Khanbalyk on Itil

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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Khanbalyk on Itil **
     Al-Bakri called this city a complex combination of consonants -- Hdlg. He believed that this was the western part of Itil, which stood on the right bank of the river.
     Artamonov believed that all the names of the city of Itil go back to a common source and convey one or another feature of the city: commercial, administrative, royal, military, epochs, vocabular.
     At the same time, none of the historical sources gives a common name for the khazar capital.
     On which bank Sarashen and Khanbalik lay, and which of them corresponds to Itil and which to Khazaran, as Ibn Haukal designates them, it is not possible to determine directly.
     Al-Bekri reports that most of them stood on the right bank of the river, without naming it in any way. Al-Bekri suppose the name Khazar has the name of a country whose capital Itil consists of two parts on different banks of the river, and these parts were called Barish or Sarashen at Khvolson, and Htslg or Khanbalyk. The western part under al-Bekri was larger than the eastern part.
     Ibn Haukal reports that the part that stood on the right bank was smaller, and the part that stood on the left bank was called Khazaran, and it was the greater part of Itil.
     Both of these authors recorded the size of parts of the capital of Khazaria at different times, from which it can be understood that they changed in size relative to each other. At the same time, it is clear that the commercial part grew faster than the administrative part.
     The city had to get its name from the fact that there was a Khan's camp, it was a Khan's city. So it was on the west side of the river and the capital. The second part of the name «balyk» indicates that it was a Khan's camp, and the word «balk» hints at the origin of the main part of the population, which here were bulgars, leading their ancestry from the banks of Balkhash, where in ancient times there was a Sogdian civilization founded by the balks, the progenitors of the bulgars.
     What is confusing about all this is that the term «khan» is of turkic-mongol origin, and was established in the Volga steppes only during the Golden Horde.
     If the western part of Itil was called Khanbalyk, the eastern part of it received several names from authors of various epochs and Kings. These were the Khazaran, named for the main population of this part of the city, and Sarashen for the yellow color of its dwellings, and al-Beida for the white color of its walls of local limestone.
     But there are no direct indications in historical data about what parts of the capital of Khazaria were called.
     King Joseph, in his descriptions of the borders of Khazaria, noted that the western part in his time was larger than the eastern part. He wrote his letters to spanish jews in the mid-10th century. It was the decline of Khazaria. According to other sources of this time, the eastern part was larger than the western part. Apparently, Joseph wanted to exaggerate the importance of the part of the city where he lived, which was the west side of the river.
     Khanbalyk was the city where the Queen lived, where according to the arab ambassadors was the residence of the King.
     Before the transfer of the residence of the khazar Kings here, this city was called the word of turkic origin Khanbalyk, that is, the Royal camp, while the arabs called it in their translation Sarashen, sar is the King, shen is the rank, which meant the Royal place.
     After moving here Kings and Khagans Khanbalik and Sarashen was renamed to Khazaran and Itil.
     Indeed, Khanbalik and Sarashen was called by the authors who wrote in the 9th century. That is, information about the city is recorded at the level of the end of the 8th century. The names Khazaran and Itil appear in 10th-century sources that recorded these names at the end of the 9th century, when the capital completely moved to the Volga.
     In the 8th century, inside the capital of Khazaria, there was a fortress of Kagan, which was located on an island that rose from the waters during the retreat of the Caspian sea. The city was called differently, and al-Baida, or White castle, and Sarashen, or the Royal Fortress. Here lived the Queen and the King. On the other hand, within a line of sight, on one side stood the ancient Royal field camp of Khanbalyk, and on the other side stood the International Trade center of Khazaran.
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