Sur in the Caucasus

Sur in the Caucasus (на ПРОЗА.РУ)

Also S-u-r, Suwar, Savir, Sur-at-tin.

This city in the North Caucasus was mentioned in a letter by the Khazar King Joseph to his correspondents in Spain in 950.

Ibn Khordadbeh in the 9th century located this city to the north of Derbent, called this city S-u-r, Savir or Suvar.

The naming of the city in all its variants clearly reflects the belonging of its founders and inhabitants to one of the divisions of the early bulgars, known as savir.

It is known from western sources that once, at the end of the 7th century, a Khazar King named Bulan went to study Talmud in the city of Pumbedita, and then to the city in the Caucasus of Sura, where at his time there was a jewish community that had ancient jewish books in their hands.

One of the walls of Muscat, on the instructions of Karaulov, borders the region of Derbent on its northern side, and in the south it reaches the Sur at-tin wall, which the Tatars call Barmaki.

Masudi also refers to the wall Barmaki, but separately from it, another called Sur-al-teen.

From this information, we can conclude that Sur in the Caucasus should have been located south of Derbent, between which we need to look for the mountain on the slope of which the city of Sur was located.

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