Mekegi

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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Mekegi **
     This Khazar-era city is associated with ruins near the present village of Mekegi on the bank of a canyon at the Western foot of mount Zaha in Dagestan. It is 30 kilometers from the coast of the Caspian sea and 100 kilometers from Makhachkala.
     The city is known only from archaeological materials, legends and legends of local residents.
     The city was a fortress, whose walls were made of Mekegi stone. The fortress had three gates, the wall with two towers was up to 7 meters high. This fortress guarded access to the canyon, where a number of fortifications with smaller settlements were located. Thus, the fortress in Mekegi was part of the unified defense system of this country.
     The settlement of Mekegi has existed here since the first centuries of the New Era, and the first people settled here at the end of the 2nd Millennium before Christ.
     Since the 4th century of the New faith, savir-khazars began to arrive here, which marked the onset of the hunno-turkic era in these places, in which the three powers of the Kingdom of the huns, the Western Turkic Khaganate, and the Khazarus state were replaced one after another.
     The turks replaced the aryan-sarmatian era, which ended in the middle of the 6th century, after the reign of the persian King of Kings, Shahinshah Kavad, who completed the creation of a line of fortifications from Derbent through the Kumyk platform along the ancient Great Silk Road. The purpose of this construction was to protect themselves from the invasion of the huns, who brought the turkic culture to these places, where before them the aryan-Caucasian race prevailed here.
     Mekegi acquired the functions of a full-fledged city during the khazar rule over the Kumyk trade and military route, which began at the end of the 7th century.
     At the beginning of the 8th century, the khazars built a fortress in Mekegi, which housed a military garrison that consisted of local mountain men. The khazar army was here only with the appearance of the enemy from the Caucasus.
     At the same time, a small jewish community settled here, which was engaged in trade affairs, having good contacts with merchants who led trade caravans. The jews took advantage of the fact that only they in these places had a written language, with which they sent letters to their correspondents in Europe and in the Crimea about trade opportunities.
     From mid-7th to the beginning of the 8th centuries, Mekugi reach its highest development.
     During the arab-khazar war, the city was destroyed several times, and merchants and artisans went to the mountains for this time. Several sheikhs who died here speak about the fierce struggle for the possession of the fortress. Local lore says that many arab missionaries died here when the arabs tried to convert the local population to islam. At the same time, jewish traditions claim that they mostly resisted фтв defended against the фrabs, and legends performed by local autochthonous elders attribute the massacre of the arabs to themselves.
     In the middle of the 8th century, the city became quite sad. The khazars had withdrawn their garrison from the fortress, and the artisans had no one else to serve. Almost the entire population has left. There was only a оewish community, consisting of mountain jews, who settled in neighboring villages, away from the cursed place.
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