Koyun-Kala at Sulak for Kumyk plain

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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Koyun-Kala at Sulak for Kumyk plain **
     The original name of this city was Guen-Kala.
     This Kumyk city stood on the Sulak river, near present-day Bavtugay.
     The koyuns are considered a confederation of turkoman tribes that were engaged in cattle breeding, but they were particularly distinguished in raising white sheep, which the sheep breeders called koyun. The territory of the Koyun influence extended mainly to Asia Minor in Armenia, Iraq, and Iran. The strength of their leaders was recognized in both Persia and Byzantium.
     The koyun were descended from one of the branches of the huns, from which the goyuen, the first builders of the city, also descended. Coyuny penetrated into the Caucasus from Central Asia via the southern coastal steppes and the passes of the Caspian. Some of them in the 7th century went through the Derbent passes to the Kumyk plain, where they found their relatives who settled here two centuries earlier.
     Most researchers believe that the guenes were descendants of the huns of the Caspian region. They came to the North Caucasus through the Northern Caspian steppes.
     The city in the 5th century after the birth of Christ could be called by name of gyuens. With the advent in the 7th century turcoman kouns, the city was sometimes called by the name kounov.
     There are several fortresses of the Zasulak Kumykia that were named after the gyuens: these are Gyuen-kala, Gyuen-avlak, Gyuen-pole, Gyuen-syzak, Gyuen-path, Gyuen-aul, Gyuen-tala, and Gyuen-otar. All these fortresses were also named in the koyun vocabulary, but instead of Goyun, they were called Koyun. Here, in Bavtugai, there are probably several families that still remember their ancestry from the ancient Koyun.
     Apparently, kumyks settled on the Kumyk plain a couple of centuries early guens yet kouns, but there were all these ethnic groups are related because they had common language, culture, communication, externally they differed little from each other. Since the gyuens were still an alien population, who did not know the peculiarities of living in local conditions, they and the koyuns who joined them, dissolved into the kumyks who outnumbered them.
     Koyun-Kala fortress was a small piece of land with an area of 70 acres with walls made of stone. The time of building the first fortress can be attributed to the end of the 5th century, when the Kumyk plain was still under the rule of the huns. The second major reconstruction of the fortress occurred during the Khazar Khaganate. In the Golden Horde period, there was a Citadel with the castle of the local ruler on the territory of the fortress.
     Both in the huns, khazars, and Horde times, the city and Fortress of Koyun-Kala were served by caravans passing through the Kumyk plain, going from Central Asia towards the Don, Dnieper and Carpathians. The city was ethnically linked to other fortresses along the way. This system of fortresses in the valleys between Sulak and Terek was reported by ancient russian, byzantine, persian, and arabic authors.
     The whole system of cities and fortresses on the Kumyk plain in the era of the Kingdom of the huns and Khazaria flourished due to customs duties, escort of caravans to the Don, service and trade.
     The fortress of Koyun-Kala was a well-fortified defensive point, the walls of which were placed on a high rampart and built of glinobit stones. The walls of the townspeople's dwellings were glinobit on foundations of torn stone.
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