved in hostilities with their neighbors mainly only when they were confident of a successful outcome. Intelligence played a major role in the military operations of the Crimean Tatars. Special scouts went ahead in advance, found out the situation, and then became guides for the advancing army. Using the factor of surprise, when it was possible to take the enemy by surprise, they often obtained relatively easy prey. But the Crimeans almost never acted independently against regular, numerically superior troops.

The Khan's Council established a norm in accordance with which the khan's vassals had to supply warriors. Some of the residents remained to look after the property of those who went on a campaign. These same people were supposed to arm and support the soldiers, for which they received part of the military spoils. In addition to military service, the khan was paid sauga- a fifth, and sometimes most of the booty that the Murzas brought with them after the raids. The poor people who took part in these campaigns hoped that going for loot would allow them to get rid of everyday difficulties and make their existence easier, so they relatively willingly followed their feudal lord.

In military affairs, the Crimean Tatars can distinguish two types of marching organization - a military campaign, when the Crimean army led by a khan or kalga takes part in the hostilities of the warring parties, and a predatory raid - bash-bash(five-headed - a small Tatar detachment), which was often carried out by individual murzas and beys with relatively small military detachments in order to obtain booty and capture prisoners.

According to the descriptions of Guillaume de Beauplan and Marsiglia, the Crimeans were equipped quite simply - they used a light saddle, a blanket, and sometimes covered the horse with sheep skin, and did not put on a bridle, using a rawhide belt. A whip with a short handle was also indispensable for the rider. The Crimeans were armed with a saber, a bow and a quiver with 18 or 20 arrows, a knife, a flint for making fire, an awl and 5 or 6 fathoms of belt ropes for tying captives. The favorite weapon of the Crimean Tatars were sabers made in Bakhchisarai,

What does the average person in the former Russian Empire know about the Crimean Khanate? That in Crimea there was a certain state of Crimean Tatars, ruled by khans and completely dependent on Ottoman Empire. That in Feodosia (then Cafe) under the Crimean Khanate there was the largest market with slaves from Ukraine and Muscovy captured by the Crimeans. That the Crimean Khanate fought for many centuries with the Moscow state, and later with Russia, and was eventually conquered by Moscow. It's all true.

But it turns out that the Crimean Khanate not only fought and traded Slavic slaves. There were times when Muscovy and the Crimean Khanate were in a friendly strategic alliance, their rulers called each other “brothers,” and the Crimean Khan even played a very significant role in the liberation of Rus' from Tatar-Mongol yoke, although he was part of the Horde. But little is known about this in Russia.

So, in our review, little-known facts regarding the history of the Crimean Khanate, through the pages of a new fundamental publication published in Ukraine.

Crimean khans

- successors of Genghis Khan

Founder of the Crimean Khanate Hadji Giray (Reigned 1441-1466).

This portrait in black and white illustrates Oleksa Gaivoronsky’s study “Lords of Two Continents”; this book will be discussed below.

The actual portrait image of the khan is surrounded by some symbols. Here's what Gayvoronskiy writes about these symbols on his blog haiworonski.blogspot.com (where this color illustration was published):

"Oak. Symbolizes the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where he was born and for a long time lived the founder of the Khan dynasty of Crimea. (His family was there in exile - Website note)

Owl. One of the symbols of the Geray family. European heraldic directories of the 17th-18th centuries. more than once they indicate a black owl on a yellow background as the coat of arms of the rulers of the Crimea, dating back to Genghis Khan.”

The illustrations here and below show some portraits of the Crimean khans for the multi-volume “Lords of Two Continents” by Oleksa Gaivoronsky.

Gaivoronsky pointed out, speaking about this series, made for his multi-volume work by the Kyiv artist Yuri Nikitin:

“Four of the nine portraits (Mengli Giray, Devlet Giray, Mehmed II Giray and Gazi II Giray) are based on Ottoman miniatures and European engravings of the 16th century depicting the listed rulers.

The remaining five images are a reconstruction created by the artist taking into account the author’s recommendations, which took into account rare descriptions of the appearance of this or that khan in written sources, and the appearance of his closest relatives captured in medieval graphics, and sometimes indirect data about the Mangyt (Nogai) or Circassian his mother's origins. The portraits do not claim to be documentary authenticity. The purpose of the portrait series is different: to become a decoration of the book and turn the list of khan’s names into a constellation of bright individual images.”

In 2009, the Kiev-Bakhchisarai publishing house "Oranta" published the second volume of Oleksa Gaivoronsky's multi-volume historical study "Lords of Two Continents." (The first volume was published there in 2007 and preparations are underway for the publication of the third volume. In total, according to the Ukrainian mass media, five volumes are planned).

Oleksa Gaivoronsky’s book is a rather unique publication. It is impossible to remember more similar studies in Russian, which would describe in such detail the history of the Crimean Khanate and its ruling dynasty. Moreover, this was done without the usual view of events from the “Moscow side”, which is usual for Russian-language books that describe the history of the Crimean Khanate.

The book was written, one might say, from the “Crimean side”. Oleksa Gaivoronsky is the deputy director for scientific affairs of the Bakhchisarai Khan's Palace Museum in Crimea. As he himself says in the preface to his book: “This book is about Crimea and for Crimea, but it may also be interesting on the other side of Perekop.” Written with sympathy towards the Crimean Khanate state and its dynasty of Gerays (who actually created the Crimean Khanate and ruled it until it was subjugated to Russia), the book, despite some of its bias noted above, is nevertheless an outstanding scientific work. And what is also important: the essay is distinguished by good, easy language.

Why the name: “Lords of Two Continents”? And here we finally move on to the exciting topic of the history of the Crimean Khanate based on the materials of Gaivoronsky’s multi-volume work.

We will present several short excerpts from this publication, which is still in print, in this review.

“Lords of two continents” is part of the title of the Crimean khans, which completely sounds like “Khakan of two seas and Sultan of two continents.”

But one should not think that the Crimean khans, when they chose such a title for themselves, were possessed by delusions of grandeur. Despite the fact that at times the Crimean Khanate included not only Crimea, but even extended to Tula, and taking into account dependent territories, extended to Lvov, and at some points in history included Kazan, it certainly could not be called a state of two continents . But this is not just a matter of vanity. Crimean khans, and in modern Russia This little known fact, were the successors to the power of Genghis Khan. This is how Oleksa Gaivoronsky writes about this in her book (The spelling of proper names and titles is given in the author’s version):

“The layer of Mongols - conquerors, as contemporaries wrote, within a few decades completely disappeared among the conquered Turkic peoples. It is not surprising that the empire of Genghis Khan almost immediately after the death of its founder split into several separate states, which, in turn, continued to fragment further. One of these fragments turned out to be the Great Horde (Great Ulus, Ulus of Batu Khan), which owned Crimea.

Despite the fact that the Mongols very quickly disappeared from the main stage of history, they left their system of government as a legacy to the conquered peoples for a long time.

Similar principles of statehood existed among the ancient Turks centuries before Genghis Khan adopted these customs and united the entire Kipchak Steppe under his rule. (Kypchaks (also called Cumans) are a Turkic-speaking nomadic people who, during their dawn, occupied vast territories from Hungary to Siberia. Ancient Rus' either conflicted with them or entered into an alliance - Note site).

The cornerstone of this power (Genghisid) system was the sacred status of the ruling dynasty and the indisputable authority of the supreme ruler - the kagan (khakan, great khan). This largely explains why in those states that arose from the ruins of the empire, the dynasties of the descendants of Genghis, the last guardians of the Mongolian political traditions among foreign subjects (Turks, Iranians, Indians, etc.), were firmly entrenched in power for a long time. There is nothing strange in this: after all, the situation when the ruling dynasty differs in origin from the people under its control and cultivates the ideals of its distant ancestors is common in world history.

Mongolian state customs did not have much in common with the traditions of the Crimean Tatar people, who, thanks to the geographical isolation of the peninsula and as Islam spread among its inhabitants, was formed in the Crimea from new settlers Kipchaks, old-timers Kipchaks and inhabitants of the mountainous regions - descendants of the Scythian-Sarmatian, Gothic-Alan and the Seljuk population. (Sarmatians and Scythians are related pastoral Iranian-speaking tribes, Goth-Alans are tribes of Germanic origin, Seljuk Turkic people. Note site).

Nevertheless, it was on (these Mongolian state) customs that the power rights of the Gerays were based and their foreign policy- after all, the laws of Genghis were the highest authority for their opponents in the struggle for the independence of Crimea: the last khans of the Great Horde, whose capital stood on the Lower Volga (The famous Horde city of Sarai-Batu. Note website). No matter how different Crimea and the Horde Volga region were from each other, their rulers spoke the language of the same symbols and ideas.

The main rival of the house of Geray was the house of Namagan - another Genghisid branch that occupied the Horde throne in the last decades of the existence of the united Ulus Batu. The dispute between two dynasties over Crimea culminated in the victory of the Gerays: in the summer of 1502, the last Horde ruler, Sheikh Ahmed, was overthrown from the throne by Mengli Geray.

The winner did not limit himself to the military defeat of his opponent and, in accordance with custom, also appropriated to himself all the regalia of power of the defeated enemy, proclaiming himself the Khan of not only the Crimea, but also the entire Great Horde. Thus, the Crimean Khan formally inherited the rights to all the former Horde possessions - the same “two seas” and “two continents” that were imprinted in his new title.” End of quote.

A little about what the Horde was like at that time, the ruler of which was the Crimean Khan. First of all, we note that by the time the Crimean Khan achieved the status of ruler of the entire Great Horde, the Horde had long been split into sovereign uluses. But, despite the fragmentation of the Horde, Sheikh-Ahmed, defeated by Mengli Geray, was the last Horde ruler, on whom the Russian state de jure recognized political dependence.

Sheikh-Ahmed's father Khan Akhmat (also spelled Akhmad, Akhmed, or Akhmet) became famous for leading the last campaign of the Golden Horde against Rus' in history. During this campaign in 1480, the so-called “standing on the Ugra River”, when the Golden Horde ruler did not dare to start a battle with the Russian troops advancing towards him, he broke camp and went to the Horde - and it was then that, according to Russian historiography, the Golden Horde yoke over Russia ended. However, already under Sheikh Ahmed in 1501-1502, Tsar Ivan III, busy with the war with Lithuania, expressed his readiness to admit his dependence and resumed paying tribute to the Horde. Sources note that this step was a diplomatic game, since at the same time Moscow was inclined to attack the Crimea Horde. But formally, Sheikh Ahmed is the last Horde khan whose dominance was recognized by Rus'.

Sheikh-Amed ruled the Horde state, but not the great Golden Horde, which was once headed by Batu, Tokhtamysh and other powerful khans, but only its fragment - the so-called. Great Horde. Golden Horde became a “Big” horde, because By that time, new Turkic states had broken away from the Horde rule - the former appanages of the Golden Horde: the Tatar Siberian Khanate and the Nogai Horde (from a people close to modern Kazakhs), as well as Crimea.

The state of the Great Horde was founded by Sheikh-Ahmed’s brother Seyid Akhmed, who became the Horde khan after the murder of the unlucky “Ugrin stalent” Khan Akhmat. Returning from the Ugra after a campaign, the “Ugrin stander” Khan Akhmat was captured in his tent and killed by a detachment led by the Siberian Khan Ivak and the Nogai Bey Yamgurchi.

A the Crimean khans, after defeating Sheikh Amed, gained high status and title.

A similar title of rulers of “two seas and continents” was also borne, as Gaivoronsky writes, by “Byzantine emperors and Ottoman sultans, who meant by “two continents” and “two seas” Europe and Asia, the Black and Mediterranean seas.

In the title of the Crimean Khan, the continents remained the same, but the list of seas changed: these are the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, along the shores of which the possessions of Ulus Batu Khan once stretched. And in 1515, 13 years after the defeat of Sheikh-Amed, the Crimean Khan Mehmed I Giray, son of Mengli Giray, even took for himself the title “padishah of all the Moguls (Mongols)”, focusing not on the greatness of the Golden Horde khans Batu and Tokhtamysh, but on himself Genghis Khan. After all, the Golden Horde was once identified as the ulus of Jochi, the eldest son of Genghis Khan.

Crimean Khanate

- the state of the Horde, which was against the Horde

In the illustration from Oleksa Gaivoronsky’s blog: portrait of the Crimean Khan Mengli I Giray (Reigned 1466, 1468-1475, 1478-1515).

Gaivoronsky explains the symbolism of the portrait this way: “Hand on a sword. The victory of Mengli Geray in 1502 over the last Horde khans put an end to the existence of the Volga Horde. The Crimean Yurt formally became the legal successor of the Golden Horde Empire;

The design of the painting includes larks on nests as elements. Larks making nests (as a sign of spring) are mentioned in a letter from Mengli Giray, which the khan wrote on the eve of his speech against his Horde rivals in 1502.”

Despite the fact that the Crimean khans achieved t Itul, which gave them the right to be considered the ruler of the steppes, they were not delighted with the remnants of the Horde hordes.

As Oleksa Gaivoronsky notes in her book, the Crimean Khanate saw the main threat to its security from the steppes - residents of the former Golden Horde Ulus A:

“The foreign policy activities of the Crimean Khanate convincingly show that the Gerais did not set themselves the task of seizing and retaining foreign territories. Crimea was famous as a serious force, capable of inflicting destructive military blows - however, deliberately seeking to weaken the neighboring powers that were currently the most powerful, the Crimean khans showed no interest in conquering lands and expanding their own borders. The motives of their struggle for the Horde inheritance were different.

If you look at Crimea from the outside, especially from the “Slavic coast”, then in the 15th-16th centuries it looked like a formidable, inaccessible fortress, from the attacks of the garrison of which it was possible to defend only with varying degrees of success. However, the picture seen from such a perspective is incomplete, because when looking at Perekop from their side (the Perekop Isthmus connects Crimea with the mainland. The main border fortress of the Crimean khans, Or-Kapy (“gate to the moat”) was located there. Note site) the Crimean khans were well aware of the vulnerability of their state - another thing is that the threat to it at that time came not from the Slavic North (which only much later could pose a danger to the Crimea), but from the Horde East.

Truly right (ancient Arab historian) al-Omari noted that “the earth prevails over natural features”: The Gerai, whose distant ancestors, the Genghisids, came to rule the Crimean country as conquerors, repeated the experience of all the previous rulers of Taurica and themselves began to fear the nomads of the Great Steppe , just as the Bosporan kings feared the Huns... Nomads of the Volga and Caspian regions invaded the Crimea almost every decade in 1470-1520; the Crimean khans barely managed to hold back this onslaught in 1530-1540, and were still forced to stand ready to repel it in the mid-1550s.

After all, it was there, in the steppe nomads of the Horde, that for decades there was a fierce struggle for power, exhausting the Crimea with leapfrogs of rulers and a constant change of waves of armed strangers hiding on the peninsula after being expelled from the Horde capital or preparing to rush to the Volga; the house of Namagan ruled there, challenging the Gerays' supremacy over the Crimea; From there, devastating raids were carried out on the peninsula, whose small territory a thousand-strong detachment of nomads could devastate in a matter of days. Examples of such raids were not limited to the era of Timur-Lenk and the Horde turmoil: nomads of the Volga and Caspian regions invaded Crimea almost every decade in the 1470-1520s; the Crimean khans barely managed to hold back this onslaught in the 1530s and 1540s, and were still forced to stand ready to repel it in the mid-1550s.

The view of the Crimean Khanate as a victim of steppe raids is an unusual perspective, but it is fully confirmed in sources known to any specialist at. Moreover, the foreign policy activities of the Crimean rulers of that era were largely devoted to the defense of Crimea from the threat from the Steppe.

Direct armed struggle with the rulers of the steppe powers could not fully ensure the security of Crimea, because to establish direct military control over the gigantic spaces of the former empire, the Crimean khans simply did not have sufficient human resources - even despite the fact that they deliberately resettled a considerable part of the Horde uluses they conquered. The rulers of Crimea had to choose a different path and call for help that ancient political tradition, the power of which was recognized by all the former subjects of the Horde: the inviolability of the power of the Supreme Khan-Genghisid over the entire multitude of individual hordes, tribes and uluses. Only another Genghisid could challenge the throne of the Great Khan, and for the rest of the population, including the noble class, it was considered unthinkable not to recognize this power.

In this light, the main task of the Crimean khans was to remove the rival Genghisid family from the Horde throne and take its place themselves. It was possible to finally defeat the Horde only by becoming its ruler; and only this measure, and not military actions, would guarantee the inviolability of the Gerais' possessions.

Such formal supremacy over all the peoples of the former Horde Empire no longer meant either “colonial” rule, or even economic exploitation in the form, for example, of collecting tribute. It only provided for the recognition by subjects of dynastic seniority and the nominal patronage of the supreme ruler, and this, in turn, ensured peace between the overlord and his vassals - the very peace that the Gerai so desperately needed, who sought to secure their land from raids and protect their power dynasty from the encroachments of other Chingizind families.

This struggle between the Crimean and Horde lines of the Genghisids lasted for many decades.

It did not end with the defeat of Sheikh-Ahmed and continued in the rivalry of two families for influence in those states of the Volga region that arose after the Ulus of Vagu: in Khadzhi-Tarkhan (in Russian transcription Astrakhan - Note.. At times achieving significant success in this struggle, the Gerai a year after year they were approaching their goal. But soon a third force intervened in the dispute between the two Genghisid clans and resolved it in its favor,” writes Gaivoronsky.

From the Crimean Khanate with love for Russia,

as well as other interesting features of the foreign and domestic policy of Crimea at that time

In an illustration from Oleksa Gaivoronsky’s blog: Devlet I Giray (Reign 1551-1577).
Gaivoronsky about the motives of the ornament of this portrait - sad motives directly related to Muscovy:
"Bent cypresses. The motive is taken from tombstones Khan's cemetery. Symbolizes the loss of two Volga khanates: Kazan and Khadzhi-Tarkhan (Astrakhan), conquered by Moscow during the reign of this khan.
Scroll in hand. Ineffective negotiations with Ivan the Terrible about the return of the Volga khanates.

Talking about the series of khan portraits for the book “Lords of Two Continents” and the exhibition “Chingizids of Ukraine” organized on July 1-9, 2009 in Kiev with the display of these paintings, Oleksa Gaivoronsky quotes in her blog an excerpt from an article by Ute Kilter in the Ukrainian newspaper “Den” ( No. 119 of July 14, 2009) with responses to the exhibition. And there again the theme of the Crimean Khanate and Muscovy sounds.

The newspaper writes:

“So Dmitry Gorbachev, art critic, consultant at Sotheby’s and Christie’s auctions, emphasizes:

“We can apply to the exhibition a term that we find in the Russian writer Andrei Platonov - “national egoism.” A very necessary, productive thing. For Russians this is Russian-centrism, for Ukrainians it should have their own angle of view. The project “Chingizids of Ukraine” demonstrates a Crimea-centric view. Sometimes he, too, goes “over the edge,” for example, when Tugaibey is proclaimed a hero of the Ukrainian people (Tugaibey is a Crimean dignitary who, on behalf of the Crimean Khan, helped the Zaporizhian Cossacks of Khmelnitsky with his military unit in the fight against the Poles. Note site). But Ukrainians really appreciated and resorted to the help of the Crimean Tatars, who were first-class warriors. They had an unrivaled 300,000-strong cavalry that moved with lightning speed. The Ukrainian Cossacks also learned this style from the Tatars.

Moscow has a completely different attitude towards this story: they don’t like to remember that back in 1700 Moscow was legally a vassal of the Crimean Khanate. Crimean Tatars are an enlightened nation. I felt this when I saw a letter from medieval Bakhchisarai, written to Sweden in Latin. The culture of the Crimean Khanate was high and influential. It is extremely important that both the exhibition and Oleksa Gaivoronsky’s books reveal this to Ukrainian society. They make us realize the kinship of our peoples and history. What is important here is the skill with which (artist) Yuri Nikitin uses the styles of Turkic and Persian miniatures, creating character portraits. The images of the Gerais here are interesting both in form and content. The double portrait of Mehmed III and Hetman Mikhail Doroshenko, who died during the liberation of this khan from captivity, opens our eyes to the twinning of not only rulers, but also our peoples.”

On closer examination, the foreign policy of the Crimean Khanate also turns out to be far from the stereotypical views that exist about this state formation in Russia. Sometimes Crimean politics even amazes with its nobility. Let's give a few examples from Gaivoronsky's book.

Here is the development of the already mentioned plot with “standing on the Ugra River”. Historical fact is that Russian troops won a bloodless victory at Ugra, which led to the end 300 year old Mongol-Tatar yoke over Russia, including due to the fact that the Polish-Lithuanian king Casimir, blocked by the troops of the Crimean Khanate, did not come to the aid of the Golden Horde Khan Akhmat. So The Crimean Khanate turned out to be a participant in the liberation of Rus' from the Horde yoke. Without Casimir's troops, Akhmat did not risk entering the battle, which he could have won. Although after the death of Akhmet at the hands of the Siberian Khan and the Nogai Bey, the Crimean Khanate also acted as a “Good Samaritan” for his sons, but it received black ingratitude in response in the form of a Golden Horde raid on Crimea.

Oleksa Gaivoronsky mentions all this in the fragment we provide below (we left the spelling of proper names unchanged):

“The sons of the deceased khan - Seyid-Ahmed, Murtaza and Sheikh-Ahmed - found themselves in dire straits. Now that their troops had fled, they had to be wary of any gang of robbers, of which there were quite a few roaming the steppes at that time. The main Horde bey, Temir from the Mangyt clan, led the princes to Crimea to ask for help from (Crimean Khan) Mengli Geray.

The bey’s calculations turned out to be correct: the Crimean ruler hospitably greeted the wanderers and, at his own expense, provided them with horses, clothes and everything they needed. Khan hoped that he could make yesterday’s enemies his allies and even accept them into his service - but that was not the case: having regained their strength in the Crimea, the refugees left Mengli Giray and, with all the donated goods, went to the steppes. Khan started to chase after the ungrateful guests, but managed to detain only one Murtaza, who now turned from a guest into a hostage.

In place of the deceased Ahmed (Akhmat), his son, Seid-Akhmed II, became the Horde khan. Under the pretext of releasing Murtaza from Crimean captivity, he began to gather troops for a campaign against Mengli Giray. True, Seyid-Ahmed was very afraid that the Ottomans would come to the aid of Mengli Giray, and therefore he tried to find out in advance how many Turkish troops were now stationed in Crimea. Apparently, intelligence reported that the Ottoman garrison in Kef was small and there was nothing to fear. In addition, just recently, in 1481, Mehmed II died, and instead of a ferocious conqueror who terrified neighboring countries, the Ottoman Empire was ruled by his son Bayezid II, a kind-hearted and peace-loving man. Having received this encouraging information, Seyid-Ahmed and Temir moved into battle.”

Here we will interrupt the quote from Oleks Gaivoronsky. To make a few more clarifications. Turkish troops invaded Crimea and brought it under their influence a decade earlier. At the same time, the Crimean Khan continued to rule the internal regions of Crimea, and the coast, including Kafa (in another transcription - Kefe) (present-day Feodosia), was directly controlled by the Turks.

Initially, the Turkish sultans did not interfere in domestic policy Crimean Khanate and issues of succession to the throne, but later, when the Crimean Tatar nobility began to appeal to them when choosing new khans, the rulers in Istanbul became more and more involved in the internal affairs of Crimea. This ended a century later with the almost direct appointment of the Crimean khans from Istanbul.

But why do we, when talking about issues of succession to the throne, talk about elections? The point is that in TO The Roman Khanate had a kind of democracy. What then had an analogue from neighboring powers, perhaps, only in Poland - both the Ottoman Empire and Muscovy could not boast of democracy. The nobility of the Crimean Khanate had the right to vote in the election of the khan. The only restriction is that you can only choose from the Gerai dynasty. Over the 300 years of the state’s existence, 48 khans replaced the Crimean throne, most of whom ruled for 3-5 years. Some khans were called upon to rule again by the nobility. Certainly, great importance had the opinion of Istanbul, but without the approval of his policies by the local nobility, the khan could not rule for long - he was overthrown. To ascend the throne, the khan required the sanction of a large divan (a Council of representatives of the nobility who were not appointed by the khan, but were members of the divan by birthright. During the election of the khan, elected representatives from the common people also sat in the divan). WITH The khan shared his power with the so-called. Kalga - the highest official of the state and a kind of junior khan, who had his own separate capital in the city of Ak-Mosque ("White Mosque" - present-day Simferopol).

So the Crimean Khanate was distinguished by a rather democratic structure. At the same time, the khan’s government was accustomed to coexistence on the peninsula with other state entities. Before the arrival of the Turks, part of the peninsula was occupied by the Orthodox state of Theodoro, and Feodosia and the adjacent coast were ruled by Genoa.

Now let’s return to Gaivoronsky’s book and, using the same historical plot as an example, let’s see how the Crimean Khanate fought the Horde and helped Moscow. We stopped at how the son of the last khan of the Golden Horde attacks Crimea:

“The attack of the Horde troops on the Crimea was so strong that Mengli Giray could not hold his position and, wounded, fled to the Kyrk-Er fortress.

Murtaza was released and joined his brother. The goal of the campaign was achieved, but Seid-Ahmed did not want to stop there and decided to conquer Crimea. Apparently, the Horde was unable to take Kyrk-Er, and Seid-Akhmed, plundering the villages oncoming, headed towards Es-ki-Kyrym. He besieged the city, but the old capital firmly held the offensive, and it was possible to take it only by cunning: Seyid-Ahmed promised that he would not cause any harm to the residents if they stopped resisting and let him in. The townspeople believed him and opened the gates to him. As soon as the khan achieved his goal, he renounced the oath he had taken - and the Horde army plundered the city, exterminating many of its inhabitants.

Intoxicated by success, Seyid-Ahmed decided to follow this with a lesson to the Turks, demonstrating to the new Sultan who was the true owner of the Black Sea lands. A huge Horde army approached Kefa. Confident of his superiority, Seyid-Ahmed sent a messenger to the Ottoman governor Kasym Pasha with a demand to lay down his arms and surrender Kefa to the Horde...

But the Horde warriors, standing on the seashore under the walls of Kefe, had not previously encountered heavy artillery, and the sight of the thundering (Turkish) cannons made a very strong impression on them. The retreat turned into a hasty flight...

Mengli Giray with his beys rushed in pursuit of the retreating enemy. The Horde army, frightened by the Ottomans, now became an easy target for the Crimeans, who managed to recapture from Seyid-Akhmed all the booty and prisoners he had captured in the Crimea.

The danger passed, and the Ottomans showed that they could provide Crimea with invaluable assistance in defense against Horde raids. And yet, the very fact of the invasion, albeit successfully repelled, could not help but instill anxiety in the khan for the future of the country: it was obvious that the new generation of rulers, the Namagans, had entered into a fierce struggle with the Gerays for the Crimea and would not so easily give up their intentions. It was difficult for Mengli Geray to fight them alone, and he began looking for allies.

Having lost its own outskirts, the Horde also lost its former Slavic vassals. The loss of Ukraine and its transition to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was recognized by Tokhtamysh. As for the Grand Duchy of Moscow, it too was successfully moving towards liberation from Horde rule, as evidenced by the recent failure of Ahmed. The fight against a common enemy, Sarai, made Crimea and Moscow allies, and Mengli Giray, who had long been trying to establish contacts (with the Moscow ruler) Ivan III, continued the negotiations interrupted (several years earlier) by the Turkish invasion. Soon Khan and Grand Duke They made each other a commitment to fight together against Ahmed and then his sons.

From the point of view of Crimea, this union meant that Moscow recognized the Crimean Khan as the ruler of the entire Great Horde and became a formal citizen of him, shedding dependence on Sarai. Having inherited the traditional Horde supremacy over the Moscow Grand Duke, Mengli Giray renounced the privileges that humiliated his ally: he freed Ivan from paying tribute and began to call him “his brother” in letters. The sensitive issue of the title was very important for Ivan III, because the khan, as a representative of the ruling dynasty, would have the right to call the Horde vassal a “serf,” but instead recognized the Moscow ruler as his equal, which greatly strengthened Ivan’s authority among his neighbors.

In the illustration from the book by Oleksa Gaivoronsky: The Crimean Khanate surrounded by neighboring states and territories at the beginning of the 16th century.

In the illustration from the book by Oleksa Gaivoronsky: The Crimean Khanate surrounded by neighboring states and territories at the beginning of the 16th century. Our comment on this map.
First, a little about the Crimean names, and then, based on this map, we will characterize some of the states and territories indicated here.
The self-name of the Crimean Khanate is “Crimean Yurt” (from the Crimean Tatar Qırım Yurtu), which means “Crimean rural encampment”.
According to research, the name “Crimea” comes from the Turkic “kyrym”, which means “fortress”, or from the Mongolian “herem” - “wall”, “rampart”, “embankment”, “my hill”.
After Mongol conquest peninsula, which previously bore the name “Tavria” (in Greek “country of Taurians” in honor of a semi-mythical people), the word “Crimea”, before becoming the name for the entire peninsula, was assigned to the settlement of Eski-Kyrym (“Old Kyrym”), or simply Kyrym, who served as one of the Mongol-Tatar headquarters.
In passing, we note that, as Oleksa Gaivoronsky notes, the Mongols occupied only a small percentage in the ranks of the Mongol-Tatar conquerors. They mainly represented the command staff. The basis of the army was made up of Turkic tribes.
In Crimea, the Mongol-Tatars met, along with other peoples, a Genoese trading post-colony in Feodosia, which survived the Mongol conquest.
Europeans and Mongol-Tatars lived peacefully together in the city of Eski-Kyrym. It was divided into Christian and Muslim parts. The Genoese called their part Solkhat (from Italian “furrow, ditch”), and the Muslim part of the city was called Kyrym proper. Later, Eski-Kyrym became the capital of the Crimean yurt, which was still dependent on the Mongols. Kyrym (which still exists today as the small sleepy town of Old Crimea, where, with the exception of an old mosque, almost nothing else remains from the period of the Mongol conquest) is located on a flat plain, part of the steppe Crimea, several tens of kilometers from the sea.
It was the openness of the city of Kyrym from all sides that forced the Crimean khans to move the capital to the village of Salachik - to a mountain valley at the foot of the ancient mountain fortress of Kyrk-Er. Later, another new khan's capital, Bakhchisarai, was built there, which was the main city of the Crimean Khanate before the annexation of Crimea to Russia.
In Bakhchisaray (translated as “garden palace”), the Khan’s palace built in the Ottoman style is still preserved (an earlier version of the palace of the Crimean khans, but in the Mongolian style, was burned by the Russians during one of the campaigns of the tsarist army in Crimea).
As for the ancient fortress of Kyrk-Er, you can read more about it and the mysterious Karaite people (the so-called modern Khazars) who inhabited it in another material - “Modern Khazars - the Crimean Karaites” on our website. By the way, the status of the Karaites in this fortress was one of the specific features of the Crimean Khanate.
Also on the map we see that part of the Crimean Peninsula is painted in the same color as the territory of the Ottoman Empire. In 1475, the Ottomans occupied the coast of Crimea, defeating the Genoese state formation in Feodosia (under the Ottomans, called Kafa (Kefe), as well as destroying the Orthodox principality of Theodoro (Gothia), which had existed since Byzantine times. These two states recognized the supremacy of the Crimean Khan, but within their own the territories were independent.
Inset: Southern Crimea before 1475: Shown here are the territories of the Genoese Colony (in red) with the cities of Feodosia and Soldaya (present-day Sudak), as well as the territory of the Principality of Theodore (in brown) and the disputed territory between them, passing from hand to hand (in red). brown stripes).
On big map we see the Kazan yurt, the Nogai Horde, as well as the Khadzhi-Tarkhan yurt (i.e. the Astrakhan Khanate, where the old Horde capital Sarai was located) - independent fragments of the Golden Horde, which periodically recognized the power of the Crimean Khan.
The territories colored in stripes on the map are lands without a specific status, previously part of the Golden Horde, which were disputed by neighboring countries during the period under review. Of these, Moscow at that time was able to finally secure the territory around Chernigov, Bryansk and Kozelsk.
An interesting state formation indicated on the map was the Kasimov Yurt, a microscopic state artificially created by Muscovy for representatives of the Kazan people who had defected to Moscow. ruling house led by Qasim. This yurt, which existed from 1446 to 1581, was an entity completely dependent on the Moscow rulers with a Russian population and a Muslim dynasty of local princes.
On the map we also see a thick light brown line - it marks the western border of the Horde territory during the existence of the Golden Horde. Wallachia and Moldova, indicated on the map, were colonies of the Ottoman Empire for the period under review.

True, the agreement with Ivan cost the khan his ancient, hereditary friendship with Casimir, because Muscovy, which had long encroached on the lands of Lithuanian Rus, was an implacable enemy of Lithuania. Trying to find justice for Ivan, the king started negotiations on an anti-Moscow alliance with the Horde khans.

This new policy was a big mistake for the Polish-Lithuanian ruler: the weakening Horde did nothing to help him in the fight against Moscow’s claims, but the rapprochement with Sarai for a long time put the king at odds with a much more valuable ally - Crimea.

Preparing his fateful campaign of 1480, which was mentioned above. Ahmed asked Casimir for help, and he promised to send him Lithuanian forces for a joint attack on the enemy.

Casimir's troops were already preparing to come to the aid of the Horde - but Mengli Giray threw Crimean troops towards them, and instead of marching on Moscow, the Lithuanians had to defend their possessions. This was the reason for the defeat of Ahmed, who, without waiting for the allies to arrive, did not dare to fight the Russians alone and retreated back to meet his death.

Assessing the success of this Crimean campaign, Ivan III steadily insisted that the khan not give up the fight against Lithuania and strike his next blow at the very center of Lithuanian Rus' - Podolia or Kyiv. Mengli Giray agreed that Casimir should be warned against friendship with Saray, and ordered his troops to prepare for a campaign along the Dnieper.

Mengli Giray approached Kyiv on September 10, 1482. The khan did not approach the fortress, much less storm it: in this case, it would not have been difficult for the Kyiv governor to fire at the advancing army from cannons and repel the attack. Therefore, keeping the main forces at a distance from the fortifications, the Crimean warriors set fire to the wooden residential areas surrounding the fortress on both sides and, retreating slightly, began to wait for the fire to do its job. The flames quickly engulfed the dilapidated buildings, spread inside the fortified citadel - and Kyiv fell without any battle.

Crimean troops entered the defeated city and collected rich booty there, and then the khan led his people home.

Mengli Geray immediately reported the victory to his Moscow ally and sent him as a gift two precious trophies from the famous Cathedral of St. Sophia of Kyiv: a golden sacrament cup and a golden tray for worship. Having dealt Kazimir a crushing blow with someone else's hands, Ivan sincerely thanked Mengli Geray for his loyalty to his word.

The king could not repay the khan with a retaliatory blow and preferred to settle the matter peacefully. However, he did not miss the opportunity to sharply offend his Crimean neighbor, asking him through ambassadors: they say, there are rumors that he is fighting with Lithuania on the orders of Moscow? The lunge hit the target. Mengli Geray was indignant: does the Moscow prince, his subject, have the right to command the khan?! The dispute was limited to this, and Casimir took up the task of restoring the destroyed city.”

In general, this is how the Moscow state and the Crimean Khanate were friends. But when Crimea became excessively powerful, Moscow, as Gaivoronsky writes, became more friendly with the Nogai, setting them against Crimea. Relations between Moscow and the Crimean Khanate finally deteriorated due to the issue of Kazan. The Crimean khans seated their candidates on the khan’s throne there, Moscow put its own... Gaivoronsky notes:

“The Grand Duchy of Moscow, which itself had been a Horde vassal for a long time, also entered the struggle for the lands of the Volga region. Its strategy was very different from that of Crimea, because Moscow’s goal was classic territorial expansion. Not being Genghisids, the Moscow rulers, naturally, could not claim dynastic seniority among the local rulers, and therefore, unlike the Gerais, they did not strive for the formal subordination of the Volga khanates, but for their complete liquidation and the annexation of their territories to their state. At first, the Moscow rulers chose the tactic of supporting the weakening house of Namagan in its resistance to the Gerays, and then decided on a direct armed seizure of the khanates of the Volga and Caspian regions.”

And in conclusion of this review of the book by Oleksa Gaivoronsky another interesting fact. It was the founder of the dynasty of the Crimean khans, Hadji Giray, who returned the territory of the former Kievan Rus as a gift to the Christian world.

This was done around 1450, when neighboring Muscovy was still under the Horde yoke. The Crimean Khan, nominally claiming power over the entire Golden Horde, in gratitude to the Polish-Lithuanian state for support when he was an exile in Lithuanian lands, signed a decree at the request of the Lithuanian ambassadors, presenting the whole of Ukraine to the Lithuanian Grand Duke and the Polish King Casimir: “Kiev with all income, lands, waters and property”, “Podolia with waters, lands from this property”, then listing a long list of cities of the Kiev region, Chernigov region, Smolensk region, Bryansk region and many other edges up to Novgorod itself, which Hadji Giray on behalf of the conquered by him The horde was inferior to its friendly neighbor.

Let us only note that Khan Tokhtamysh had previously promised to transfer Ukraine to Lithuania.

Gaivoronsky writes: “Of course, the Horde had no influence in these lands for a long time, and the act of Hadji Geray was symbolic. Nevertheless, such symbols were of great importance at that time. It was not in vain that Casimir turned to Hadji Geray for such a document: after all, Lithuania had a dispute with Muscovy over some of these lands, and since Moscow was still formally subordinate to the Horde throne, the khan’s label could become a full-fledged argument in favor of Casimir in this dispute.

So the khan, who, for the sake of the security of his own state, defended neighboring Ukraine year after year from the attacks of another contender for the Horde throne: finally confirmed the liberation of this land from the long-term rule of the Horde. It remains to be recognized that Hadji Giray fully deserved the fame of “guardian of the peace of Ukrainian lands” that was assigned to him in history.” It is worth noting that during the period under review, there were several khans in the Golden Horde claiming the throne, and Hadji Giray was only one of them.

But Oleksa Gaivoronsky notes: “Having defeated the Horde Khan (his rival), Hadji Giray did not take the dangerous path that his predecessors usually followed: he did not go to the Volga to fight for Sarai. Without a doubt, Hadji Geray remembered well how many (appanage) khans of past years, having set their sights on the Volga capital, got bogged down in an endless struggle and died ingloriously in its whirlpool. Satisfied with what he already had, Hadji Giray abandoned the dangerous pursuit of illusory glory and returned from the Dnieper to his Crimea.” Let us add on our own behalf, he returned to Crimea and became the founder of the ruling dynasty of the Crimean Khanate - a state that lived for more than 300 years.

Golden Horde. Genoa

In the 14th century, the Horde experienced a crisis caused by Islamization. The Horde lost a significant part of its offensive power, and its forces were directed towards internal squabbling, which ultimately destroyed the great power.

After another internecine massacre in the sixties of the 14th century, the Golden Horde was divided into two parts - eastern and western (in Rus' this civil strife was called the “great great one”). In the western part - in the Northern Black Sea region and Crimea - power was seized by the Temnik Mamai, who relied on the Polovtsians, who at that time received the name “Tatars”, Yasov and Kasogs. Mamai was married to the daughter of the Golden Horde khan Berdibek and although he was not from the clan of Genghis Khan, he laid claim to the khan’s power. His ally was Genoa, which created colonies along the entire southern coast of the Crimean Peninsula. Transit trade and control over communications turned Mamai into a rich nobleman who could maintain a huge army and place his puppets on the khan’s throne.

During this period, the Genoese Republic acquired great importance in Crimea. Genoa, a trading port city on the shores of the Ligurian Sea in Northern Italy, had become a major maritime power by the beginning of the 12th century. Having defeated its rival Venice, Genoa became the monopoly owner of the maritime trade routes that ran along the Crimea. Byzantium in the second half of the 12th century granted Genoa exclusive rights in the Black Sea. Venice lost its possessions in Crimea. In the middle of the 13th century, the Horde transferred the small coastal village of Feodosia to the Genoese. The Genoese called the city Cafa and turned it into their main stronghold in Crimea. Then the Genoese entered into an agreement with Constantinople, which previously owned the southern part of Crimea. The Byzantines at this time needed help and were constantly inferior to Genoa and Venice, so the Genoese received the district with Kafa in their possession, and the right of monopoly trade in the Black Sea region was confirmed.

At the end of the 13th century, Venice and Genoa again entered into a war for spheres of influence. The Venetian Republic was defeated. In 1299, the Italian city-states signed a “perpetual peace.” Genoa remained the only owner of trade communications in the Northern Black Sea region and Crimea. The Horde tried several times to survive the impudent “guests,” but they were already well entrenched and resisted. As a result, the Horde had to come to terms with the presence of Genoese lands in Crimea. The Venetians were able to penetrate Crimea in the middle of the 14th century, but did not achieve much influence. During the “rebellion” in the Horde, the Genoese expanded their possessions in the Crimea. They captured Balaklava and Sudak. Subsequently, the entire Crimean coast from Kerch to Balaklava Bay near Sevastopol was in the hands of enterprising Italians. On the southern coast of the peninsula, the Genoese also founded new fortified points, including Vosporo, founded on the site of the former Korchev. In 1380, the Horde Khan Tokhtamysh recognized all the territorial seizures of the Genoese.

Genoa received large profits from intermediary trade. Many overland caravan routes from Europe, Russian principalities, the Urals, Central Asia, Persia, India and China passed through the Crimean peninsula. Sea routes connected Crimea with Byzantium, Italy, and the Middle East region. The Genoese bought and resold captured people, all the goods looted by the nomads, various fabrics, jewelry, furs, leather, honey, wax, salt, grain, fish, caviar, olive oil, wine, etc.

From time to time, the Horde captured and destroyed the strongholds of the Genoese. In 1299, Nogai's troops ravaged Kafa, Sudak, Kerch and Chersonesus. Khan Tokhta destroyed the Italian possessions. In 1395, Iron Lame defeated Kafa and Tana (modern Azov). In 1399, the commander-in-chief of its troops, Emir Edigei, became the ruler of the Golden Horde; in the same year he made a campaign against the Crimea, during which he destroyed and burned many of its cities. Chersonesos, after this pogrom, never recovered and after a few years ceased to exist. However, huge profits from intermediary trade allowed the Genoese to rebuild their strongholds again and again. At the end of the 14th century, Kafa was a large city and numbered about 70 thousand people.

The Genoese supported Mamai in his campaign against Rus', sending out mercenary infantry. However, in the Battle of Kulikovo, Mamai’s army suffered a crushing defeat. After this, Mamai was defeated by the troops of Tokhtamysh. He fled to Kafa to his allies. However, they betrayed him. Mamai was killed.

At the beginning of the 15th century there was a struggle between Tokhtamysh and Edigei. After the death of Tokhtamysh, the fight was continued by his son Jalal ad-Din. Crimea has more than once become the scene of fierce battles. Various contenders for the Horde throne considered Crimea, due to its isolated position, the most reliable refuge in the event of defeat. They willingly distributed lands on the peninsula to their supporters and associates. The remnants of defeated troops, detachments of various khans, pretenders to the throne, and military leaders flocked here. Therefore, the Turkic element gradually took a dominant position in Crimea and mastered not only the steppe part of the peninsula, but also penetrated further to the mountainous coast.

Genoese fortress Kafa

Crimean Khanate

In the first half of the 15th century, the Golden Horde ceased to exist as a single power. Several state entities with their own dynasties appeared. The largest fragment was the Great Horde, which occupied the steppes between the Volga and Dnieper. The Siberian Khanate was formed between the Irtysh and Tobol rivers. The Kazan kingdom arose in the middle Volga, occupying the lands of the former Volga Bulgaria. The Nogai, who roamed along the shores of the Azov and Black Seas, fell away from the Great Horde. The Crimean ulus also became independent.

The founder of the Crimean dynasty was Hadji I Giray (Gerai). Hadji Giray was from the clan of Chingis and lived in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia. In 1428, Hadji Giray, with the support of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas, captured the Crimean ulus. It was beneficial for Lithuania to support part of the Horde elite, sowing confusion in the Horde and taking control of its regions in the former Southern Rus'. In addition, Crimea was of great economic importance. However, Ulu-Muhammad's troops drove him out. In 1431, at the head of a new army gathered in the Principality of Lithuania, Hadji Giray undertook a new campaign in the Crimea and occupied the city of Solkhat (Kyrym, Old Crimea).

In 1433, the khan entered into an alliance with the principality of Theodoro against the Genoese. The Gothic prince Alexei captured the Genoese fortress Chembalo (Balaklava). Genoa struck back. The Genoese recaptured Cembalo, then stormed and destroyed the Theodorian fortress of Kalamita (Inkerman), which guarded the only port of the Christian principality. The Genoese continued their offensive, but the Tatars defeated them near Solkhat. Hadji Giray besieged Kafa. The Genoese recognized him as the Crimean Khan and paid tribute.

In 1434, Khan of the Golden Horde Ulu-Muhammad again defeated Hadji Giray, who fled to Lithuania. Meanwhile, strife between the khans continued in the Black Sea steppes. Tatar troops devastated the peninsula several times. Around 1440, the Crimean Tatar nobility, led by the noble clans Shirin and Baryn, asked Grand Duke Casimir to release Hadji Giray to Crimea. Hadji Giray was placed on the throne by the Lithuanian Marshal Radziwill. Since 1441, Hadji Giray ruled in Crimea. After several years of struggle with the khan of the Great Horde, Seid-Ahmed, the Crimean Khanate finally became independent. Hadji Giray concluded an alliance with Theodoro, directed against the Genoese Kafa, and helped recapture Calamita. In addition, the Crimean Khanate was allied with Lithuania in opposition to the Great Horde. Hadji Giray inflicted a number of heavy defeats on the khans of the Great Horde Seyid-Ahmed and Mahmud; a large number of warriors, which seriously increased the military power of the new Khanate. The actions of Hadji Giray contributed to the final collapse of the Horde.

The capital of the Khanate was the city of Crimea-Solkhat. Not far from Chufut-Kale, on the banks of the Churuksu River, Hadji Giray founded the “Palace in the Gardens” - the city of Bakhchisarai, which became the new capital of the khanate under his son Mengli Giray. The majority of the Khanate's population were Crimean Tatars. The first mention of this ethnonym - “Crimean Tatars” - was noted at the beginning of the 16th century in the works of S. Herberstein and M. Bronevsky. Before this, the nomadic population of Crimea was called “Tatars”. The Crimean Tatars formed as a people in Crimea in the 15th-17th centuries, that is, they are a very young people.

The basis of the “Crimean Tatars” was made up of assimilated descendants of the Aryans who lived here since ancient times - Cimmerians, Taurians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Goths, Slavs, as well as fragments of the Khazars, Pechenegs, and Polovtsians who fled to the peninsula. Waves of Turkic migration from Asia Minor also played a role. The Horde “Tatars” united everyone politically, and Islam united everyone ideologically. As a result, Turkization and Islamization led to the emergence of the Crimean Tatar people.

Recent genetic studies confirm this. Based on Y-chromosome inheritance, most Crimean Tatars belong to haplogroup R1a1 (an Aryan haplogroup formed in Southern Russia). Then, a significant proportion among the Crimean Tatars are carriers of haplogroups J1 (Middle Eastern group, characteristic of Jews) and G (Western Caucasian). Haplogroup J2 (the Middle Eastern group) also has a significant percentage; haplogroup C, characteristic of Central Asia, is inferior to it. Thus, the ethnographic basis of the Crimean Tatars is Aryan. However, there is a large percentage of "Khazars", "Circassians" and Turks. Turkization and Islamization over the course of several centuries turned everyone into “Crimean Tatars.” This shouldn't be surprising. All processes are controlled. Literally before our eyes, a separate ethnic group - “Ukrainians” - is being successfully created from a part of the Russian people. They also design “Pomors”, “Cossacks” and “Siberians”.

In the southern part of Crimea, assimilation proceeded more slowly. Here the countryside was dominated by Christians. Therefore, Greeks, Armenians, Goths, Italians, Slavs, people from the Caucasus, etc. also lived there for quite a long time. However, by the time the Crimean Peninsula was annexed to the Russian Empire, almost everyone was assimilated, only the communities of Greeks and Armenians survived, but they were doomed if not part of Russia. So the last Goths disappeared in the 18th century.

On the territory of the Crimean Khanate, several forms of land distribution arose: khan land ownership, the possessions of the nobility (beyliks) and Murzin lands, lands of the Ottoman Sultan, waqf lands belonging to the clergy and communal lands. The Crimean nobility - the families of Shirin, Baryn, Argyn, Sedzheut, Mangit and others - owned quite large land holdings. Their owners, the beks, were rich and had the opportunity to maintain large detachments. They stood at the head of the leading clans that united the tribes. The beks owned the land, which ensured their power over the cattle breeders, the so-called. “black people”, they had the right of court, established the amount of taxes and corvee. The military nobles also depended on the beks. It was the beks who determined the policy of the Khanate and often decided the fate of the Crimean khans. In addition, the Crimean elite included oglans - Chingizid princes, military nobles (Murzas), Muslim clergy (mullahs) and ulema theologians.

Officially, all power belonged to the khan and the khan's council (divan), which included the khan himself, the kalga-sultan - the second most important person in the khanate (the heir, he was appointed by the khan from among his brothers, sons or nephews), the eldest wife or mother of the khan, the mufti - head of the Muslim clergy, chief beks and oglans. The third most important person after the khan and kalga in the hierarchy of the Crimean Khanate, the second heir to the throne was called Nurradin Sultan (nureddin).

The territory of the Khanate in its heyday included not only the Crimean Peninsula, but also the Azov and Northern Black Sea steppes, right up to the Danube and the North Caucasus. The main centers of Crimean trade were Perekop, Kafa and Gezlev. Leathers, furs, fabrics, iron, weapons, grain and other food were brought to Crimea. In Crimea, they produced morocco (processed goat skin), morocco shoes, and smushki (skins taken from newborn lambs). Silk, wine brought from other countries, and salt were also brought from Crimea. A special export item was camels, which were bought in Poland and Russia. But historically, Crimea became famous as the largest center of the slave trade. He inherited the sad glory of Khazaria.

It should be noted that Genoese merchants and descendants of the Khazars initially played a leading role in the establishment of the slave trade on the peninsula. For many centuries, Crimean ports turned into leading suppliers of living goods - Russian, Polish, Circassian (Caucasian), Tatar (in the steppe there was constant strife) girls and children. Men were sold much less: healthy men resisted to the last, cost less, and were a source of rebellion and all kinds of disobedience. Women and children were much easier to “train.” Live goods generally did not remain in Crimea, but were exported to the Ottoman Empire, Southern Europe, Persia and Africa.

It was beneficial for Constantinople to encourage the aggression of the Crimean Khanate against the Russian state and Poland. The attacks of the Crimean Tatars mainly fell on the southern and western Russian lands that were part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, although it happened that the invaders broke through the Polish lands themselves. The Crimean Khanate was supposed to help the Sublime Porte in its heyday to move further to the east. In addition, the slave trade brought great profits to Ottoman merchants. Later, when the Ottoman Empire lost most of its offensive potential, the Crimean Khanate made it possible to maintain control over the Northern Black Sea region. On the other hand, military garrisons, shock troops of the Janissaries, and Ottoman artillery strengthened the military power of the Crimean Khanate, which allowed it to hold back the pressure of the Russian state for a long time.

Agricultural work in Crimea was carried out mainly by the dependent population, which was subjected to assimilation, Islamization and gradually turned into “Tatars”. The Crimean Tatars themselves preferred the occupation of “noble people” - robbery raids with the aim of capturing the population, which was a very profitable business. It is clear that almost all the profits went into the pockets of the nobility; the “black people” barely made ends meet. In the steppe regions of Crimea, livestock farming was developed, primarily the breeding of sheep and horses, but this was done by poor shepherds. The basis of the economy of the Khanate for a long period of time was trade in living goods. From the end of the 15th century, Crimean troops began to carry out regular raids and large-scale campaigns against their neighbors - the Caucasus, the Russian state, and lands subject to Poland. People were also driven away during conflicts with other steppe inhabitants.

The envoy of the King of Poland, Martin Bronevsky, who lived in Crimea for several months in 1578, noted: “This people is predatory and hungry, does not value any oaths, alliances, or friendships, but only has in mind its own benefits and lives by robberies and constant treasonous war.” .

The Crimean Khanate did not have a regular army. During large campaigns and raids, the Crimean khans and Murzas recruited volunteers, people dependent on them. From 20 to 100 thousand horsemen could participate in the campaign. Almost the entire free Tatar population of the peninsula could participate in a major campaign. From several hundred to several thousand warriors took part in the raid. They did not take the convoy with them; during the raids they ate flatbreads made from barley or millet flour and horse meat, and fed on loot. Artillery was rarely taken, only in very large campaigns when the Ottomans took part. We moved quickly, replacing tired horses with fresh ones. They were armed with sabers, knives, bows, and later firearms appeared. Armor was mainly worn only by the nobility.

Raids were usually carried out in the summer, when the bulk of people (peasants) participated in field work and could not quickly hide in cities or forests. Reconnaissance was sent ahead, and if the path was clear, the main forces of the horde or raiding party would come out. Usually the horde did not go on a campaign to conduct military operations. If the enemy found out about the enemy and managed to bring significant forces to the border, the Tatars usually did not accept the battle and left, or tried to outwit the enemy, bypass him, break through to the rear, quickly rob villages, capture prisoners and avoid a retaliatory strike. Lightly armed horsemen usually successfully avoided attacks from heavy squads and regiments.

Having broken into Russian lands, the horsemen organized a driven hunt (round-up). Cities and fortresses were bypassed. Villages were taken on the move or set on fire, and then they chopped down those who resisted, robbed and took people captive. Adult prisoners and young people were driven like cattle, placed in rows of several people, their hands were tied back with rawhide belts, wooden poles were passed through these belts, and ropes were thrown around their necks. Then, holding the ends of the ropes, they surrounded all the unfortunates with a chain of horsemen and drove them across the steppe, whipping them with whips. This painful path “weeded out” the weak and sick. They were killed. The most valuable “goods” (children, young girls) were transported. Having reached relatively safe lands, where they no longer waited for pursuit, they sorted and divided the “goods”. The sick and elderly were immediately killed or given to young people to “train” their predatory skills.

He was in the Polish-Tatar army during the campaign of King John Casimir to Left Bank Ukraine in 1663-1664. Duke Antoine de Gramont left a description of this process. The robbers killed all the old people who were not capable of hard work, leaving healthy men for the Turkish galleys (they used slaves as oarsmen). Young boys were left for "pleasure", girls and women - for violence and sale. The division of prisoners took place by lot.

The English envoy to the Russian state, D. Fletcher, wrote: “The main booty that the Tatars covet in all their wars is a large number of prisoners, especially boys and girls, whom they sell to the Turks and other neighbors.” To transport children, the Crimean Tatars took large baskets; prisoners who became weak or sick on the road were mercilessly killed so as not to linger.

On the peninsula it was sold in slave markets. There were large markets in Cafe, Karasubazar, Bakhchisarai and Gözlev. Merchants-resellers - Turks, Jews, Arabs, Greeks, etc., bought people at the minimum price. Some people were left in Crimea. Men were used in hard and dirty work: extracting salt, digging wells, collecting manure, etc. Women became servants, including sexual slaves. Most completely transported to other countries and regions - to Porto, its numerous provinces - from the Balkans and Asia Minor to North Africa, Persia. Slavic slaves ended up in Central Asia and India. During transportation by sea, no ceremony was taken with the “goods”; more or less normal conditions were created only for the most precious “goods”. Big number slaves and an “inexhaustible” source of “goods,” as in the trade of blacks from Africa, covered all expenses. Therefore, the mortality rate was terrible.

After transportation, the men were sent to the galleys, where poor food, disease, exhausting labor and beatings quickly killed them. Some were sent to agricultural and other hard work. Some were turned into eunuchs, servants. Girls and children were bought as servants and for carnal pleasures. A small number of beauties had a chance to become a legal wife. So, many people still hear the name Roksolana. Anastasia-Roksolana became a concubine and then the wife of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and the mother of Sultan Selim II. She had a great influence on her husband's politics. However, this was a rare exception to the rule. There were so many Slavic slaves in the Ottoman Empire that many Turks became their children and grandchildren, including prominent military and government officials.

Bakhchisaray is a small town between Simferopol and Sevastopol. Capital of the Crimean Khanate. The name of the city is translated from Crimean Tatar as “garden-palace”.

The legend of the origin of Bakhchisarai
One day the son of Khan Mengli-Girey went hunting. He descended from the fortress into the valley. Immediately behind the fortress walls, dense forests full of game began. It turned out to be a good day for hunting; many foxes, hares and even three wild goats were hunted down by hounds and greyhounds. The khan's son wanted to be alone. He sent his servants with the loot to the fortress, climbed into the thicket himself, jumped off his horse and sat down on a stump near the Churuk-Su river. The tops of the trees, gilded by the setting Sun, were reflected in the streams of water. Only the sound of the river running over the stones broke the silence. Suddenly a rustling was heard on the other side of the Churuk-Su. A snake quickly crawled out of the coastal bushes. She was being pursued by another. A deadly fight ensued. Snakes entwined around each other sharp teeth They tore pieces of each other's bodies. The fight lasted a long time. One snake, all bitten and exhausted, stopped resisting and lowered its head lifelessly. And from the thicket through the thick grass a third snake hurried towards the battlefield. She attacked the winner and a new bloody battle began. Rings of snake bodies flashed in the grass, illuminated by the sun, it was impossible to keep track of where one was and where the other. In the excitement of the fight, the snakes crawled away from the shore and disappeared behind a wall of bushes. An angry hissing and cracking of branches could be heard from there. The Khan's son did not take his eyes off the defeated snake. He thought about his father, about his family. They are now like this half-dead snake. The same bitten ones fled to the fortress and sit in it, trembling for their lives. There is a battle going on somewhere, and who will win in it: the Golden Horde - the Turks or the Turks - the Golden Horde? And he and his father, Mengli-Girey, will no longer rise like this snake... Some time passed. The young khan noticed that the snake began to move and was trying to raise its head. She succeeded with difficulty. Slowly she crawled towards the water. Using the rest of her strength, she approached the river and plunged into it. Wriggling faster and faster, the half-dead creature acquired flexibility in its movements. When she crawled ashore, there weren’t even any traces of her wounds left on her. Then the snake plunged into the water again, quickly swam across the river and, not far from the astonished man, disappeared into the bushes. The son of Mengli-Girey rejoiced. This is a lucky sign! They are destined to rise! They still live, like this snake... He jumped on his horse and rushed to the fortress. He told his father what he saw by the river. They began to wait for news from the battlefield. And the long-awaited news came: the Ottoman Porte defeated the Horde Khan Ahmed, who once exterminated all the warriors of Giray, and drove himself into a fortress on a steep cliff. On the spot where two snakes fought in a mortal battle, the old khan ordered a palace to be built. This is how Bakhchisaray arose. The khan ordered two snakes intertwined in a fight to be carved on the palace coat of arms.

This small town has a rich history; the surrounding area is simply a treasure for archaeologists due to the large number of monuments from different eras.
Neanderthal sites have been discovered in Staroselye. There are Cro-Magnon sites about 40 thousand years old - Kachinsky canopy, Suren, etc. Monuments of the Copper-Stone Age (III millennium BC) include menhirs and anthropomorphic steles, rock paintings of Tash-Air. At the end of the last era, the Tauri lived in the mountains, and in the steppe there were several Scythian settlements that were part of the Late Scythian state. Under the onslaught of the Sarmatians, Goths, and then the Huns, it weakens and finally ceases to exist in the 3rd century AD. The Scythian population gradually left their settlements in the steppe and went to mountainous Taurica, merging with the Taurians. Some of the Goths settled in the local mountains with the Sarmatians (Alans). The Romans were also here. Their small fortress on the site of the Late Scythian fortification of Alma-Kermen (village of Zavetnoye) appeared in the 2nd century. But it didn't last long.

During the period V-VI centuries. Large settlements and fortresses arise here. Now they are known under the general name “cave cities”, because the above-ground buildings have largely collapsed, but the auxiliary buildings carved into the rocks (defensive, religious, economic) have been preserved. These fortified cities were built by local residents during the period of existence real threat invasions of nomads (Huns, Turks) and served to protect and shelter the population from these raids. Byzantium, whose sphere of political interests included southwestern Taurica, was also interested in the construction of “cave cities.”
A little later (8th–9th centuries), icon worshipers who fled from Byzantium founded a number of cave monasteries here. During this period, almost the entire region was captured by the Khazars.
By the 11th century, Byzantine influence was restored here. By this time, in southwestern Taurica it had already formed from the descendants different nations a single ethnic community that adopted the Greek language, the Orthodox Christian faith, and adopted Byzantine culture. They were called Crimean Greeks. Here, individual Christian principalities began to gain strength. The largest of them were the Principality of Theodoro with its center in Mangup and the Kyrk-Orsk Principality with its center in Chufut-Kale.
In the 13th century, Tatars began to settle in Taurica, and from the beginning of the 14th century they gradually seized lands in the southwestern part of Crimea. The first Tatar settlement in the southwest of the peninsula was Eski-Yurt (the area of the current railway station in Bakhchisarai).
By the middle of the 15th century, when the Golden Horde had weakened significantly, the Crimean Khanate was formed, the first khan of which was Hadji-Devlet-Girey, the grandson of Tokhtamysh. He became the founder of the Girey dynasty, which ruled Crimea for the next 350 years. At the beginning of the 16th century, Bakhchisarai became the capital of the Khanate. Here, in addition to the Khan's palace, mosques, durbes (mausoleums) of noble Tatars, residential buildings and other buildings were erected. The city became not only the administrative, but also the cultural and economic center of the Khanate. Up to 25 thousand people lived in it. In addition to the Tatars, Greeks, Karaites, and Armenians lived here.
After the annexation of Crimea to Russia, Bakhchisarai loses its importance and becomes a provincial town in Simferopol district. During the Great Patriotic War the forests of southwestern Crimea have become one of the centers partisan movement on the peninsula. After the liberation of Crimea, all Crimean Tatars were evicted to the eastern regions of the country. On the night of May 18, 1944, the deportation began and was completed in two days. On June 15, 1944, the fate of the Crimean Tatars was shared by the Crimean Greeks, Bulgarians and Armenians. Many villages in the Bakhchisarai region became depopulated. Only in the nineties of the last century did Crimean Tatars begin to return to Bakhchisarai, giving the city a certain oriental flavor.
Now Bakhchisaray is a small town with an oriental flavor, narrow crooked streets, many Tatar cafes with ottomans and sofas. The city is home to Crimean Tatars, Russians, Karaites, and Armenians. Muslim ezans can be heard, and Russian flags immediately flutter over the houses.
The main historical monument and tourist attraction of Bakhchisarai is the palace of the Crimean khans - Khansaray. The Fountain of Tears in the Khan's Palace was glorified in A. S. Pushkin's romantic poem “The Bakhchisarai Fountain” (1822). There are many mosques in the city, among them Takhtali-Jami can be distinguished. Near the city there are also the Holy Dormition monastery and the medieval fortress of Chufut-Kale.