Saksin at the mouth of the Volga

Saksin at the mouth of the Volga (на ПРОЗА.РУ)

Also Sarashen, Sadjcin.

The descendants of the oghuz saks in the early 11th century supplanted the Khazarian bulgars in the Volga Delta. The oghuzs united many tribes under them, up to forty, says the legend. The oghuz considered themselves descendants of the saks, co-founders of Scythia. Having created their Kingdom of Saxin, later Sascia, they settled in Itil, abandoned by the khazars, now naming the city after their saks progenitors, Saxin. The greeks and romans called the scythians as the saks and skids. Saks was considered to be the descendants of the Cimmerians. They were mostly iranian-speaking, but later became turkish-speaking.

Ancient chroniclers place this city at the mouth of the Volga, however, they do not have more accurate data.

The khazars were known here in the middle of the 12th century. According to Ishutrinov russian chronicle calls them saksins the name of their main city Saksin.

Archaeologists of the Artamonov school believe that Saxin can be associated with the Samosdelsky settlement in the Volga Delta, half a hundred kilometers below Astrakhan, on the right bank of the Staraya Volga river, or Birul, near the village of Samosdelka in the Astrakhan region.

In the middle of the Volga was an island with a small hill formed by the remains of the fortress, an area of 10 hectares. It was the oldest part of the city, which dates back to the 7th century.

Three cities were located here at different times. Itil belonged to Khazaria until the 10th century. Saxin or Sadjsin belonged to the Golden Horde until the 14th century. Rubruk called it Summercent in 1254.

Historians attribute the beginning of the city to the end of the 7th century, when the khazars began to establish their strongholds on the outskirts of their possessions. One of these points was Itil at the mouth of the Volga. After the arab invasion in 737, the Khazar Khagan decided to move one of his residences to Itil.

In the 8th century, the steppe people did not build monumental structures outside the khazar fortress, they preferred light structures like yurts, traditional for the saks, who roamed in scythian times to the east of the Caspian sea.

At the end of the 8th century, light frame structures appeared from wooden pillars and poles dug into the ground, filled with reeds, coated with clay, and turluch buildings also appeared here.

Until the mid-9th century, the main ethnic element of Itil was the bulgars.

At the end of the 9th century, oghuzs began to move here from the eastern side of the Caspian sea, where the saks originated. They bring more pomp to the culture of the urban population of the bulgars.

At the end of the 10th century, Prince Vladimir captured the king of Khazaria and dispersed the inhabitants of Itil. Shopping centers have moved in the direction of Kiev, Vladimir, Volga Bulgar. For a while, life in the city was quiet.

In the center of Saxin was a triangular fortress. The walls of the fortress were made of baked bricks. Moreover, all other buildings of the stone type had walls of glinobit bricks. Legend says that the secret of making red-hot bricks belonged to the Kagan personally, even the Khazarian kings did not have the right to build their houses from red-hot bricks.

Scientists believe that in khazar times, parts of the city of Itil were Sarashen, which later became known as Saxin and Khanbalyk.

In the 10th century, after the defeat of the khazars by Kievan Rus, for a while the life of the city quieted down.

At the end of the 10th century, the liberated Golden territories in the east and west of the Lower Volga were completely occupied by the oguz, an alliance of turkic-speaking tribes that became the ancestors of the turkmens and turks.

In the 11th century, after the fall of the Khazar Khaganate, arab sources indicate that a large city called Saxin appeared on the Lower Volga, where the oghuz lived. There were mostly tents in the city, large and small. The large tents had many rooms, and up to fifty people lived there. The city was filled with bulgars, including many muslims, and there were alans. This is what arab sources say.

As in any other medieval city surrounded by a nomadic steppe, the composition of its inhabitants was motley: there were polovtsians, guzs, khazars, Rus, natives of other neighboring peoples.

At the beginning of the 11th century, the oghuz completely supplanted the Khazarian bulgars in the Volga Delta. Gradually, they settle the territory of the former capital of Khazaria, now calling it by the name of their saks progenitors Saksin.

At the end of the 11th century, crafts typical for the peoples of the lower and middle reaches of the Semirechye and river of Syr Darya, Central Kazakhstan and the Aral sea region, and the lower reaches of the Amu Darya appeared here.

The oghuzs penetrated the Don steppes in the middle of the 8th century, when the khazar kings, having built a Sarkel on the Don, called the ugric and oghuz people to protect this city. So the theme of the development of the Volga Delta was well known to the oguzs 300 years before its liberation from the khazars.

New residents of the city quickly learn the crafts that are traditional for Itil. The absolute majority of pottery of the 10th-12th centuries were of the bulgar type, which traditionally had a good demand throughout the Volga.

In the 12th century, when the pre-Mongol tribes of gus, oguz, Rus, khazars, bulgars, savirs lived here, along with the saks, descendants of the co-founders of Scythia, structures made of baked bricks taken from the walls of the Itil fortress appeared. It was already Saxin, apparently, the founders of the new city in the old place remembered the times of Scythia.

Saxin in the 12th century is more comfortable and expanded in comparison with Itil, as al-Garnati reports in his notes. He also notes that the main ones in the city are the guzs, who united forty tribes and forty emirs. Guzs have traditional housing in the form of yurts that can accommodate from fifty to a hundred people of the same kind.

In the 12th century, the bulgars, suvars and khazars, who settled in separate quarters, continued to live in Saksin, not yet assimilated.

Many merchants from the Maghreb and other eastern and southern countries come to Saxin every year. According to the materials of excavations at the settlement, it is clear that the oguz and bulgars were the main components of the townspeople of Saksin.

At the end of the 12th century, Saxin became a center of transit trade, as evidenced by the wide geography of finds on the site.

The basis of the oghuz craft in Saxin was agriculture, cattle breeding, fishing, and ceramics. The bulgars served as merchants.

In the 12th century, the city's life comes to life, but under a different name, now it is Saxin, and the khazars in this city are called saxins in the Russian chronicle.

In the 12th century, according to arab writers, the largest religious and commercial centers of the country of Bulgaria were the cities of Bulgar, Suvar, and Saksin. Referring to al-Garnati, arab historians report that the Emir of the Bulgar country lives in the middle of the city of Saksin. This means that Saxin was then the capital of Bulgaria and there was a Cathedral mosque where the Emir and his retinue performed friday prayers.

And there was another Cathedral mosque for the citizens, among whom were people from the cities of Bulgaria Suvar, Bulgar and Saksin.

In the 12th century, some part of the former Khazarian capital Itil is mentioned under the name of Saksin, where the polovtsians lived, as well as the descendants of the saks -- gus and oguz.

The reality of the city is confirmed by the testimonies of writers who personally visited the city, the first of whom in the 12th century was al-Garnati, who lived there for several years.

In the late 12th century, Petachia, a rabbi from Germany, somehow made it to the khazar steppe in search of the khazars, which he found, miraculously surviving in the spaces that the russians called the Wild steppe. There were few of them, and even more there were women's howls and dog barks from the great times that had passed. He had not heard of any Saxin there, although at this time, according to other sources, life was in full swing in Saxin, apparently there were no jews there.

It is assumed that the jewish rabbi was sent by jews who came from Khazaria, where they were its kings in the 8th century, to find out if there were any Jewish communities left there.

At the beginning of the 13th century, Ryazan Rus, under the leadership of its princes, went to the Saxin polovtsians, where it overcame their fears. Saxin at this time belonged to the Don polovtsian Union. At this time, was still Lukomorye and Dnieper Unions, which also claimed the Saksin.

In the middle of the 13th century, the mongols came here. People who are more committed to the culture of the Golden Horde are beginning to settle in the city. Old settlements are abandoned, and the area of the settlement is significantly reduced. At this time, there is no permanent military contingent, as a result of which pogroms begin. Many buildings are destroyed, wooden buildings are burned.

Eastern authors often put the city of Bulgar, which was often associated with Saksin, near the Caspian sea, calling it the largest city of the 12th-13th centuries on the Lower Volga. We must assume that this should be understood not as the name of the city, but as a city that belonged to the state of bulgars.

In 1229, the mongols attacked the Lower Volga, after which part of the saksins and polovtsians fled from the mongols along the Volga to the Bulgarians. The saxins and polovtsians at this time roamed in the Volga-Don interfluve. After the mongols retreated to winter quarters, the city recovered.

In 1232, according to Tatishchev, the mongols again attacked the lower Volga bulgars, whom history referred to as the saxins. The saxins, together with the bulgars and Rus, were able to defend the city this year.

In 1237, the mongols attacked the five greatest pagan kingdoms: Sascia, Fulgaria or Bulgaria, Vedinia Chuvash, Merovia of mari, Poidovia Burtas and the Kingdom of Mordans of mordva. The saksins had to retreat from the city and move to the territory of the Middle Volga region, leaving the Lower Mongols, who founded their capital on the site of Saksin.

Many authors have noted that in the 13th century the first capital of the Golden Horde was the city of the Bulgarian state of Saxin, and russian and bulgarian rulers often visited here for labels on the reign, attracting the Horde to their side in an internecine war for supremacy in their state. At the same time, the capital of the Horde in the place where Itil used to be was called both Saksin-Bolgar and Saray-Berke.

In 1242, Batu Khan puts up his tent in the city of Saksin-Bulgar. Then he built a new capital, which he named Sarai Batu.

In the midl of 13th century, Plano Caprini wrote about the saxins when he visited Batu. Tatishchev reports that in 1232 the Mongols first attacked the lower volga bulgars, among whom were the saxins, descendants of the ancient saks, co-founders of Scythia.

In 1253, Juveini reports that Batu kept his Royal tent within the ancient capital of the khazars, Itil-Saksin, and called this place Saray.

In 1257, Batu's brother Berke became the Khan of the Golden Horde. He set up his residence and khan's tent in the city of Saksin, and named his camp Saray-Berke.

In 1261, the Cairo mission of the Polo family found only Rus vessels at the mouth of the Volga near the headquarters of Khan Berke, which was then called Saksin. With the beginning of the war with the hulaguids, the uncle and his nephew Polo, left the country of the Bulgarians, where they lived in the city of Saxin.

At the end of the 13th century, the ruins of the city of Saxin became habitable.

In 1302, there was a quarrel between Taktai and Nogai, which ended in a Great battle, in which Taktai remained the winner. All this took place within the limits of Saxin.

At the beginning of the 14th century, the economic recovery begins. Many of the old stone buildings of the estates are being rebuilt, instead of them, simpler and more convenient to use dwellings of both local architecture and the new Golden Horde are being built.

Based on local traditional pottery ceramics, there is a mass of large cities Golden Horde type.

In the middle of the 14th century, the city begins to periodically flood, the population gradually leaves the city.

One of the last reports about the city of Saxin in the 14th century, according to merchants who visited this city on their business, left al-Omari.

In the second half of the 14th century, the city was completely flooded, due to a sharp rise in the level of the Caspian sea.

Some scientists say that Saxin died not as a result of an enemy invasion, but as a result of the advance of the sea, which is not the first time like a dragon emerges from the depths of the Caspian sea and absorbs the actions of man in the Volga Delta. This happened for several years, the city was gradually emptied, at the end of the 14th century, the land in the city became so small that the dead were buried in houses.

Then for several centuries the city was under the waves of the sea, and when it came to the surface again, no one remembered it.

In the 15th century, the arab historian al-Bakuvi considered Saxin a lost city and brought it closer to Saray Berke. It is difficult to know whether this was a political rapprochement or a geographical one. The Horde could change the center of their stay depending on the situation. Part of the year the Khan's headquarters is in one place, the other part of the year the Khan sits in another place. Diplomatic missions arriving for negotiations did not confuse anything, they recorded the capital of the Horde at the place of the Khan's stay.

In the 15th century, al-Bakuvi reported that Saxin was currently submerged. The city didn't leave any traces behind. Near it there is another city named Saray Berke, where the Khan's residence is located, which was previously in Saksin..

The city of Summerkent is often associated with Itil and his descendant Saksin, which is mentioned by Rubruk, who visited the Khan's headquarters in 1255. He noted that Summerkent is located at the Middle Volga. With each flood of the river, the city went under water. Alans and steppe people lived in the city.

Commercant could also be located on the site of the settlement moshaic on the eastern outskirts of modern Astrakhan.

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