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.
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 Khanate of Kazan was a medieval Tatar Turkic state that occupied the territory of the former Volga Bulgaria between 1438 and 1552. The khanate covered contemporary Tatarstan, Mari El, Chuvashia, Mordovia, and parts of Udmurtia and Bashkortostan; its capital was the city of Kazan. It was one of the successor states of the Golden Horde (Mongol state), and it came to an end when it was conquered by the Tsardom of Russia.
Tarkhan is an ancient Central Asian title used by various Turkic, Hungarian, Mongolic, and Iranian peoples. Its use was common among the successors of the Mongol Empire and Turkic Khaganate.
The Khanate of Astrakhan was a Tatar rump state of the Golden Horde. The khanate existed in the 15th and 16th centuries in the area adjacent to the mouth of the Volga river, around the modern city of Astrakhan. Its khans claimed patrilineal descent from Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan.
Yadegar Mokhammad was the last khan of the Kazan Khanate, occupying the position from March to October 1552. He was the son of Astrakhan khan Qasim II. Between 1542 and 1550 he was in the service of the Tsardom of Russia. In 1550, he participated in the attack on Kazan and then joined the Nogais. After the Kazan Khanate was nearly brought to defeat by Ivan the Terrible's forces in 1550, in 1551 the "peace party" in Kazan enthroned the pro-Russian khan Shah Ali. In 1552 the anti-Russian "patriotic party" regained power. Shah Ali fled and Yadegar was invited by Qol Sharif and Chapqin bek Otich uli to the throne of the Kazan Khanate. Subsequently, he led the war against the Russian invasion. He was captured in October 1552 when Russian troops took Kazan. In 1553 he converted to Christianity, assumed the name of Simeon Kasayevich and lived in Moscow as a Russian nobleman. He was one of the last great descendants of Jochi Khan, the eldest son of the Genghis Khan.
The Mongol invasion of Volga Bulgaria lasted from 1223 to 1236. The Bulgar state, centered in lower Volga and Kama, was the center of the fur trade in Eurasia throughout most of its history. Before the Mongol conquest, Russians of Novgorod and Vladimir repeatedly looted and attacked the area, thereby weakening the Bulgar state's economy and military power. The latter ambushed the Mongols in the later 1223 or in 1224. Several clashes occurred between 1229–1234, and the Mongol Empire conquered the Bulgars in 1236.
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.
Shirvan Khanate was a Caucasian khanate under Iranian suzerainty, which controlled the Shirvan region from 1761 to 1820.
The Tokhtamysh–Timur war was fought from 1386 to 1395 between Tokhtamysh, khan of the Golden Horde, and the warlord and conqueror Timur, founder of the Timurid Empire, in the areas of the Caucasus Mountains, Turkestan and Eastern Europe. The battle between Amir Timur and Tokhtamysh played a key role in the decline of Mongol power over early Russian principalities.
Alexander Kasimovich Kazembek, was an orientalist, historian and philologist in the Russian Empire.
Hajji Dubin Abdulla İbrahim ulı was a Tatar television and radio newsreader, and currently, he is an ethnographer.
Astrakhan Tatars are an ethnic subgroup of the Tatar.
Maḥmūd bin Muḥammad bin Tīmūr Khān, also known as Mahmud Astrakhani was one of Küchük Muhammad's sons and a Khan who founded the Khanate of Astrakhan in the 1460s.
Sheikh Haydar Astrakhani was Khan of Astrakhan from 1538 through 1541. For uncertainties and additional information see the second part of List of Astrakhan khans.
Dervish Ali Astrakhani was Khan of the Astrakhan Khanate from 1554 until the Khanate's fall in 1556. He was a grandson of Ahmed Khan, of the Golden Horde.
Abdal-Karim Khan was Khan of Astrakhan from 1490 through 1504. For uncertainties and additional information see the second part of List of Astrakhan khans.
The sack of Shamakhi took place on 18 August 1721, when rebellious Sunni Lezgins, within the declining Safavid Empire, attacked the capital of Shirvan province, Shamakhi. The initially successful counter-campaign was abandoned by the central government at a critical moment and with the threat then left unchecked, Shamakhi was taken by 15,000 Lezgin tribesmen, its Shia population massacred, and the city ransacked.
