Kabala of Ancient Albania

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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Kabala of Ancient Albania **
     Also the Khazar by Balazuri.
     The ancient settlement with the remains of this city is attributed to the fact that it is located 15 kilometers from modern Gabala in Azerbaijan.
     The first information about the city appears in Pliny the Elder, who mentions the city of Kabalaka, which existed here in the 1st century.
     Ptolemy also wrote about the city of Kabala in his Geographies, who claimed that This city existed in Transcaucasia in the middle of the 2nd century after the birth of Christ.
     At the beginning of the 6th century, during the Iranian-Byzantine war under Kavad the First, the savirs captured Djurdjan, now Georgia, and Arran, as the arabs called Albania, for the money of the Byzantines. These were territories to which the persians had extended their rights for a century and a half.
     This was the time when the Khazar Khaganate was just being formed. However, writers of the 9th and subsequent centuries called savirs, bulgars and other peoples khazars, who created a single state of Khazaria on the basis of these intertribal associations one hundred and fifty years later. This state so impressed the minds of ancient writers with its power that they often attributed historical events to the khazars in those centuries when the khazars were not yet there.
     Kavad the First, who ruled the country of the persians in the early 6th century, returned from the khazars their legitimate territories between the Arakas river and Shirvan, where he built the cities of Berdaa and Kabala, which the 9th-century arab writers Balazuri and Ibn al-Asir also called Khazar.
     The respected arab historian of the late 9th century Balazuri calls this city Khazar. It is possible that over time, the khazars who settled in the city with the original name Kabala, probably Shah Kavad took part in the naming of the city, after the entry of the city into the Khazar Kaganate, they named their city Khazar. Masudi calls the khazars the turkic savirs.
     Until the beginning of the 7th century, Kabala remained one of the capitals of the Transcaucasian States, the main city of Ancient Albania.
     In 654 arab writers note, that the Caliphate sent Maslama and al-Bahili to conquer Transcaucasia, who captured Albania, Djurdjan and Armenia with the cities of Baylekan, Berda, Shamkhor, Kabala, Shaki, Shirvan, Muscat, and proceeded to Derbent.
     In the middle of the 10th century, the Khazar Khaganate began to weaken under the blows of Russia, which was gaining strength. The khazars gradually leave the city to the local kings as if for rent.
     At the end of the 10th century, Kabala became the domain of Shirvanshah Muhammad Ahmad.
     In the middle of the 13th century, the Golden Horde came here. The city gets the right to levy taxes on trade caravans passing through the district. At this time, a garrison was stationed in the city, consisting mainly of people from local princely clans, but it was based on the Horde and mercenaries from Rus.
     In the 16th century, the era of Safavid rule begins in Iran, which captured Kabala and destroyed its fortress. By that time, the Citadel of the Fortress occupied an impressive territory of 25 hectares. Not far from the fortress there are the remains of an Ancient Temple, also impressive. The entire territory of the city was 50 hectares. The remains of the foundations of dwellings, part of the fortress wall with towers have been preserved.
     By the 17th century, the city's population was growing mainly due to the armenians, who turned Kabala into a thriving commercial center. However, by the beginning of the 18th century, the armenians left the city, pressed by turkish monarchs who sought to turkize the Cabal. However, this did not please the Russian Empire, which suppressed popular riots in the city, which were instigated by Turkey.
     By the middle of the 18th century, the city was abandoned by its inhabitants and ceased to function.
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