Eski-Yurt on the Gamri river

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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Eski-Yurt on the Gamri river **
     The city with its fortifications was located on a spur of the ridge that descended directly to the valley of the Gamri-ozen river opposite another ancient settlement of Chakavurkent, near the village of Kayakent in Dagestan.
     The antiquity of this city is attributed by archaeologists and historians of the Soviet school to the 1st century after the birth of Christ. Perhaps Christ was still preaching when witnesses of His Life appeared at the local market.
     Local historians attribute the appearance of the first proto-urban settlements with defensive ramparts to the Cimmerian-Scythian Era of the 6th century BC.
     The area of the city with a fortress made of local stone was at least 10 hectares in the best centuries, which belong to the khazar era.
     On the slopes from which it was possible to get to the city, fortifications were built in the form of walls made of local stone. The Citadel of the fortress was also built from this stone.
     The material taken from the settlement indicates the multi-layered socio-cultural history of the city.
     The first buildings of the proto-urban type appear here with the beginning of the hunnic expansion into the territory of the Eastern Caucasus in the 4th century after the advent of the New Faith, when the Kingdom of the huns settled in the North Caucasus.
     Although the first permanent settlements with elements of fortifications on the site of the future city appear 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 of the sauromats in the 2nd century after the birth of Christ from the side of Tanais, where they were forced out by the huns, the settlement, which in the late Middle ages was called Eski-Yurt, receives the first defensive fortifications in the form of small ramparts.
     The persians controlled the road from the Chora Gate across the Kumyk plain for 7 centuries, up to the 6th century after the birth of Christ.
     By the end of the 5th century, the persian Shahinshahs were able to organize a huge system of fortifications on the route of the Great Silk Road, which passed through the Kumyk plain. Eski-Yurt also found its place in this system.
     In the early 6th century, the persians built a fortress. Within ten years, artisans appeared at the fortress, who they were engaged in servicing the needs of the military garrison, as well as caravans who stopped to rest within the city.
     Like most of the fortresses of the Kumyk tract, Eski-Yurt is built from local stone, which was partially processed before laying. Inside the fortress there was a Citadel where the family of the fortress owner lived. Outside the walls there is a vast settlement, often called shahristan in the chronicles, where the persians and their related sarmatians lived.
     Artisans were engaged in the manufacture of weapons and shoes, since they were engaged in cattle breeding, they had a lot of raw materials for shoes. Pottery production was also carried out here, and a kind of ceramics was made here, in the ornament and forms of which all the historical vicissitudes of the history of the city and the entire area of the Tersko-Sulak interfluve were reflected.
     The city received its greatest development and prosperity at the end of the 7th century with the arrival of the khazars, when the flow of caravans increased.
     The population of the urban village moved from cattle breeding to animal husbandry, engaged in agriculture, growing wheat, barley, millet, oats, rice, and also cultivated for their own needs cotton and silk, the cultivation method of which the local rural population received from the caravan.
     Since the time of persian rule, the city has traditionally had a military contingent, which has become a traditional customer of weapons for local gunsmiths. In addition, the soldiers needed horses, which very soon learned to breed local cattle breeders, becoming horse breeders.
     By the end of the 8th century, a special tribal core begins to form here, which is a mixture of the local autochthonous mountain population of the caucasian type, some historians even talk about the caucasian race, with a saviro-bulgar substrate, called the kumyks.
     The creation of the kumyk ethnic group was motivated by the fact that the hunnic and khazar khagans each year attracted the local population to their trade and military companies in the Don region, Central Asia, and Transcaucasia.
     These campaigns enriched the brave warriors not only with military experience, but also with socio-cultural experience, because they had to engage not only in hostile clashes, but in civil relations with the asians in the east, with Rus in the north, with the turanian tribes. As a result, the warrior caste gained knowledge about many elements of their culture, which they brought home. All this allowed them to stand out among the mountain peoples.
     Kumyks became innovators in many areas of culture among the mountain peoples, for which they have always been respected. They brought new seeds and technologies of unprecedented production from their distant wanderings, they built their homes and their way of life in a new way. They brought with them stories of their exploits, which quickly became epic stories of kumyk-mountain folklore. They also wore clothes in a special way, adding elements of Asian-European origin to the traditional mountain dress code.
     For several centuries, the kumyk family and clan system has fostered the spirit of military service, when children annually participated in their fathers gatherings to participate in the next trade or military company.
     Local folklore has been absorbing these innovations for several centuries, reproducing a special ethical and moral basis of prudence and readiness for action, observation and determination, strictness of the concepts of honor and speech and the ability to make concessions, love for their land and willingness to travel, willingness to help, philosophical mentality, the ability to enjoy both their own and others success. The diversity of socio-cultural qualities became the basis for the creation of the kumyk ethnic group.
     The city, with the collapse of Khazaria, lost its centuries-old military and socio-cultural sponsor. Then the arabs and Rus came here for 50 years, but gradually the city was destroyed, its inhabitants left it. With the arrival of the Golden Horde, there was nothing left but the foundations of the fortress walls and small hills overgrown with bushes.
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