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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Semikarakors **
Also Semikarakor
The settlement associated with this khazar city is located on a small hill near the Salok river, a tributary of the Sala that flows into the Left-bank Don. It is now near the town of Semikarakrsk in the Rostov region.
Everything connected with this ancient city is surrounded by riddles, myths and secrets. This is both the name and the location, surrounded by seemingly shallow channels, but with high reeds, so you will get lost without knowing the ford.
The city originated in the twenties of the 8th century, when the khazars suffered several defeats in the war with the arabs, who wanted to intercept trade routes to Europe and in the Mesopotamian steppes. Since that time, the active migration of the population of the North Caucasus to the Don begins.
Through these places once passed the way branches of the Great Silk Road. Khazaria ensured the safety of these branches, charging a fee for this. The caravans from China were at the Don, where they could stay with Semikarakor or Sarkel.
Along the Semikarakor branch, caravans went from the upper reaches of the Manych along the Sala and further down the Don to the Azov. Then the caravans either crossed the Don, or the goods went by water along the Don to the sea of Azov.
The first fortress-like structures on the Semikarakor hill date back to the end of the 7th century, when the arab commander al-Rabiah first disturbed the turkic peas of the North Caucasus. This opinion is prompted by hillocks and mounds in the area of the fortress, which have not yet been excavated, but they are clearly of more ancient artificial origin.
Since the fortresses on the Don provided security for trade routes to Azov, Byzantium, which participated in the construction of fortresses on the Don, was also interested in this security. This can be seen in the technological techniques used in the construction of walls, the technique of making bricks, the methods of firing them, the arrangement of Fortresses and their Citadels.
Fortress Semikarakor showed himself to be a great fortification that once surrounded by water. The Fortress itself and the Citadel were rectangular, the area of the Fortress was 4 hectares, which was several times larger than Sarkel. All the walls were made of medium-sized mud bricks. For the khazars, this fortress was a unique fortification.
In the Citadel, all the houses were made of baked bricks, the roof was made from the same tiles, which indicates the presence of large khazar nobles, because only they had the right to live in houses made of baked bricks.
In the fortress, apparently, either the King or the Kagan stopped during his seasonal tour of the khazar possessions. There are traces of the khazar khagans headquarters on the Lower Don. A large artisan settlement is located behind the fortress.
In the center of the Citadel stood a tall observation tower. The walls were up to 2 meters thick and up to 5 meters high.
The fortress of the city stood, and now stands on a gentle hill. It is surrounded by waters of the rivers Sal and small rivers, streams and eriks: Susat, Salak.
The architectural culture of the Semikarakor fortress is very much synonymized with similar khazar fortresses in the North Caucasus, especially in Dagestan. Judging by the cultural remains, people of the saltov culture, the khazars, lived here. If you try to reconstruct this city, you will involuntarily get the feeling that it was transferred to the Lower don from Dagestan: the building traditions are absolutely the same.
A fortress with a Citadel and brick walls was very expensive. All about everything took more than two million bricks. Such expenses could only be incurred by the khazar nobility of the highest level. The layout of the fortress is similar to the Right-bank Sarkel, the only difference is that the walls are not made of stone, but of mud bricks.
According to local legend, seven Karakor brothers of the old faith lived here, who fled from the black places from persecution for their faith.
According to another local legend, there lived a certain Semyon Karakorov, also of an unusual faith, who also came from the black places of the unknown and he did many useful things.
The learned people derive the name of the city from the tatar word «kor», which means the camp or the Khan's rate. This means the rate of all khans.
Linguists see the word «semikarakor» as having three roots: «semiz», which means strong, «kara», which means black, perhaps the word was vocalized as «sar», which meant yellow, and among the karaite jews, whose community there seemed to be, the word «sar» means King, the word «kel or kala», means fortress.
All this is a turkic etymology, which together can mean a Strong Black Fortress, or for some, a Yellow fortress, because the sun could turn the walls yellow over time. As for the word black, maybe this term was supposed to scare off enemies. Although the word black could denote the ambiguity of the fortress in political intrigues.
Researcher, chronicler and historian M.Agha gave the etymology of the city's name based on the karaite vocabulary. Among the karaites, the word «sim» means very black. That is, the word «semikarakor» can mean Black Walls among the karaites. It remains only to find out whether the karaites lived here.
These places were strongly saturated with fortresses in khazar times. Fifteen kilometers away was another fortress on the Crimean hillfort. On the eastern side of the fortress, twenty kilometers away, there was another khazar fortress, this is where The Golden hills settlement is now.
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