Astrakhan Khanate

The Astrakhan Khanate was a Tatar state that emerged from the break-up of the Golden Horde in the fifteenth century. It lay around the lower Volga and the Volga delta, in what is now Astrakhan Oblast and parts of Kalmykia, with the Caspian Sea to the south, the Nogai Horde to the east and Nogai and Crimean influence to the west. Its capital was Xacitarxan, called Astrakhan in Russian chronicles, about twelve kilometres north of the modern city. The khanate is usually dated from 1466, when Mahmud bin Küchük established himself in the region, although it did not become fully separate from the Golden Horde until the Horde ended in 1502. Its khans claimed descent from Toqa Temür, a son of Jochi, and the state religion was Sunni Islam. The population consisted mainly of Astrakhan Tatars and Nogais, and merchants carried on a transit trade between Muscovy, Kazan, Crimea, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The khanate was briefly occupied by Crimea in 1523 and 1549. It submitted nominally to Moscow in 1551, but its ruler soon allied with Crimea and the Nogais. Russian armies took Astrakhan in 1556, ending the khanate, and in 1558 the town was moved to its present site.