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The Silkroad to the North
Blue
shows the Don/Volga and
red shows the Dnepr route
In the beginning of the 7th century the Khazars founded a double khaganate north of the mountains of Caucasus in, what is now, southern
Russia. Khazars soon gained fame as the most effective warriors and experts on mounted warfare. Initially they were frequently engaged
at large as mercenary troops by most of the great powers around.
Towards the middle of the 8th century the Khazarian empire was consolidated to a fully developed, polyethnical, cosmopolitical, and
openminded feudal state, featuring a splendid noble linage, a military chivalry, a great mounted force and a higher middle class of
merchants and administrators. The Khazarian empire now covered an area from the Carpatians in the west, to the Aral sea in the east, and
from Kiev at the Dnepr and Bulgar at the Volga rivers in the north, to the Black and Caspian seas and all the way to Sogdiana in the south.
The Khazarian mounted force was feared with reason!
The Khazarian empire had established a network of trading places, it had seized and moved the Silkroad away from Persia, it had
restricted and regulated the Scandinavian penetration and put an end to the eastern moslem expansion. The nobility openly had admitted
their belonging to mosaism (prerabbinical judaism) to significantly emphasize their neutrality to and independence of christianity and
islam. The Khazars taxated all the peoples in the area. They collected duty of customs from alien and cooperative trading companies,
such as the Varangians from the island of Gothland and the center of mainland Sweden. "Pax Khazarica" ruled.
The Khazars contributed to the glory of Byzantium with a couple of emperors and empresses of Khazarian origin. Khazarian emissaries
were treated with the greatest respect at the highest diplomatical level. They were often engaged as mediators between Byzantium and
the Caliphates. Their mounted force was feared with reason by all parties. The Khazarian empire was obviously treated as the match and
equal to Byzantium and other great powers.
The Khazarian empire at the largest
Their houses of trade represented the Khazarian empire all over the then known world. They had permanent representations in e.g.
Constantinople and Baghdad and other cities and places of trade around the Mediterranean and the Black and Caspian seas, along the
Dnepr and Don-Volga river systems and the caravan roads. When they moved the Silkroad to the north they founded the ports of transit,
Staraja Ladoga, Hedeby and Birka.
Next page, Concentrating the Silkroad!
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