Sarkel

The fortress was built between 834 and 837 on the Don in the western side of the Volgodonskoye perevolok . At the request of the Khazarian rulers, the Khagan and the Bek , who turned to the Byzantine emperor Theophilus , the construction was carried out with the mediation of Byzantine engineers, led by Petron Kamatir .

Their places of settlement extend right up to Sarkel, the Khazar fortress, in which there are three hundred taxi drivers (mercenary warriors), replaced every year. “Sarkel” means “The White House” in them; it was built by a spapharocidal candidate (Byzantine court title) Petron, nicknamed Kamatir ^[2] , since the Khazars asked Vasilevs Feofil to build this fortress with him. For it is known that the Khagan and the infantry of Khazaria, having sent ambassadors to this Vasilevs Theophilus, were asked to erect the Sarkel fortress for them. Vasilevs, being inclined to their request, sent them the previously named spapharocidal candidate Petron with hellandia (a type of sailing ship) from the royal courts and the helandia of Katepan of Paflagonia . So, this Petron, having reached Kherson , left the Helands in Kherson; putting people on transport ships, he went to a place on the Tanais River, in which he was to build a fortress. Since there were no stones suitable for the construction of the fortress on the site, having built furnaces and burned brick in them, he made a fortress building from them, making lime from small river shells

- Emperor Konstantin Bagryanorodny . Treatise on Empire Management Chapter 41

Sarkel became the main outpost on the northwestern border of the Khazars. It was based on a regularly replaced garrison of three hundred soldiers. In the Khazar language, the name of the city probably sounded like “Sharkil” (in Greek, the sound “sh” does not exist, therefore it is transmitted through “c”).

In 965, Sarkel was defeated by Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich . After this, the settlement came under the power of Russia and became known in Russian - Belaya Vezha. In St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev there is a wall inscription of the 11th century , which mentions "Tyatyush, Belovezhsky popin". It contains, in addition to Slavic, Turkic words; we learn from it that among the Turkic inhabitants of Sarkel there were Christians and Christian priests, and they were allowed to make funeral inscriptions not in Church Slavonic, but in their native language. In 1103, Vladimir Monomakh took with him to Russia the Pechenegs and Torques . They formed the garrison of the White Vezha until the Polovtsy ravaged the city in 1117 and it was abandoned by the inhabitants.

For a long time, the location of the fortress was determined hypothetically, usually in the region of the closest approach of the Don to the Volga . Excavations carried out in the region from 1934 to 1936 allowed Mikhail Artamonov to identify the left-bank Tsimlyanskoye settlement with Sarkel.

The fortress was located on a cape, separated from the coast by a moat. There was a second moat against the wall. The fortress is a quadrangle in shape (193.5 m by 133.5 m). It is built of burnt bricks, the masonry is foundationless. Thick (3.75 m), high (at least 10 m) walls are reinforced with tower ledges and massive corner towers. The main gate was located in the north-western wall, the second (smaller) gate was located on the north-eastern wall and overlooked the river. The fortress had several lines of defense. Inside divided into two parts by a transverse wall. The smaller southwestern part could only be accessed from within; in its southern corner was a fortified square tower-dungeon.

Soon after the construction, Sarkel began to be quickly settled and turned into a trade and craft city. The entire interior was built up with residential buildings. The population consisted of two ethnic groups: the citadel was occupied by Turkic nomads (dwellings in the form of yurts), the rest - the local Alanian population (dwellings in the form of dugouts). There were foundry, blacksmith, pottery workshops and caravanserais.

After the death of the settlement, the bricks of the fortress were used by the local population for their buildings, so that by the time of excavation of the buildings only prints remained on the ground. The remains of the fortress were studied archaeologically in 1934-1936 and 1949 - 1951 as part of the Volga-Don new construction expedition. Less than a third of the area of ​​the monument was examined. In 1952, Sarkel was flooded during the construction of the Tsimlyansk reservoir . The objects found are in the Hermitage and in the museum of Novocherkassk ^[3] .

On the other bank of the Don, at a distance of only 6 km from the Left-Bank fortification, is the Right-Bank Tsimlyanskoye fortification . Kamyshevsky fortification is also located near the latter.

Large Semikarakorsk fortress is located downstream of the Don. These are all fortresses of the Khazar Khaganate era.

• Saltovo-Mayatskaya culture

• Artamonov M.I. Medieval settlement in the Lower Don. According to the materials of the North Caucasian expedition // Bulletin of the State Academy of the History of Material Culture. - 1935. Issue. 31.
• Afanasyev G. Ye. Who actually built the Left Bank Tsimlyanskoe fortification? // RA. No. 3. 2011.
• Proceedings of the Volga-Don archaeological expedition. TT 1-3. - M., 1958-1963.
• Pletneva S. A. Sarkel and the Silk Road . - Voronezh: Publishing house of Voronezh State University, 1996. - 168 p. - ISBN 5-7455-0912-0 .
• Pletneva S. A. Ancient Russian city in the nomadic steppe: historical and stratigraphic study . - Voronezh: Publishing House of Voronezh State University, 2006. - 392 p. - 500 copies. - ISBN 5-9273-0825-2 .
• Flerov V.S. Byzantine in the Lower Don fortresses of the Khazar Khaganate. Ρωμαιοζ: collection of articles on the 60th anniversary of prof. S. B. Sorochan. Kharkov, 2013. (Narteks. Byzantina Ukrainensis. T. 2.)

• Project "Sarkel.ru" ("Khazar project") - History and archeology of the settlement of Sarkel-Belaya Vezha.
• Where was the Khazar fortress Sarkel