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Thread: Lost civilizations : Khazaria

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    Carygrant's Avatar Banned
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    Quote Originally Posted by RollingWave View Post


    With the weakening of the Khazars and the departure of a lot of their western Tribes, the Rus moved south to fill he void, here they founded a new city along the Dneiper that would become the center fo their operation and realm for centuries to come.....Kiev.

    Most interesting and largely a perspective that's new to me .
    However I can't fit the statement I have isolated above from previous history I thought I knew .
    Namely that Kyiv ( Kiev) was founded around 2000 BC or even before that and mainly by Scandinavian tribes that had come down the Baltic to around modern Lithuania and then cut inland .
    What we call western Russia was barely inhabited in any civilised way and Moscow only really dates back to around 1300AD . In fact Moscow was essentially first inhabited by Kyiv rejects -- be they over exuberant Cossacks or the criminal rejects /outcasts / wandering gypsy like peoples .
    Any ideas how the two apparently different views can be reconciled ?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Carygrant View Post
    Most interesting and largely a perspective that's new to me .
    However I can't fit the statement I have isolated above from previous history I thought I knew .
    Namely that Kyiv ( Kiev) was founded around 2000 BC or even before that and mainly by Scandinavian tribes that had come down the Baltic to around modern Lithuania and then cut inland .
    What we call western Russia was barely inhabited in any civilised way and Moscow only really dates back to around 1300AD . In fact Moscow was essentially first inhabited by Kyiv rejects -- be they over exuberant Cossacks or the criminal rejects /outcasts / wandering gypsy like peoples .
    Any ideas how the two apparently different views can be reconciled ?
    Yes, Moscow wasn't on the map until the very late 12th C and only became signifcant later on. mostly after the Mongols overran the Southern cities.

    Kiev area was inhabited for a long time, but archaeology digs don't find much evidence of anything more than a small town at best in the area until roughly close to the period where the Rus came into the region. the Khazars did buil a hill fort called Sambat around the area but it was not clear that there was a city here.

    The Viking age coincided with the start of the Medieval warm period, which made places like Russia (and Norway) more inhabitable than before. the Viking have founded some towns in the Russian region quiet early, Rostov (Sarskoye Gorodishche) , Ladoga etc were possibly founded as early as the 7th century. however these were SMALL towns, they were really just a big trade outpost where Vikings can rest and gather before they head down the Volga or back towards the North Sea. And eventually became an indepedent seat of operation. The majority of the population remained to be relatively primitive slavic and finnic (Chude) Tribesmen. the Vikings began to rule over them slowly because they clearly held a clear military advantage (equipment and tactic wise ) and also because they brought in trade to the area that previously didn't exist.

    Gradually they began to spread this sytem further down to Ukrain along the Dneiper river. and eventually Kiev became the center of their operation . However, the Rus civlization (really until after the rise of the Muscovy empire) was one that was more or less limited to the towns and cities along the Dneiper / Upper Volga and it's tributories, one you leave the river and into the steppes nomads continue to rule. even though the Rus princes and their Druzhinas (military retinues, something like knights but not as feudal in nature). adopted Nomadic cavalry practice, they were simply too few to really do much against the Nomads in general

    (a POWERFUL prince probably had only a hundred such armed men or so, even the great Kievan Prince would rarely put more than a thousand such men in the field which was usually the combined forces of many Prince... they did ofcourse relied a lot on Town militias and more importantly in Ukrain.. allied nomads.)

    However the Nomads themself other than the Nomad in name only Volga Bulgar and Khazars, were not really civilized folks, they can not operate trades with Persia and the Byzantiums on their own (unlike popular believe, the Nomads were not truely self sufficient, they still relied a lot on goods from the settled civilzation, rather through plunder or trade or tribute). So the Rus still remained useful for them to som extend, and really the later Kievan Rus history they really kinda just mingled with the Cumans anyway, it was very common for the chieftans of nomads to have Russian princess as wifes and vice versa, and Russian princes where involed in the infighting of the various clans on the steppe as well as vice versa. so they were pretty much all mixed up later on. until the Mongols came in and swepted them all away.

    So the two view does not really collide, Russia was largely unpopulated and uncilvized even in this period.. however there were concentration of towns along the major rivers that was both pretty significantly populated (at least no less than most other western European towns in this period. aka a few thousand people). and hosted a real civilziation.

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    So RW how would you view the interaction between the Vikings and the Arabs? Meaning were they into Raiding Arabs towns and villages or just seeking to trade at that point in time.
    History does not long Entrust the care of Freedom, to the Weak or Timid!!!!! Dwight D. Eisenhower ~

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    A bit of both obviously, they were opportunist, if the odds don't look great they'll just trade, if it looks like a easy picking they might consider also "trading" ... aka trading an axe in your skull for all your goods kinda trade

    It was like that with the Nomads as well most of the time, when their neighbors are strong and/or times are good they'll just do normal trading, but when they don't have much to offer and/or their neighbors look weak they'll take their chances.

    In the case of China, managing the trade (or war) with nomads was basically amongst the top 3 priority of all dynasties. (others being building flood prevention projects and building irrigation projects)

    At the end of the day. both looks to bring goods they need back home, HOW they acquire them is not a huge concern to them or their folks back home.
    Last edited by RollingWave; 08-01-2012 at 11:53 PM.

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    Archealogy on Khazaria and Volga Bulgaria is more or less an on going process, it is an area where we really don't know much about compare to other cultures, partly due to the problem that their written records didn't survive (they probably had them but were destroyed by the various invasions). and that the cold war kinda complicated things a bit (though Soviet achaeologist did do a lot of digs themself, but the information is not fully shared ) .

    Still, some interesting tibts.

    Amongst the finds in Sarkel and elsewhere, there were...

    A. An comb made from the ivory of an Indian elephant.

    B. A full chess set made from indian ivory

    C. A Sea Shell only found in the Indian sea.

    D. Paper probably made in central asia.

    E. Chinese Silk

    F. Chinese Mirror

    G. A Chinese copper coin

    H. A note written in Chinese listing trade inventories.


    Likewise, there have been findings of what appears most likely to be Khazar graves in.... Sweden(!!) showing that the Viking trade route probably went both ways. (that or the Vikings who settled in Russia took on a lot of Khazar charactoristics.)

    The Khazars also minted their own silver coins, though some are amusing since they try to miminc the Persian onces but often had spelling errors or had wrong dates (most islamic coins have the year it was minted and which caliph ruled at that time, not unlike modern coins in a sense , so the error here would be that they had the wrong caliph in the wrong year.), but since they were almost all used in trading with the Rus... who can't read Arabic anyway. it didn't matter

    Though one set of Khazar coin was found with the term "Moses, messenger of god" struck on it , instead of the usual islamic "Mohammad, messenger of god" which was obviously quite cool.
    Last edited by RollingWave; 08-03-2012 at 03:46 AM.

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