Ukek

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Ukek ( Tatar : Ükäk [y'kæk]), or Ukaka , was the third largest city of the Golden Horde during the 13th and 14th centuries. The city was on the Volga, near today's Saratov . At the beginning of the 14th century the city was one of the economic and political centers of the Golden Horde before it was destroyed in 1395 by the Mongolian troops under Tamerlane (Timur Lenk). Some of the ruins of the palaces, mosques, apartments and shops are still preserved today.

geography

Empire of the Golden Horde around 1389

Ukek lay on the right bank of the Volga at the mouth of the Uwekowka River. The city was exactly in the middle between the capital of the Golden Horde Sarai and Bolgar , the former capital of the Volga Bulgarians . Ukek extended more than 3.3 kilometers in north-south direction and 1.4 kilometers in east-west direction. The city thus covered an area of ​​almost 205 hectares .

Today the ruins of the city are located about 10 km south of the Russian city of Saratov . A settlement called Uwek still exists today near the ruins. Another settlement near the field of ruins is the village of Neftjanoi.

history

Timur Monument in Tashkent

Several medieval chroniclers wrote about Ukek, so there is still enough information about the city today. Chroniclers who reported about Ukek included: Abu l-Fida , Ibn Battuta , Nizam ad-Din Shami, Sheref-ad-din Iezdi, probably also Wilhelm von Rubruk and Marco Polo . The latter mentions the city of Ukek in his travel reports and possibly also visited this city. The name of the city can also be found on several medieval maps, including from 1367 (Dominico & Francisco Pizzigani) and 1459 ( Fra Mauro ).

After the death of the Mongolian great khan Ögedei , Batu Khan , Khan of the Golden Horde , withdrew to the Volga Delta in the winter of 1242/43 after the campaigns against the Russian Grand Duke Juri II , the Hungarian King Béla IV and the Kyptschaks . The sub-tribes of the Golden Horde ruled the entire Volga - Don area between the Caspian Sea and Ukek, the former border town to the empire of the Volga Bulgarians .

The exact date of the city's founding cannot be determined from the sources known today, but it is assumed that the city was founded between the years 1240 and 1250. This would make Ukek one of the oldest cities in the Golden Horde.

The city is believed to have been destroyed in 1395. The official historian of Tamerlane describes how he plundered the region while pursuing his enemies and returned laden with loads. In later records, such as those of the English explorer Anthony Jenkinson from 1558, only ruins of a city with a stone fortress and tombstones are described.

literature

  • Christian Martin Joachim Frähn : About the former Mongolian city of Ukek in the south of Saratov and a recent find there, Saint Petersburg, printing house of the Imperial Academy, 1835
  • Leonard F. Nedashkovsky: Ukek: the Golden Horde city and its periphery, Oxford, 2004 ISBN 1-8417-1587-5
  • W. Barthold, Theodor Menzel, Hans Heinrich Schaeder : Lectures on the history of the Turks in Central Asia in Die Welt des Islams, Vol. 17, supplement to Volumes 14-17, 1935

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Saint Petersburg 2007: Brief report on the Volga cities ( Memento of the original from March 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.icold-spb2007.org
  2. ↑ a b Wikisource English: The Travels of Marco Polo (How The Two Brothers Went On Beyond Soldaia)
  3. ^ Archaeological Museum of Kazan State University
  4. ↑ University of Leeds: International Medieval Congress 2004 (PDF file; 432 kB)
  5. ↑ Caucaz Europe News: The Tatars of Saratov

Coordinates: 51 ° 25 ′ 15 ″  N , 45 ° 57 ′ 45 ″  E