Bilyar

Cities of Khazaria. Kromos Estatium
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     The khazar cities here include not only those cities that were built by the khazar architects, but also those that were built before the arrival of the khazars, were used by the khazars for their needs and tasks for a long time.
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Bilyar **
     Also Bulyar, the Great city of Khazaria and khazars.
     This chronicled city of Volga Bulgaria is now associated with the Bilyar settlement on the outskirts of the village of Bilyarsk in Tatarstan.
     Basic information about the existence of the city is provided by archaeological excavations.
     The heyday of the city dates back to the era when Volga Bulgaria was part of the Khazar Khaganate. This was in the 9th century after the birth of Christ.
     In 922, the first mention of the city of Bilyar appears, when the city was visited by the arab Embassy of al-Muqtadir, which was accompanied by the writer and historian Ibn Fadlan, who left a lot of information about this journey.
     R.Bariev notes that the ьuslim bulgars called themselves the bilyar people.
     In 965, the Kievan Prince Svyatoslav breaks Khazaria, allowing Bulgaria to throw off the vassal yoke and allow it to develop independently. Since that time, the city of Bilyar has gradually faded. It may have been looted in 965 by Rus.
     In 970, according to Khvolson, part of the bulgars, muslims by religion, under the leadership of Asan, Hessen or Hasan left the city of Bilyar in Bulgaria and came to Hungary, where they founded the city Pesht on the banks of the Danube, which according to their concepts was to reproduce the city of their homeland Bilyar.
     Since the end of the 10th century, feudal relations have developed rapidly in Bulgaria. There is a powerful layer of rich nobility from landowners, merchants and courtiers. Ancestral fortresses are being built on these lands, where the city's trade and craft community is developing.
     There are large trade and craft centers, such as Suvar, Bilyar, Oshel, Bulgar, and Zhukotin.
     Karaite scholar and historian M.Agha believes that Bilyar was located on the left bank of the Cheremshana river in the Volga basin. At the same time, the Karaites decipher the name of the city as follows: the word «bili» means a state, the word «bilik» means the kingdom. Thus, the name of the city of Bilyar is translated into russian as the City of Tsars.
     At the beginning of the 11th century, the city came to life again and in the 12th century it became the capital of Volga Bulgaria.
     Russian chronicles from the 12th century call this city the Great City of the khazars. Starting from the middle of the 12th century, it became the main city of Volga Bulgaria, for which it got its name.
     The city was located on the left bank of the Maly Cheremshan river in the Volga basin.
     The city was founded on the site of the ancient settlement of Bulyar, which belongs to the baylar-bulyar-bilyar tribes of bulgar origin, which passed the stage of ethnic interaction with the ancient magyar tribes, with the presence of a certain number of mongolian genes.
     Since the beginning of the 11th century, the city of bulgar has constantly experienced tension in its development due to the raids of the steppe people. Gradually, the main administrative divisions of Volga Bulgaria are moving to a new location, in Bilyar.
     Bilyar repeated the town-planning traditions of the fortress cities of the local semi-nomads. The kremlin was its central part. There are an administrative camp and there were the main fortifications in the form of ditches and ramparts. Nearby is the suburb, inhabited by the artisans and attendants. Everything was quite densely populated. What archaeologists have unearthed, called the Bilyarsk settlement, is located on the south-eastern edge of the current village of Bilyarsk.
     But even here the bulgar khans were disappointed. In 1236, it was visited with an unfriendly visit by the Mongol Horde of Subedei. The population fled, the city was destroyed, and what could be burned was burned.
     The town still existed for a while, but gradually, as a Ghost town should, it began to travel around the surrounding area. Here it appears next to, then in the distance, but retains its name Bilyar. Sometimes it's a town, sometimes it's a village. But without the previous ceremony. The fortress is not used, the local population prefers a semi-sedentary lifestyle.
     After the Horde left, part of the Bulgarian administration returned here, and some trade and crafts were resumed, mostly based on providing and feeding the host, as well as focused on providing for the surrounding population, taking into account its semi-nomadic lifestyle. Almost half of the bilyars mixed with the bashkirs and went to the Kama forests.
     They gathered, traded, did their business, and went to their villages. It's an expensive job to keep a city, you can't see the authorities, and no one takes on such a burden at meetings. Two known archeological site that is attributable to the post-mongol Bilyar, it Balyngus settlement, and Bilyar village.
     In 1391, the year the Bulgaria was finally defeated by Timur. Bilyar was abandoned by its inhabitants completely. The western bashkirs, along with the remnants of the ancient bilyars, are being pushed to the east and south-east.
     In 1445, the Kazan khanate was established. Bilyars with bulyars do not find a place in the new state education and move after their ancestors to the lower reaches of the Zai river, and from there go to rivers Ik and Xun. About Bilyar, as a Great City, they now remembered only in their legends.
     Since the beginning of the 20th century, many attempts have been made to find the remains of the city of Bilyar.
     It was found that Bilyar was divided into several internal parts, located in each other, like a matryoshka. Two small rivers flowed through the city, flowing into the Small Cheremshan.
     The city had a square shape with rounded corners. The corners were exactly on the sides of the world. Inside the city, there were four parts of a concentric shape inscribed into each other. In the center was the Citadel, then the inner city, then the outer city, and around it lived the townspeople.
     All parts of the city had their own fortifications. These were ramparts with additional wooden structures on top. The terrain folds were also used.
     The total area of the city was about 800 hectares, which makes it possible to attribute Bilyar to one of the largest urban settlements of the middle Ages, which had almost all the urban planning skills of that time, and could accommodate up to 90 thousand residents and guests during holidays and fairs.
     One of the attractions of Bilyar can be considered a Mosque, which, judging by its remains, partially preserved on the territory of the Citadel, was the largest architectural structure in Eastern Europe.
     On the territory of Bilyar there was also a hotel, a public bathhouse, a building for holding people's meetings, a well, a Caravanserai, iron workshops, a whole block of pottery workshops, and an alchemical workshop. There was also an underground heating system, and glass was used for windows.
     Since the 10th century, roads from different parts of the world converged here. Merchants and travelers from Kievan and Novgorod Rus, Khazaria, the Baltic States, Western Europe, Svea and Urmania, Central Asia, Persia, India, China, Byzantium, and the Caucasus gathered in Bilyar.
     According to the descriptions of people who visited Bilyar, Baghdad and Constantinople only slightly surpassed it in their territories. There were streets in the city, gates of pure gold, its citadel was huge in height and width, and its mosques were not inferior in beauty to those of Samarkand. Residents were walking the streets, and artisans shops were everywhere.
     According to local legend, the city became a Ghost, which was raised to the sky by 12 girls who defended Bilyar from the mongols, but were captured. They were forced to carry earth in their handkerchiefs to the place where they were to be executed. But when the hill was filled up, Bilyar picked up the girls and took them to the sky to the stars, who accepted the girls into their starry flock. And Bilyar sometimes returns to this mountain, and people see him here and there.
     Catherine the Great once lost an earring, which worked bulgars in the technique of granulation. They had an alchemical workshop in Bilyar. But then the bulgars were no longer there. So Potemkin rushed to find someone who could do it. He went to Tula and Kazan. Only a kaluga peasant took it on, he was one-legged and one-armed.
     But there was nothing to do, the Prince gave him a trinket of his mistress. He couldn't repeat it right away, but it didn't work out either. They took it to Katya, who accepted it, but grinned reproachfully, saying that Rus could not repeat some barbarians. Potemkin chuckled, rode up to one-eye peasant, and he lost his eye while making the first earring. he ordered to cut off his last leg.
     Grishka said that if you don't do it, I'll cut off your hand and your eye along with your head. This krestyanin had already mastered the technique by that time, maybe someone suggested it. He did it a week later. It all worked out. And this locksmith then disappeared. The Ghost town of Bilyar must have taken him in. It is not the business of such masters to wander the Earth.
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