Khazar Khaganate

The Khazar Khaganate was a Turkic steppe empire that controlled the lower Volga, the Don and the northern Caucasus, together with the eastern Crimea, from about 650 to 965. The Khazars emerged from the collapse of the Western Turkic Khaganate and built one of the great trading states of the early Middle Ages, standing astride the routes that linked China and Central Asia with Kievan Rus, Byzantium and the Islamic world. Their twin capitals, the earlier Balanjar and the later Atil on the Volga delta, drew merchants of many faiths, and the khaganate fought a long frontier war with the Arabs at Derbent, holding the Caucasus line for a century. Khazar rulers are famous for their conversion to Judaism in the eighth or ninth century, though the religion probably remained that of the elite rather than the whole population. The state was a dual monarchy, in which a sacred khagan reigned while a bek exercised real power, and its diplomacy balanced Byzantium against the caliphate and the Rus. In the 960s the Kievan prince Svyatoslav destroyed the Khazar capital and broke the khaganate, opening the steppe to new migrations.