Gyaur-Kala

Cities of Khazaria. Kromos Estatium
======================
     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.
=======================
Gyaur-Kala **
     It was a city, the first fortifications of which were built by Shahinshah Kavad, identified today with a settlement near Alhadjikent.
     The fortress stood on top of a low mountain with a flat plateau at the top.
     The city was located on a platform called Kumyk, where there is no winter, which allows you to engage in cattle breeding all year round, without stocking up on hay for the winter.
     The first permanent settlements with elements of fortifications on the site of the future city appeared in the 2nd century before Christ, when caravans of the Great Silk Road stretched across the Kumyk plain. These were the last waves of the aryan movement from the foothills of the Urals to Asia Minor. At this time, the Persian state takes control of the caravan route along the Kumyk platform.
     With the arrival in the 2nd century after Christ, savromats, mixed aryan-turkic origin coming from the Tanais, where they were replaced by huns, persians are beginning to strengthen its presence in the Kumyk platform, building new strongholds and reinforcing the old, erecting impregnable stone walls. Gyaur-Kala receives the first defensive fortifications in the form of small ramparts.
     The population here is engaged in animal husbandry, horse breeding, agriculture, growing wheat, barley, millet, oats, rice. Some farmers have even learned how to grow cotton and making silk. They must have picked up these cultures from the caravan drivers.
     Since the 4th century after the birth of Christ, the hunnic presence on the Kumyk plain has been increasing. They are trying to take control of the Kumyk Tract. The persian Shahs strengthen its customs points, building on those areas of the fortress, which soon acquire a posads, where settle artisans. The main and most prestigious craft was considered to be armory, since the soldiers of the military garrison of the fortress needed weapons.
     At the end of the 6th century the Kumyk plain come sawiro-bulgars, remnants of the Hun Kingdom. Despite the fact that they were of a different race and spoke in the turkic vocabulary, the saviro-bulgar ethnic extract quite peacefully and harmoniously fits into the aryan-cauсassion socio-cultural landscape of the peoples of the Kumyk platform.
     At the end of the 7th century, the era of khazar rule in the North Caucasus begins. The local population is actively attracted to participate in trade throughout the khazar territory, as well as in military campaigns in the North Caucasus, the Don steppes and Transcaucasia, which was not the case under the persians. At this time, a new ethnic element of the Terek-Sulak ethnic landscape, the лumyks, began to take shape in the socio-culture of the Khazarus state, the formation of which was fully completed by the 8th century. This ethnic element was based on the autochthonous mountain population, which mixed with the alien bulgar-savir substratum.
     Since the 8th century, Gyaur-Kala is located in the general line of fortresses and cities of the Kumyk trade route, which the khazars also used to solve their military and strategic tasks, since they, in agreement with Byzantium, annually carried out the hunno-khazar expansion in Transcaucasia and the Don region.
     Participation in the solution of strategic tasks of international significance developed among the population engaged in servicing joint military and trade campaigns with the khazars, a culture of vigilante warfare, which was passed down from generation to generation, when children participated in their fathers military training camps from childhood.
     The main motivational core of this new sociocult on the Kumyk platform is the kumyk ethnos, which brought many socio-cultural innovations of the northern slavs, Rus, and turan tribes to the mountain environment, which allowed the kumyks to stand out among the mountain peoples.
     New customs were introduced to agriculture, animal husbandry, housing construction technology, everyday life, heroic legends, and clothing, where traditional mountain clothing is supplemented with elements of Asian-European dress.
     Local folklore absorbs these innovations and for many centuries creates a special ethical and moral basis, which is characterized by reasonableness, readiness for long campaigns, philosophical and contemplative observation, wise concepts of honor and speech, readiness to help, and the ability to enjoy life during folk festivals. It is the diversity of socio-cultural qualities that has always caused the local mountain tribes to respect the customs of the kumyks.
     In the era of khazar rule in the North Caucasus, the fortress and the posad belonged to the Khamrin domain and were integrated into a single system of fortified trade and craft points on the trade caravan route from China to Europe, as well as on the routes connecting Byzantium with Rus.
     During the arab-khazar wars for control of the Kumyk plain, the fortress of Gyaur-Kala was one of the most fortified in the area. Its defenders, beginning in the late 7th century, offered fierce resistance to the arab armies. Only in 739, the cunning Mervan managed to take this fortress.
++++++++++++++++++++