THE STORY OF A FORGOTTEN KINGDOM

The hajj continued to play an important role in the history of Astrakhan. The Khanate of Astrakhan had close ties with Central Asia, Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and the lands of Dasht-e Kipchak.iThe Dasht-e Kipchak, or Cumania in its Latin version, was a tribal confederation in the western part of the Eurasian steppe from the lower Danube River to the Irtysh River. These ties were based not only on trade interests but also on religious unity: Haji Tarkhan lay on one of the traditional routes used by Central Asian pilgrims to Mecca. The citizens of Astrakhan themselves also performed hajj, and their ties with Mecca were not interrupted even in the first years of the city being annexed to the Moscow state in the mid-sixteenth century. For the inhabitants of Central Asia, however, the Russian conquest of Astrakhan meant that from now on they would have to make the hajj not by the usual route through the Lower Volga but through Iran, a country inhabited by fierce enemies of the Sunni Muslims,2²SunnisThe Sunnis are the followers of the largest branch of Islam, who profess loyalty to the Sunna, the tradition of Muhammad. the Qizilbash (‘red-headed’) Shiites.3³ShiasThe Shias are followers of Shia Islam, which unites communities who recognize Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, and his descendants as the only lawful heirs of the Prophet. Shias believe that the leadership of the Muslim community should be in the hands of imams appointed by Allah and not elected caliphs.

The Haji Tarkhan of the Golden Horde was destroyed by Timur4⁴ Timur, or Tamerlane (1336–1405), was a Turko-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in and around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, Mesopotamia, north India, and Central Asia. in the winter of 1395–96. Old Astrakhan is traditionally identified with the settlement on the Shareny Bugor. It was part of the vast settlement of the Golden Horde on the right bank of the Volga River, a little higher upstream from the modern city. This complex was almost completely washed away by water or destroyed during construction. Soon after Timur’s conquest of Haji Tarkhan, it fell into disrepair, and by the fifteenth century it existed as a relatively small, though commercially important, settlement.

The majority of the city’s inhabitants came from Turkic tribes of the Kipchak group. Ethnically and linguistically, the population was most likely quite heterogeneous, though not very large. In the middle of the sixteenth century there were about 10,000 people in Astrakhan, or a little more. In addition to Turkic speakers, Persians, Armenians, and Russians probably also lived in the city at different periods of its history. The ethnic base of the later Astrakhan Tatars were the descendants of the Old Turkic population and the Nogais. Later, the Turkic population from the Middle Volga region came to the city. It is no coincidence that until the nineteenth century, there was even a ‘Kazan quarter’ in Astrakhan, and Tatars from various regions, including the Nizhny Novgorod region and Penza region, are buried in the Muslim cemetery of Mashaikh.

The founder of the new Astrakhan, which replaced the city destroyed by Timur, was Temür Qutlugh (circa 1370–99), the son of Temür Malik, the son of Urus Khan, who controlled this area after Timur’s departure in 1396. Nogai mirzas in the sixteenth century believed that Astrakhan was ‘the royal yurt [headquarters] of Temür Qutlugh’. The connection of the city with Temür Qutlugh is highlighted not only in the works of later Tatar historians but also by Central Asian authors. His successor Shādī Beg, under whom all the former ulus of the house of Jochi were united for the last time in the history of the Golden Horde, minted coins in Astrakhan in 1402 or 1403, on which the name ‘Haji Tarkhan al-Jedid’, meaning ‘New Astrakhan’, already appears.5⁵Astrakhan coinsAstrakhan coins were minted during a period marked by several changes of leadership over a few years. Coins were minted there by Tokhtamysh’s son Jalāl ad-Dīn; Shādī Beg’s son Pulad; Pulad’s uncle Timur Khan; another son of Tokhtamysh named Kebek; Çekre, Dervish, Kuchuk Mohammad; Ulug Mohammad; Devlet Berdi, the son of Tash Timur, uncle of Haji Giray, et cetera.

The Astrakhan Khanate was established on the old appanage of Emir Haji Cherkes, who owned the city even before Temür Qutlugh, in the second half of the 1360s to the middle of the 1370s. There is no common opinion in historiography about the date the khanate was founded. Most likely, it appeared in the 1450–70s as a part of the ‘Nomagan yurt’ of the Great Horde.6⁶Great Horde The Great Horde was a rump state of the Golden Horde after the succession of the Khanate of Kazan, the Khanate of Crimea, the White Horde, and a few other territories. The Great Horde covered the land between the Don and the Volga, the Lower Volga, and the North Caucasian steppe. Nomagan is the middle name or nickname of Timur Khan, the son of Temür Qutlugh, and of his grandfather Temür Malik. However, it is only from 1502, with the defeat of the Great Horde by the Crimean khan Meñli I Giray, that we can speak of an independent state. Politically, Astrakhan became one of the successors of the Great Horde.

In 1508, ‘Aztorokan ambassadors’ were received in Moscow for the first time. At that time, special diplomatic documents—ambassadors' books—also appeared, recording Moscow’s relations with the newly formed state. Two books of the Sofia collection of the Russian National Library preserved an article beginning with the words ‘Tatar lands are called…’,7⁷‘The Tale of Timur Aksak’ The source of the article was ‘The Tale of Timur Aksak’ (early fifteenth century), where a list of lands conquered by Timur is provided. This list was revised after taking the political realities of the early sixteenth century into account, when the article ‘Tatar Lands Are Called…’ was created. The list was supplemented with the names of a number of ‘Tatar’ lands that were missing in the source of the article. which is a list of various Muslim countries. Among these lands, in addition to the Great Horde, Crimea, Azov, Kazan, Kalmykia, Nogai, Sarai and ‘Shiban’ (Siberia), ‘Vastorokan’, that is Astrakhan, was also included.

It is characteristic that the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III,8⁸Ivan III Vasilyevich(1440–1505) was the Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia. who in 1472 solemnly refused to pay tribute to the Horde, in his will (a spiritual or mental charter as it was called at that time) speaks of paying the Horde an ‘output’ (or tribute) of 1,000 rubles and names Astrakhan as the addressee of the tribute along with the Crimea, Kasimov, and Kazan. The spiritual charter of Ivan III is dated no later than 16 June 1504. Undoubtedly, Haji Tarkhan was already an independent yurt and, as an heir of the Horde, was entitled to its share of the tribute. However, it is difficult to say what this share was. The ordinary tribute (payments) of the beginning of the century could be a smaller sum such as, for example, 500 rubles.

The borders of the Khanate of Astrakhan in the north extended approximately to the area of modern-day Volgograd, although at some point, the Astrakhan lands may have ended even higher, near Ukek, within the boundaries of modern Saratov. In the south, the natural border was the Caspian Sea, probably along the coast to the Kuma River. In the west, it could get to the upper reaches of the Don (perhaps the Mius—‘Milk Water’ — served for some time as the border with the Crimean yurt). Most likely, on the right bank of the Volga, the Astrakhan possessions were limited to a narrow coastal strip of the river. The eastern (Nogai) border of the Astrakhan territories was in the delta of the Buzan River.

For the Khanate of Astrakhan, the situation was probably typical of the Golden Horde in the earlier period: the city itself was a stronghold of Islam in the state, while the steppe and surrounding areas were very poorly Islamized. During the period of independence, the Muslim clergy of the city were engaged in missionary activities in the lands east of Astrakhan, spreading and strengthening Islam and Muslim culture among the Kazakhs. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the ulema (experts in Islam) of Haji Tarkhan eradicated paganism among the Kazakhs. The Hanafi School (madhhab)9⁹The HanafiThe Hanafi school is one of the four major Sunni Islam schools of jurisprudence (fiqh). Two more schools of law existed in Astrakhan: the Shafi’i and Maliki. dominated as it did in the cities of the Golden Horde. Classical works of Muslim jurisprudence (fiqh), especially of Abu al-Barakat al-Nasafi (died circa 1310) were also known in Astrakhan.

There is no doubt that the majority of Muslims in the Lower Volga region practiced Sunni Islam, but there may have been Shi'a Muslims as well (due to the proximity of Safavid Iran). Haji Tarkhan was also familiar with Sufism.10¹⁰SufismSufism is a mystic body of religious practice in Islam designed to combat spiritual vices and educate the spirit. It is possible that the Yasawiyya tariqa (school), founded by Ahmad Yasawi in the twelfth century, was originally very widespread in Astrakhan. Later, as in Kazan, the most popular was probably the Naqshbandi tariqa, which was established in the Timurid state at the end of the fourteenth century. But the Kubrawiyya, a tariqa influential in Central Asia and named after its founder, Najm al-Din Kubra of Khiva (1145–1221), was also known. As in Central Asia, in the Crimea and Kazan, there were sheikhs (or ishans) in Astrakhan, who were especially revered and respected persons, religious authorities, and leaders of spiritual brotherhoods.

We do not know of any authentic Islamic manuscript from Haji Tarkhan before the city was annexed to the Russian state. It is possible that one of the Astrakhan khans, Qasim, owned the only surviving manuscript Shu'ab-i panjganah (Five Genealogies) of the third volume of Rashid al-Din’s Jāmi’ al-tawārīkh (Compendium of Chronicles), which was compiled between circa 1306/7–1310/11 in Mā Warāʾ an-Nahr (Transoxania) or Khorasan in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. The work is devoted to the genealogy of the ruling dynasties of the ‘five nations’— the Arabs, Jews, Mongols, Franks, and Chinese. On the inside front cover, within a circle, is an inscription: ‘Extract from the Compendium of Chronicles from the collection of books of Qasim [Qasim II] Sultan, son of Sayed Ahmad Khan al-Ghazi, may the Almighty, the Holy One, greet him.’ Qasim II (1502–32) was the son of Sayed Ahmad Khan, the ruler of the Khanate of Astrakhan. Ahmet Zeki Velidi Togan suggested that the manuscript may have been given to Qasim by his friend Khan Muhammad Shaybani after the latter’s conquest of Bukhara and Samarkand in the very early sixteenth century. However, it is also possible that the manuscript was brought back to Iran by Janibek Khan after his victorious campaign and given to Qasim from the archives of Sarai, the capital of the Golden Horde khans. The manuscript is now kept in the Topkapı Palace Museum in Istanbul (catalog no. 2937) and has recently been republished in Kazan in facsimile form.

Several manuscripts by Astrakhan Muslims have survived from the Russian Astrakhan period. These include lists of purely applied religious content (a treatise on the abrogated and abrogated suras of the Koran) and manuscripts of a secular nature such as poetic diwans,11¹¹Diwan Diwan is a collection of poems by one author, usually excluding longer poems, in Islamic cultures of the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. separate poetic texts like ‘Yusuf and Zulaikha’, and historical works like Dastan-i nasl-i Chingiz khan, Shajara-i Tarākima, and Tabaqat-i Nasiri. Thus, a clear classical pattern emerges: Koranic scholarship is represented exclusively in Arabic; manuscripts covering a wider range of genres (ethics, poetry, history, etc.) are in Farsi; and Turkic is almost completely confined to the ‘secular’ sphere of poetry and history.

Many literary and historical works were created in the city. The poet and prose writer Sherif Hadjitarkhani, a native of Astrakhan, wrote the work Zafername-i Vilayet-i Kazan, dedicated to the unsuccessful campaign of Russian troops against Kazan in 1550. Astrakhan also had its own historiographical traditions. Residents of Astrakhan, Baba Ali and Haji Niyaz, who provided information to the sixteenth-century Khorezm historian Utemish Haji, were educated people of their time. Haji Niyaz, apparently a merchant ‘famous for his wealth’, told Utemish Haji about the period of wars between the khans Berke (1257–66) and Hulagu (1261–65), and he also provided his own comments on the places where these events had taken place. Haji Niyaz is mentioned under the name ‘Khoneyaz’ in a letter the Moscow diplomat Kubensky wrote in October 1500. His brother Ak-Molla (‘Akhmolna’) was also an important merchant: together with other Astrakhanians, he conducted trading operations in Moscow and probably even spent some time in prison there.

It is likely that in the khanate, where they recorded episodes from the history of the Golden Horde, there probably existed a robust oral tradition connected with Astrakhan itself, which integrated the city into the general course of history. Most likely, classical works of Muslim historiography, such as the work of Rashīd al-Din,13¹³Rashīd al-Din Ṭabīb (1247–1318) was a Persian statesman, historian, and physician. were popular in the city. However, there are no Tatar historical works devoted specifically to the history of Haji Tarkhan. The court of the khans of Astrakhan employed baqşy (scribes), who were responsible for business and diplomatic correspondence and also probably for copying books.

Classical works of Arabic and Persian literature (for example, Ferdowsi’siAbul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi (940–1020) was a Persian poet and the author of Shahnameh (The Book of Kings). Shahnameh) and samples of works on exact sciences, such as mathematics, geography, and astronomy, were also known in the city. However, the vestiges of paganism did not disappear with the arrival of Islam in the city.

Since the fourteenth century, Haji Tarkhan has been one of the most important trading hubs on the Lower Volga, a place through which the great caravan route connecting the Mediterranean trade with the East passed. Trade between Haji Tarkhan and the cities of northern Azerbaijan as well as with the ports of Azak (Azov) and the Black Sea was likely very active. Relations between the Lower Volga region and Haji Tarkhan, especially with Khwarazm, were also very close. Thus, it is no coincidence that at the beginning of the second quarter of the fourteenth century, a whole complex of caravanserais appeared on the Ustyurt14¹⁴UstyurtThe Ustyurt Plateau is a clay desert in western Central Asia. on the trade route from the lower reaches of the great river to Central Asia. However, these ceased to operate in the 1370s due to Timur’s destructive campaigns against Khwarazm. Timur's campaigns of 1391 and 1395 undoubtedly caused great damage to another direction of Astrakhan trade—the Azak route. This pathway connected the Iranian shores of the Caspian Sea (via Astrakhan and Azak) with Kaffa (also known as Theodosia, a major trading center in the Crimea) and extended into the interiors of the Ottoman Empire. Silk and spices were the main goods on this route. At the end of the fifteenth century, the spice trade from the East (mainly from India via Shamakhi and Baku) through Astrakhan was still very important.

Throughout its history until the Russian conquest, Haji Tarkhan was also a major center of the slave trade. Slaves were sold to the Crimea, Kazan, Central Asia, and Iran. After the city was annexed by Moscow, there was a long period of Russian slaves returning to their homeland.

The economy of Astrakhan seems to have consisted of two components: the transit trade and the export of local products. The main commodities of the Astrakhan economy were fish and salt, which were traded both with the cities on the Volga and, likely to a much lesser extent, with the countries of the Caspian basin. Salt in the vicinity of the city was extracted from lakes—the so-called deposited salt. It was scooped out of the water, dried in the sun and loaded onto carts. The salt could be preserved in lumps for a very long time, but it became thicker with time, and the block had to be broken up with axes and crowbars.

Fishing has been a longstanding activity in Haji Tarkhan. The Russian fishing terminology used in the Lower Volga region is almost entirely of Turkic origin, which indicates that Russian fishermen borrowed it ‘as is’ from the local population. Tatar vocabulary dominates, for example, in the description of the uchug device,15¹⁵uchugAn uchug is the complete damming of a river or stream for the purpose of enabling fishing. and sturgeon are depicted on some Astrakhan coins from the fourteenth century.

Sturgeon fishing was carried out three months a year, from the end of May to the end of August. The fish was salted locally, loaded onto ships and transported up the Volga. The variety of the exported fish was apparently not very diverse, and Russian documents mention mainly the sturgeon and beluga. The terminology of fish salting in Russian is also almost entirely of Turkic origin, which suggests that during the time of the Astrakhan Khanate, fish was salted in much the same way in Haji Tarkhan. Fish was also dried and was sometimes used as a substitute for bread. In all likelihood, in the first half of the sixteenth century, fish uchugs belonged to the Astrakhanian aristocracy. The khan personally owned some of the uchugs and yeriks (channels connecting waterbodies) on the arms of the Volga delta.

In addition, bread had to be imported into Astrakhan because the city probably suffered from a constant shortage of grain. In such conditions, plagues and famines were not uncommon among the local population.

The role of animal husbandry in the economy of the Astrakhan khanate was very significant. Fazlallah Khunji Isfahani wrote that ‘many goods, fat sheep, horses, camels and other valuable goods are delivered from Haji Tarkhan’. Thus, it is no coincidence that a Tatar proverb has survived to this day: ‘In Astrakhan, a cow costs one piece of money, [and if] you leave, it costs a thousand’ (Ačtarqanda sə̂jə̂r bər aqča, kilä-kilä mə̂ŋ aqča). Gardening, horticulture, and hunting probably played a role in the khanate’s economy, but their share could not have been very large. However, in Russian proverbs of the seventeenth century, watermelons seem to be what Astrakhan is most famous for: ‘Astrakhan is famous for watermelons, while we are famous for naked buttocks’ (that is, to put it mildly, Russians are famous for the absence of pants).

As with the Kazan and Crimean khanates, Astrakhan was ruled by one family—the Jochids. They were the descendants of Jochi, Chinggis Khan's son, specifically of the lineage of Khan Temür Qutlugh. Throughout its history, the Astrakhan khanate remained in a dependent position, with overlords such as the Nogai Horde, North caucasian principalities, and the Crimean khanate. The khans often changed as a result of bloody invasions and coups with the participation of external forces.

As in other Jochid states, the second person in the khanate was the kalga (the heir to the khan, who was usually his son, brother, or nephew). The nobility consisted of sultans, oglans (ulans), beks, and murzas. According to Russian sources, there were at least 500 members of the nobility in 1554, many of whom owned appanages. There is no doubt about the existence of the qarachi institutioniThe term ‘qarachi’ is equivalent to ‘vizier’. in the Astrakhan Khanate. It is likely that the KhongiradiKhongirad is a major division of the Mongol tribes. clan were the dominant group around the Astrakhan khans. Additionally, there were also members of the Manghud claniManghud is a Turkic-Mongolian tribe. in the khanate.

The so-called ‘black peasants’ paid taxes in both cash and kind and lived on common land. Slave labor (most likely captives of Slavic and Caucasian origin) was widely used in the household. Various sources also mention the clergy, the ‘mullahs and akhuns and seyits and abyzes’ and state that there were about 3,000 of them in the city in 1554.

We can also confidently assume that khan and kalga (kalgalyk) appanages existed in the khanate. The latter were given to the kalga only for use. The peasants living on the kalgalyk lands, as well as on the khan's lands, worked on them for a tenth part of the harvest. There is no data about beyliks in Astrakhan similar to the Crimean and Kazan records, although they likely existed. It is also probable that clergymen and teachers (hojalyk) also had their own estates. A part of the arable land in the city was probably owned by the community. Moreover, the institution of soyurghal also probably existed in Astrakhan. This referred to conditional military land ownership, the right to collect rent—previously a tax in favor of the khan—for a certain period of time.

Astrakhan inherited its conflict with the Crimean khans from the Great Horde. Amongst the most devastating were the Crimean raids led by Mehmed I Giray in 1523 and Sahib I Giray in 1546. The second campaign was triggered by Yamghurchi Khan, who had not only seized the Astrakhan throne but had also seized a merchant caravan on its way from Kazan to the Crimea. The aggrieved merchants complained to Sahib I Giray. In the early 1520s, he had occupied the throne of Kazan, and the trade with the Crimea, so important to Kazan, was well known to him. Outraged by the behavior of the Astrakhan upstart, Sahib I Giray began to prepare a large-scale campaign against the city. As someone who lived through the events and was a close associate of the Crimean khan, Remmal Khoja wrote that full mobilization was announced for the Astrakhan incursion. The jarlig (an edict or written command) issued by the khan proclaimed that no one could stay on the ground, the whole nation or army (khalq) must put itself in combat readiness, and if there was anyone who did not stand by the khan immediately after Or Agzy (Perekop), his property would be forfeit and he would be beheaded.

The Crimean troops in the campaign numbered from 200 to 1,000 tüfenkji,i Tüfenkji are warriors armed with Ottoman-style rifles (tufenk). the khan’s forces reached 10,000 men, and the tribal militia is said to have numbered 250,000 soldiers. After the Crimean troops had crossed the Don, the only major obstacle on the way, the fate of the city was sealed within twenty-four hours. Astrakhan was captured thanks to the field artillery and tüfenkji detachments. Yamghurchi fled, and some of his retinue and entourage were captured and taken to Crimea with the promise that they would not be harmed. This defeat was a prelude to future disaster.

At first, until the middle of the sixteenth century, relations between the Khanate of Astrakhan and the Grand Duchy of Moscow were friendly due to their common enemy—the Crimea. Until 1551, the Astrakhanians, who came to Moscow, appeared here with the Nogais. From 1552–57, a separate Astrakhan court in Moscow, a kind of embassy, was mentioned, but nothing is known about its location.

However, everything changed in 1552, when Moscow conquered Kazan and thought of bringing the entire Volga trade route under the Russian tsar for the first time. To justify the war, Ivan the Terrible, of course, began to enumerate all the wrongs allegedly done to him by the Astrakhanians, and also stated that Astrakhan had belonged to the Russian rulers for centuries. This was a lie. Moscow dyaks (ministers) identified Astrakhan with Tmutarakan, which had belonged to Russia since the time of the Prince of Kiev Svyatoslav I. In fact, Tmutarakan was the ancient Greek city of Hermonassa, and later Tamantarkhan of the Turkic Khaganate, located in a completely different place, specifically in the area of modern Taman.

In April 1554, a military expedition was sent from Moscow to Astrakhan: the vaivode Prince Yuri Ivanovich Pronsky-Shemyakin ‘and his companions’, numbering about 30,000 men. Haji Tarkhan was taken without a fight on 2 July as ‘there were few people in the city at that time’. Yamghurchi, who had returned after the Crimean attack, fled again. He took refuge in Tyumen in the North Caucasus because his wife was the daughter of a Kumyk ruler in Dagestan.

Khan Dervish Ali, who had previously lived in Moscow for a long time, was placed in Astrakhan. The viceroy Pyotr Turgenev was left with the khan (‘to spend the year’ as the sources say) with a small garrison. An annual tribute was imposed on Astrakhan, and the information about the amount varies. In the treaty, 1,000 rubles as money and 3,000 fish are mentioned. Another source puts the number as ‘10,000 horses per year, 200,000 sheep, 300,000 sturgeon and beluga fish’. The treaty also stipulated that in the event of Dervish Ali’s death, Astrakhan could make a direct appeal to the Grand Duke in Moscow.

Dervish Ali, however, soon began to lean toward an alliance with the Crimea. It took two more expeditions by Moscow streltsy and local Cossacks in 1555–56 to finally break the stubborn city. After approaching Haji Tarkhan in the summer of 1556, the vaivodes found no one: ‘The tsar ran away from Astarakhan, and burned the town.’

Part of the Astrakhan aristocracy managed to escape to the Crimea and the Ottoman Empire. An Astrakhan prince was captured alive by Moscow troops during the Battle of Molodi with the Crimeans on 30 July 1572. Dervish Ali’s son Mohammad lived in the Ottoman Empire in the early 1570s and was supported by the Sultan.16¹⁶ In the Ottoman Register No. IV of the Registers of Important Matters, there is a brief record from 23 Jumada Al-Awwal 967 (20 March 1560) about the payment of thirty acçe to the sons of Dervish Ali who sought refuge in Turkey. The Moscow ambassador to Turkey Ivan Novosiltsev reported in 1570: ‘The son of the Astorokhan Dervish Ali, the prince Magmet, lives in the city of Uryum under guard, and they do not let him out of the city, and he eats Turkish food, but the Turk does not allow him to go to his own place.’ The same source also mentions some ‘Astorokhan Semyon Murza and Tenim called Tereberdeyev and his companions who ran from Astorokhan to Azov’ and then took an active part in the Astrakhan campaign of the Ottoman and Crimean troops in 1569.

Yamghurchi Khan’s supporters, who had fled first from the Crimeans and then from the Muscovites, also ended up in Istanbul. However, by this time, the last traces of the last rulers of independent Astrakhan were lost forever. Soon, the capital of this once glorious kingdom would turn into a sleepy provincial town on the outskirts of endless Muscovy and its successor, the Russian Empire.

The Travels of Ibn Bat̩t̩ūt̩a A.D. 1325–1354. Translated by H.A.R. Gibb. Vol. II. Cambridge, 1962.

Bennigsen A.1967. ‘L’expedition turque contre Astrakhan en 1569’. CMRS, vol. VIII, № 3. Paris.

Frank, Allen J. 2001. ‘Muslim Sacred History and the 1905 Revolution in a Sufi History of Astrakhan’. In Studies on Central Asian History in Honor of Yuri Bregel, edited by Devin DeWeese. Bloomington: Indiana University.

Gökbilgin, Özalp. Tarih-i Sahib Giray Han. Ankara: Atatürk Üniversitesi, 1973.

Zaytsev I. ‘Astrakhan’. In The Encyclopaedia of Islam III, edited by Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas and Everett Rowson. Boston, 2010.