سرایجوق | |
| | |
| Location | Sarayshyq |
|---|---|
| Region | Atyrau Region, Kazakhstan |
| Coordinates | 47°30′0″N51°44′0″E / 47.50000°N 51.73333°E |
| Type | City |
| Site notes | |
| Condition | Ruined |
Saray-Jük (Turki/Kypchak and Persian: سرایجوق, Sarāyjūq; Kazakh : Кіші Сарай, Kişi Saray; Tatar : Сарайчык, Sarayçıq), was a medieval city on the border between Europe and Asia. It was located 50 km north Atyrau on the lower Ural River, near the modern village of Sarayshyq, Atyrau Region, Kazakhstan. The city lay on an important trade route between Europe and China and flourished between the 10th and 16th centuries.
Until recently it was believed that Saray-Jük was founded by Batu Khan, a khan (king) of Mongol Empire, but archaeological excavations suggest that the city could have been founded as early as the 10th or 11th century. [1] By the 13th century Saray-Jük became an important trade center, [1] and was one of the biggest cities of the Golden Horde (Golden Palace). The ruins of the suburb Aqtöbe, located near Atyrau were preserved until the 20th century. The city had a ceramic water-pipe and both metallurgy and pottery were also developed. Neighboring populations were agriculturist or fishermen.
The Moroccan traveller, Ibn Battuta, passed through the town in around 1333 on his way from New Sarai to Delhi. [1] At the time the river was spanned by a bridge of boats. While in the town Ibn Battuta sold his horses and purchased camels to draw his wagons on the next stage of his journey to Konye-Urgench. [2] Neighborhoods of the city were a popular resort among the Golden Horde's nobility.
After the disintegration of the Golden Horde in the 14th century the city fell into decay: in 1395 it was ruined by Timur, but it was rebuilt in the 1430s-1440s. It remained the main city of the Nogai Horde. Uncovered coins suggest that the city retained commercial significance throughout the 16th century. [1] The Kazakh khan also had headquarters there later. In 1580 or 1581 [3] it was ruined by "thief Cossacks"—that is, Cossacks uncontrolled by the Russian government.
The remains of buildings, workshops and others are situated at the bank of Ural River, which is washing away the ruins. In 1999 a memorial complex was established on the site by Kazakhstani authorities.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help){{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)The Tatars, formerly also spelled Tartars, is an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups bearing the name "Tatar" across Eastern Europe and Asia. Initially, the ethnonym Tatar possibly referred to the Tatar confederation. That confederation was eventually incorporated into the Mongol Empire when Genghis Khan unified the various steppe tribes. Historically, the term Tatars was applied to anyone originating from the vast Northern and Central Asian landmass then known as Tartary, a term which was also conflated with the Mongol Empire itself. More recently, however, the term has come to refer more narrowly to related ethnic groups who refer to themselves as Tatars or who speak languages that are commonly referred to as Tatar.
Atyrau, known until 1991 as Guryev, is a city in Kazakhstan and the capital of Atyrau Region. Atyrau is a transcontinental city, at the mouth of the Ural River on the Caspian Sea, between Europe and Asia, 2,700 kilometres west of Almaty and 351 kilometres east of the Russian city of Astrakhan.
The Ural, also known as the Yaik, is a river flowing through Russia and Kazakhstan in the continental border between Europe and Asia. It originates in the southern Ural Mountains and discharges into the Caspian Sea. At 2,428 kilometres (1,509 mi), it is the third-longest river in Europe after the Volga and the Danube, and the 18th-longest river in Asia. The Ural is conventionally considered part of the boundary between the continents of Europe and Asia.
Astrakhan is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the Caspian Depression, 60 miles from the Caspian Sea, with a population of 475,629 residents at the 2021 Census. At an elevation of 28 meters (92 ft) below sea level, it is the lowest city in Russia.
The Crimean Khanate, self-defined as the Throne of Crimea and Desht-i Kipchak, and in old European historiography and geography known as Little Tartary, was a Crimean Tatar state existing from 1441–1783, the longest-lived of the Turkic khanates that succeeded the empire of the Golden Horde. Established by Hacı I Giray in 1441, it was regarded as the direct heir to the Golden Horde and to Desht-i-Kipchak.
Sarai was the name of possibly two cities near the lower Volga, that served successively as the effective capitals of the Cuman–Kipchak Confederation and the Golden Horde, a Turco-Mongol kingdom which ruled much of Northwestern Asia and Eastern Europe, from the 10th through the 14th century. There is considerable disagreement among scholars about the correspondence between specific archaeological sites.
The Nogai Horde was a confederation founded by the Nogais that occupied the Pontic–Caspian steppe from about 1500 until they were pushed west by the Kalmyks and south by the Russians in the 17th century. The Mongol tribe called the Manghuds constituted a core of the Nogai Horde.
There has been a substantial population of Russian Kazakhstanis, or simply Russian Kazakhs, which are ethnic Russians living in Kazakhstan as their citizen, since the 19th century. Although their numbers have been reduced since the breakup of the Soviet Union, they remain prominent in Kazakh society today. Russians formed a plurality of the Kazakh SSR's population for several decades.
The Kazakh Khanate, in eastern sources known as Ulus of the Kazakhs, Ulus of Jochi, Yurt of Urus, was a Kazakh state in Central Asia, successor of the Golden Horde existing from the 15th to the 19th century, centered on the eastern parts of the Desht-i Qipchaq.
A jüz is one of the three main territorial and tribal divisions in the Kypchak Plain area that covers much of the contemporary Kazakhstan. It represents the main tribal division within the ethnic group of the Kazakhs.
Majar or Macar was a medieval city of Golden Horde in 13th-14th centuries. It once played a major role in the trade between Idel-Ural, Caucasus and the Black Sea region. In 1310–1311 the city minted its own money. In 1395 it was sacked by troops of Timur.

Tini Beg, also known as Dinibeg, was Khan of the Golden Horde from 1341 to 1342.
The Bukey Horde, also known as the Inner Horde or Interior Horde, was an autonomous khanate of Kazakhs located north of the Caspian Sea in between the Ural and Volga Rivers. The khanate officially existed from 1801 to 1845, when the position of khan was abolished and the area was fully absorbed into the administration of the Russian Empire. It was located in the western part of modern-day Kazakhstan. Its lands were spread over about 71,000 square kilometers.
The Wings of the Golden Horde were subdivisions of the Golden Horde in the 13th to 15th centuries CE. Jochi, the eldest son of the Mongol Empire founder Genghis Khan, had several sons who inherited Jochi's dominions as fiefs under the rule of two of the brothers, Batu Khan and the elder Orda Khan who agreed that Batu enjoyed primacy as the supreme khan of the Golden Horde.
Below is the list of Kazakhstan-related articles.
An orda or horde was a historical sociopolitical and military structure found on the Eurasian Steppe, usually associated with the Turkic and Mongol peoples. This form of entity can be seen as the regional equivalent of a clan or a tribe. Some successful ordas gave rise to khanates.
The Nogais are a Kipchak people who speak a Turkic language and live in Southeastern Europe, North Caucasus, Volga region, Central Asia and Turkey. Most are found in Northern Dagestan and Stavropol Krai, as well as in Karachay-Cherkessia, Chechnya and Astrakhan Oblast; some also live in Dobruja, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and a small Nogai diaspora is found in Jordan. They speak the Nogai language and are descendants of various Mongolic and Turkic tribes who formed the Nogai Horde. There are eight main groups of Nogais: the Ak Nogai, the Karagash, the Kuban-Nogai, the Kundraw-Nogai, the Qara-Nogai, the Utars, Bug-Nogai, and the Yurt-Nogai.
Haqnazar Haider Sultan bin Qasim Khan, commonly known as Haqnazar Khan, was the khan of the Kazakh khanate from 1538-1580. He was the second-oldest son of Qasim Khan and the younger brother of Muhammed Khan.
The Kazakh people have rebelled against state power in the forms of civil disobedience and armed resistance. The 18th- and 19th-century Kazakh rebellions are commonly referred to as national liberation uprisings. Between the mid-nineteenth century and 1916, Kazakhstan experienced 300 national liberation movements, wars and uprisings.
The Volga–Ural interfluve is a steppe, semidesert, and desert territory between rivers Volga and Ural in Kazakhstan and Russia.