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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New Khorezm on the Atil river **
This was the name given to the city of Itil on the Atil river by the khorezm jews who fled here from the persecution of the jews in Khorezm in the 8th century.
Khorezm itself has had a strong jewish community since its foundation. According to jewish tradition, Khorezm itself was founded by the son of a jewish woman named Narseh.
Jewish merchants always sought to settle on the trade routes, and Khorezm stood on one of the largest at that time, the Great Silk Road. It was not without the participation of the jewish community in the 8th century that it became the center of Eurasian trade. Jewish houses in Europe and Asia were able to consolidate their capital, so that in Khorezm, too, all the main trade gradually fell into the hands of the jews.
Since the beginning of the 8th century, Khorezm has been shaken by successive coups. By supporting one or the other, the merchants of Khorezm tried to gain advantages in trade in the form of tax exemption, better places in the markets, and non-participation in military events. The khorezmians also protested against the ideas of so-called «enlightened judaism» that the khorezmian jews brought to all relations with the peoples and ethnic groups living in Khorezm at that time.
At the beginning of the 8th century, taking advantage of the weakening of power, the arabs captured Khorezm and began to islamize the territory, which led to the exclusion of many jewish homes from trade.
In 712, according to the jewish chronicles, in search of new opportunities for their capital, the khabras together with the judaized khazars moved to a small khazar town named Itil, which the Khagan or one of his princes visited a couple of times a year, where jewish merchants create their own merchant Union and redirect part of the Silk Road from the south of the Caspian sea to the north. The jews among themselves called their trading post in Itil The New Khorezm.
Jewish capital, multiplied by the unity of the jews, allowed the beginning of the 9th century to create a new power elite in Khazaria, headed by the King. Now the administration of the Khaganate was carried out by the Kings, and the power from the God Tengri was exercised by the Khagan.
Many researchers believe that the high level of organization of the Khazar Khaganate is due to the fact that the highest positions here were occupied by jewish emigrants from Khorezm, who introduced many innovations to the culture of Khazaria, which allowed this state to stay for several centuries in the raging waves of local sociocults.
By the middle of the 10th century, a significant part of the turkut merchants who professed islam at that time moved here to Itil. They were closer to the khazar people, basically of turkic origin, due to which the new merchants actively ousted the jews from their trading positions, supporting their conversations with a strong khazar hand.
Weakened by civil strife, Svyatoslav takes Itil in 965, overthrowing all the authorities that were there. The city is inhabited by russo-slavs and muslim sinbad sailors. Jewish communities moved to Kiev and further to Poland.
At the end of the 10th century, many khazars, which is simpler, returned to Itil, submitting to the new power of Rus. The city began to recover. But he was never able to achieve the former power that he had in the time of the New khazars.
At this time, authorities of the Khazaria asked for help from Khorezm in the fight against the guzs in exchange for the right of muslims to settle in Itil and set up their mosques there. Persian and Byzantine sources say that many cities on the Volga were essentially occupied by khorezmian paramilitary units, providing trade preferences to khorezmian merchants.
Muqaddasi, who lived at the end of the 10th century, noted that the city was no longer ruled by jews, but by Rus and Muslims.
At the beginning of the 11th century, due to the rise of water in the Caspian sea, the city began to gradually flood. New Khorezm, Itil, and all the other names of the Khazar Khagans went under the water, along with their castles and white fortress walls.
New Khorezm has turned into an Underwater Ghost that still cannot be identified with any of the ancient settlements that have emerged on the banks of the Volga in recent centuries, like ancient foot-and-mouth Disease, hungry for light, warmth and communication.
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