Kalinin-aul

Kalinin-aul (на ПРОЗА.РУ)

This ancient city on the Kumyk platform is known from archeology. It was located on the Kalininaul hillfort in one pass to the south of the ancient city of Inderi, which historians identify with the Andreyaul hillfort on the border of the foothills and mountains.

What was the name of this city in ancient times is unknown.

The first settlements on the site of the future city appear here from the 2nd century after the birth of Christ. In the middle of the 3rd century, with the appearance of the huns Kingdom detachments on the Kumyk plain, the first defensive fortifications appeared at the settlement.

With the arrival of the persians, the Shahinshahs of Persia created a network of interconnected fortifications with fortress functions in the area between the Sunzha and Terek rivers. The settlement gets the status of a city, because a full-fledged fortress with a Citadel is being built here.

At first, the fortress participated in the containment of the huns. In the 7th century, the persians leave here, distracted by the war with the Caliphate, the city is desolate.

At the beginning of the 8th century, the khazars appeared here, who restored the fortifications of the Fortress, creating a major trade and military-strategic point here, which lasted until the end of the 10th century, when the khazaria collapsed and the trade routes changed their geography.

The city was deepened into the foothills zone. The archeology of the settlement, represented by ceramics from gray-clay and gray-flattened fragments of dishes from the turkic-khazar era, indicates that the main culture of the city was saltov-mayatsk culture, characteristic of the Khazarus state.

The city occupied the top of the ridge under which Aktash and Isti-su merge.

The approaches to the city have an insurmountable natural protection, around it are steep slopes up to 100 meters high.

The Fortress city had a Citadel with an area of 0.5 hectares located at the very edge of the abyss, behind it there was a rampart with stone walls on top, further, below, there are settlements with workshops and dwelling.

The fortress walls and foundations of the city's dwellings were made of glinobit blocks or torn stone.

The city was abandoned several times by its residents, which is evident from the alternation of cultural layers with empty ones. This happened during the change of historical epochs, when the owners of the Kumyk Tract changed.

The Tersk-Sulak interfluve, where the city belongs, has always had a mild climate, which allowed the local population to graze cattle on pastures all year round. The local population was engaged in agriculture, which was based on arable farming, gardening, and rice planting. Wheat, barley, millet, oats, rice, cotton, and silk were grown here, mostly for their own use. Also, people here were engaged in fishing and viticulture.

For several centuries, the city had a military garrison that protected the caravans of the Great Silk Road that passed by the city. During this time, several weapon workshops were formed in the city, where weapons were improved and passed down by inheritance.

The autochthonous peoples here before the arrival of the huns and khazars were highlanders, from which it is difficult to distinguish a special tribe.

Since the 7th century after the birth of Christ, the core of a local autochthonous tribe was formed on the Kumyk platform in the depths of Khazaria, the ethnic basis of which was the kumyks, who later added the kipchak-oguz-bulgar conglomerate of clans and tribes.

Kumyks have always been in authority among the mountaineers, they formed the basis of the khazar military garrisons of a unified system of cities along the caravan route through the Kumyk plain. Their khagans, khans and shamkhals, as a rule, were the basis of military and trade campaigns of the eastern highlanders to the Transcaucasian region. From these campaigns, the Kumyks brought new cultural trends to their cities, which they borrowed from the slavic, turanian, and aryan tribes, being cultural guides from Asia through the Eastern Caucasus to Europe.

On the ethnic territory of the kumyk people there were many ancient cities and fortresses that arose many centuries before the formation of the kumyk ethnic core, which the kumyks settled in the huns, khazars, arab and persian times.

In the 10th century, Khazaria was overthrown by Russia, the military garrison leaves this city, the posad people moved to more accessible places, downstream of the rivers of the Kumyk platform.

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