Principality of Kirk-Orsk

Occupying land between the rivers Kachi and Belbek . It included the valleys of Kachi, Bodrak and Alma before their discharge into the sea ^[2] . The principality, apparently, was a kind of buffer between the principality of Theodoro and the lands of the Crimean Tatars. It is no coincidence that Karaites began to settle in the Principality from the beginning of the 14th century. Contributed to this restriction on their residence in the Tatar cities of Crimea. The center of the principality was the city of Kirk-Or . The toponym is preserved only in the Turkic form and means “forty fortresses” in translation. Considering the fact that the Alanian diocese was mentioned twice (in 1385 and 1390) in Byzantine sources as being composed of the “Big” (vicinity of Sudak and Solhat ) and the “Malaya” Alaniy, the Kirk-Orsk state was apparently once the Lesser Alaniyah.

In the XIII-XIV centuries, the principality was in vassal dependence on the rulers of the Crimean ulus of the Golden Horde . The gradual Turkization of Crimea began as early as the Khazar Kaganate , the first Turks appeared in Crimea in the VI century, during the conquest of Northern Crimea by the Turkic Kaganate ^[3] . Before the arrival of the Mongols, the Polovtsian language became not only a lingua franca on the peninsula, but also the language of the plebs in some cities (note the city of Kyryk-Or and others). In the era of the Golden Horde, the process of Turkization intensified ^[4] .

In 1299 , Beklyarbek Nogai , who ruled in Dobrudja as revenge for the killing by the Genoese of his grandson Aktadzhi , sent to the Crimea to collect tribute, ravaged the entire northern Crimea. Kirk-Or was also ruined. Fearing new Mongol invasions, the Tatars began to migrate en masse from the steppe zone closer to the mountains in order to be able to take refuge in them in the event of a new danger. As a result, Little Alania is rapidly being tatarized, although this process began after the Kipchaks invaded the 12th century. Islamization is taking place along with Tatarization: according to archaeological excavations in 1346 , the first mosque appeared in Kirk-ore itself ^[5] . At about the same time, just 4 km from Kirk-ora, the first Tatar settlement appeared in the South-Western Crimea - Eski-Yurt . Finally, in the 1363 chronicle, Kirk-Or was already mentioned as being included in the Tatar possessions. In 1442 , Kirk-Or became the first capital of the Crimean Khanate . In the 17th century, the toponym “Kirk-Er” was replaced by “ Chufut-Kale ” (translated as “Jewish / Jewish fortress” with a negative, contemptuous semantic connotation).