RIA Novosti: Slavs and Khazars. Scientists Have Changed Their Opinion about the Nomads on the Middle Volga

Mixed paramilitary groups of the Khazar Khaganate, which included representatives of the Turkic peoples and Slavs, were present on the Middle Volga in the VII–VIII centuries. It is to them, and not to the Bulgarian tribes, as was previously thought, that local archaeological finds of this period belong, said Dmitry Stashenkov, scientific secretary of the P.V. Alabin Samara Regional Museum of Local Lore, Associate Professor of the Department of Russian History at Samara University, at an event in the press center of the Russia Today media group.

In the Middle Volga region, on Samarskaya Luka, there are mixed burial mounds - burial complexes known as Novinkovo-type monuments. These are the earliest monuments of the Khazar period in the Volga region, the end of the VII – middle of the VIII century. Today, researchers were able to record the presence of steppe, Turkic, and Slavic components in the region at that time, the historian said.

"The complexes on Samarskaya Luka were abandoned by a heterogeneous nomadic population. Once our researchers associated them with the early Bulgarians, but then it turned out that in the burials you can find both Mongoloids and Caucasians, and a population with mixed Mongoloid and Caucasoid features, there are many differences in material cultures. All this indicates that it was not a single group. Now we believe that these monuments were left by the military contingent guarding the northern borders of the Khazar Khaganate," he said.

Dmitry Stashenkov said that at the end of the VII – first half of the VIII century, the influence of the Khazar Khaganate had been expanding to the neighboring regions to the north, and in the second half of the VIII century, nomads had mastered the territories higher along the Volga, north of Samarskaya Luka.

"It is known that nomads cannot live in one place for a long time if someone does not serve them. In recent years, we have been identifying new monuments in the territory of the Middle Volga region, which indicate that the service of these paramilitary groups was provided by a settled population with stable traditions of agriculture and handicraft activities," he stressed.

The researcher noted that in the Middle Volga region in the VIII-IX centuries, according to historians, there had been another wave of purposeful Slavic penetration into the region within the framework of the state policy of the Khazar Khaganate. This is evidenced, in particular, by the characteristic ceramics associated with the Slavs and residential buildings with stoves, which are found in the monuments of the VIII-IX centuries on the Middle Volga.

The finds of archaeologists, according to Dmitry Stashenkov, became evidence of the policy of the Khazar Khaganate administration's development of border territories. Paramilitary groups participated in this process, including the Turkic-speaking population, already mixed with the Slavs.

"For me, this is the final stage in the history of the Khazar Khaganate. This is a reflection of the period when the Khazars reached maximum power, seized maximum territories, and we see the northern borders of this territory from such archaeological materials. On the other hand, in such northern territories, including the territory of the modern Tula region, we see the beginning of the formation of that community, which will lead to the formation of the Ancient Russian state. This story cannot be divided into purely Khazar or purely Slavic. This is our common story," he concluded.

Source: ria.ru