Astrakhan Khanate

• 1. Introduction

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  The Astrakhan Khanate is so thinly documented that one author, named Frank, wrote of its rulers: "The dates and activities of these rulers are faintly represented in the sources, when they are represented at all." That admission shapes everything about this Tatar state near the mouth of the Volga river. What survives is an imperfect list of khans with uncertain reigns, a handful of military and diplomatic events, and some reports from travelers. Out of those scraps a story still emerges. How did a fragment of a vanished empire become a khanate of its own? Who lived there, and how were they ranked? And why did Moscow decide that this river outpost had to fall?

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• 2. Crossroads On The Volga

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  Two trade routes crossed at the mouth of the Volga. One ran north to south down the river toward Persia. The other ran east to west, north of the Caspian Sea. That intersection made the area a natural center long before any khan ruled it.

  From the sixth century, various Turkic-speaking tribes lived in the region. They formed two states. Old Great Bulgaria lasted from about 632 to 668, and the Khazars from about 650 to 969.

  The khanate itself held the Lower Volga valley and the Volga Delta, including most of what is now Astrakhan Oblast. It also reached the steppeland on the right bank of the Volga, in present-day Kalmykia. The Caspian Sea lay to the south and the Nogai Horde to the east. To the west lived Nogais who were theoretically subjects of the Crimean Khanate.

  The empire that once ruled all of this steppe was the Golden Horde, and the khanate was born from its fracture.

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• 3. Born From The Horde

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  After the Mongol conquest, the western steppe broke off and became the Golden Horde, which lasted from about 1240 to 1502. In the fifteenth century it came apart piece by piece. Kazan left in 1438, Crimea in 1441, Astrakhan in 1466, and Russia in 1480.

  In 1459, the Golden Horde ruler Küchük Muhammad died, and his power was split between two sons. Ahmed Khan bin Küchük was the man who lost Russia in 1480. Mahmud bin Küchük was based around Astrakhan, and he established the khanate in the 1460s.

  The sources disagree on one point. The khanate was founded either by Mahmud or by his son Qasim I.

  The year 1466 is more a convention than a clean break. The khanate did not become fully separate until the Horde ended in 1502. At that point the steppe remnant disappeared, and the steppe peoples around Astrakhan became the Nogai Horde.

  Its khans claimed descent in the male line from Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and a grandson of Genghis Khan. In practice, every khan of Astrakhan descended from Mahmud or from his brother Ahmed.

  Each of those khans ruled over a society built on a strict ladder of ranks.

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• 4. Ranks And Faith

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  Most of the khanate's people were Astrakhan Tatars and Nogais. The nobility above them had four ranks. From highest to lowest, they were the khan, the sultans, the begs, and the morzalar.

  Everyone else was known as qara xalıq, the standard Turkic term for commoners. It is often translated as "black people." A fuller reading in Old Turkic is "great creation," meaning the creatures at large, or simply common folk. In that sense qara stood for big and great, and not only for the color black. Its pair, aq, meaning white, could also suggest something delicate, small, or dainty.

  The state religion was Sunni Islam.

  Merchants carried on a transit trade that linked Muscovy, Kazan, Crimea, Central Asia, and the Transcaucasus region. Among their trading partners was Muscovy, the power that would eventually end the khanate.

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• 5. Neighbors And Rivals

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  In 1476, a visitor named Ambrogio Contarini passed through the khanate, one of the few travelers whose reports survive. Only one writer, Howorth, says the khanate was besieged by Ahmed and Ibak Khan at some point before 1480.

  The khanate traditionally had military and diplomatic ties with Crimea, the Nogais, and sometimes the Circassians. Those ties were not always friendly. Crimea briefly occupied Astrakhan twice, first under Mehmed I Giray in 1523 and again under Sahib I Giray in 1549.

  Diplomatic contact with Moscow began in 1532 or earlier. About then, Moscow was expanding east toward Kazan, which it conquered in 1552. It was also gaining the power to exert force down the Volga between Kazan and Astrakhan. The sources do not explain how.

  That unexplained reach down the river was about to be tested against a ruler named Yamghurchi.

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• 6. Fall To Moscow

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  In 1551, Yamghurchi of Astrakhan made a nominal submission to Moscow. He soon changed sides and allied with Crimea and the Nogais. Russia answered by sending 30,000 troops against him.

  In 1554, Yamghurchi fled the town. Russia imposed its own client, Dervish Ali Astrakhani, who soon began intriguing with the Crimeans. Russia sent more troops and occupied Astrakhan in 1556. It then destroyed the largest slave market on the Volga.

  The conquest changed the region's faith. Sunni Islam was largely replaced by Russian Orthodox Christianity. The region is still home to a Sunni Muslim minority today, and the Kalmyks are largely Buddhist.

  The old capital was called Xacitarxan, and Russian chronicles called it Astrakhan. It stood 12 km north of the modern city. In 1558, the town and its name were moved 12 km south, to the present location.

  A last challenge came in 1569, when the Ottomans were unable to capture Astrakhan.

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