Bakhshi Iman
DJAGFAR TARIHI
(THE ANNALS OF DJAGFAR)

Chapter 16. Reign of Khans Masgut, Ibragim, Baluk and Azgar (1004-1006, 1006-1025, 1025-1028, 1028-1061 AD respectively)

Masgut was raised to the throne, after which he immediately released Vasyl and approved Sal-Sal as the governor of the Kashan. The encouraged by it Ulugbek crushed the army of Bulymer and presented Ulubiy with a choice of the submission to the Bulgar, or to perish under the hoofs of the tulpars and the swords of the Bulgarian bakhadirs. Being on the verge of a full despair, Bulymer pleaded to Ibragim begging to immediately take the throne and stop the war, promising to triple the size of the Djir Tribute for it, abandon the claims for the Khazarian territories, and to open for the Bulgarian merchants all cities and roads of the Russ. Just at this time in the Bolgar flared disturbances led by Kul-Mohammed, the son of Nasyr. Hudja Ahmed, the young son of the sheikh Musa, directly addressed the Kan on the market square, on behalf of the participants of the disturbances, the nobles, with the demand to stop the war immediately and to lower the exactions. Masgut ordered to seize Hudja Ahmed and escort him out from the country by the Horys-yuly, but that only poured the oil in the flame. Masgut summoned the kursybai, but while it was drawing close, the people have already besieged him in the Bolgar citadel. Learning about these events, Ibragim immediately went, with the subashis, chirmyshes and the city militias, from the Bulyar to the capital. From the other side to the Bolgar from the Nur-Suvar went the kazanchis, desiring to get even with the murderer of the kind to them Timar. But Misha-Üsuf, the son of the 90 years old Kermek, expelled by Masgut from his own city, was ahead of them all. When he left to the capital and began to advance with his troops to the Baryndjar gate, Masgut did not wait and fled from the Bolgar to the Batysh. The kazanchis, who have came after that, wanted to drive into the citadel and to raise to the throne Tuktar, the grandson of Djakyn and the son of Abdallah, but Misha-Üsuf did not let them in, and handed over the Mumin-Kerman to Ibragim. He, the son of Mar Dju-Malik, the son of Bulat Hasan, and Sal-Sal, who came too, raised Ibragim to the throne of the State. And the tebir Masgut and the ulan Tuktar were distanced from him...

Bulymer immediately signed a peace with the Bulgar on the above-stated conditions, and Ibragim reduced the kursybai to one thousand persons, giving the rest allodials and privileges. He immediately returned Hudja Ahmed from the Russ,and when Hudja Ahmed went back, he took to educate and adopted his son Iskhak and was called Abu - Iskhak.

In our annals about the time of the Ibragim reign I gathered very little of the substance...

The Kan ruled according the laws of Almysh and Talib, therefore the State was calm and plentiful. What was occuring outside the State was of little interest for the Kan, and only once the delay with the payment of the " Djir" forced him to move a hand...

After the death of Bulymer, a war for the domination started in the Russ between his sons. Myshdauly, who was sitting in the Dima-Tarkhan, and was supported by the Rum, has won. Under his order the defeated Ar-Aslap had to treacherously kill one of the Bulymer's sons from Bozok-Khalib, and the servants of Myshdauly himself killed the other son of Bozok, Barys, as the main pretenders for the father’s throne... Myshdauly stopped paying the tribute for the Djir, which forced Ibragim to send the governor of the Mardan Gilas to the Kan. Gilas took the Kan on the run, and installed there one of the Khaddads, Kurdan, who was friendly to the State. Ar-Aslap, contrary to the Myshdauly orders, did not come to his aid, for what Ibragim helped him to cope with the strongest famine in the Balyn. Moreover: encouraging Ar-Aslap on the overthrow of the Myshdauly’s yoke, Ibragim sent him a Kan's hat, the copy of his. Only three such hats were made by the house of the master Atrak bine Musa. Shortly before his death Ibragim sent another cap, together with a copy of the "Notes" by Bakir, ornaments, and not a small sum of money for the construction of the mosques, to the Khurasan Sultan Mahmud. The Sultan was considered a descendant of the Prophet himself, and for the gifts the Kan hoped to receive from him a healing from the heavy disease. The gifts were brought by Hudja Ahmed, and he remained with the Sultan at his request. From the Khurasan he went to... Hudja Ahmed also sent medicines to Ibragim, but they did not reach him on time: the Kan died after several months of sufferings, and was buried in his castle Alamir-Sultan. And this castle Ibragim built right after the Bulymer’s wars. Then he was afraid of an attack by Timar and thought to hid in the strong and remote from the capital castle in case of a need. In addition to it under the order of Ibragim in the place of the menzel ("djam") at the mouth of the Ака or Sain-Idel, in the 1021 was built the balik Djunne-Kala which also was called Djun. And it was named so by one of Djun’s descendants, Djunne, who was himself erecting the city...

During the Ibragim time the calm in the State was kept by the sardars of the kursybai, Vasyl, the son of Sal-Sal Amir, and his son Mardan. Before his death Ibragim declared Ashraf, the son of Timar, his successor, because Ashraf was looking after him, as he had no sons. But when Ashraf was raised to the throne, Vasyl demanded Bulyar from him, for the support of his kursybai. Ashraf refused, and the offended Vasyl helped Azgar, the son of Masgut, to take the throne. Ashraf-Kan retired, without a fight, from the Bolgar to the Bulyar and for that he received a moniker Baluk. And Vasyl kept the province Kashan and in addition received also the Dyau-Shir district of the Baytüba, from the Akhtay to the mouth of the Dyau-Shir or Shepshe. Due to that, the Bek’s herd of horses reached a 300 thousand heads. And all these were the excellent Bashkortian horses which in the Russ were called "Modjarian" and were valued above the others...

In the 1028 AD Myshdauly, who grew insolent, conceived to restore the Khazarian Khaganate, ordered the Galidjians and the hired Sadimians to capture the Bolgar and then sail down the river, while he himself decided to capture the Khin and join them in the Bekhtash. Our fleet crushed the enemy, but Myshdauly, with the help of the Rums seized the Khin. This loss incensed the merchants, and when Baluk advanced in the same year to the Bolgar, they refused to defend it. The kazanchis also armed against the Kan, as they were dissatisfied with his taxes and amity with the kursybai. But suddenly the capital’s lowly raised in a mutiny for the protection of Azgar, and went with the weapons in hands onto the walls of the Bolgar. Mardan with his kursybai was also approaching the city. In such circumstances the Kan, reflecting about the vicissitudes of the life, decided to pass voluntary the Kan’s hat to Baluk. For this he elicited a post of the Suvar il’s Ulugbek...

Eventually, Ashraf did not dare to ride into the Bolgar, but in retaliation declared Bulyar the capital, and ordered to call it "Bolgar", and renamed Bolgar to "Ibragim". The Mardan’s kursybai was sent to the Khin and quickly kicked Myshdauly out from it. The people of this restless Balynian Bek got to the Djurash, and in the 1032 AD grabbed the power there with the help of the Myshdauly’s son Ustabiy. Baluk had to send the kursybai and our fleet there, and to install there the loyal to our State Emir Timer-Kabak. In addition in a skirmish by an accident arrow was killed Ustabiy, a generally harmless Bek who most of all loved the crafts and was building churches in the province of his father. But he was excessively obedient to the whimsical Myshdauly, and that ruined him...

When the kursybai has returned, instead of the award for the labors it learned that it is subject to the immediate dissolution. Mardan was deprived of his former possessions, and in place of the 4 thousand kusyrbays the Kan hired the Kyrgyzes. In fact, shortly before these events the Oimek horde of the Kyrgyzes captured the Türkistan, but then it split into the Türkistan part, or the Kara-Oimeks, and the Eastern, or the Ak-Oimek part. Between them started the wars, and one of the Kara-Oimek khans, Kuman, with a part of his people, asked for a refuge in the State. Baluk avidly accepted the fugitives into the service, and they already were with him in a campaign against the Bolgar. The Kan installed Kuman as their leader, and consequently we began to call these Kyrgyzes as Kumans, though we also called them in the Persian "Kypchaks", and in the Sabanian "Kyrgyz". Azgar out of compassion gave Mardan the district Kermek, disputable with the Bellak. Gilas at first was indignant, but when Mardan promised to provide 2 thousand soldiers from his district to the kursybai instead of the Bellakians, he reconciled and together with Azgar assigned the district to the Amirs. The Kan, seeing again Mardan in the kursybai, now already in position of the Bellakian envoy, did not find objections and gave in. A part of the subashes and the dismissed kusyrbays of Mardan, , fled to the Kermek abandoning everything, and did not regret it, because the Kan ordered to turn everybody remaining in the Kashan and Dyau-Shir into the kara-chirmyshes. Many of them opposed it and preferred to leave to the lands of the Martüba between the Arsu and Misha. Being in the state of the extreme embitternment, the subashis expelled from there almost all the Ars and occupied their lands. After the subashis the run away chirmyshes from everywhere began to flock there, and they were becoming there the subashis without any sanction. The governor of the Martüba at that time was Alay, the son of Üsuf, the former Ulugbek of the Bolgar and Nur-Suvar. In the 970 AD Üsuf founded the balik Djably-Kala which, however, began to be called Simbir by the people. Alay in 1028 founded a balik on the Sura-su which began to be called by his name, Alay-Tura… But after the Kan learned about the favoritism of Alay toward the fugitives, he transferred him to the post of Vali in the Tukhchi, and appointed Kuman in his place. In the place of Kuman and his Kyrgyzes, who left with him, Baluk hired a new run away horde of the Kara-Oimeks, led by the Khan Ishim. It is said that on the advice of Kuman, who was dreaming of getting out from the Saksin deserts at any cost, and consequently was tirelessly searching for a replacement for himself, Ishim sent to Baluk his daughter Minlebika with a purpose to get, with the help of her charms, a better service. Khanysh completely charmed Ashraf, and the mad with love Kan ordered to sign Ishim up for the post of the sardar of the kursybai, and his people in the place of the bakhadirs of Mardan and the Kyrgyzes of Kuman. All this happened in the 1035 AD, just before a new attack by Myshdauly on the Khin. Like in the first time, this Ulubiy ordered the 16 thousand Sadimians and Galidjians, led by the Sadumian Bek Khin-Kubar to capture the Bolgar and after that to join him in the Bekhtash. He himself was intending again to capture the Khin. It became known to Ishim, and he asked his daughter to help him. Minlebika herself came to her father from the capital, and sent to Myshdauly the following letter: ”I want to be yours, the glorious warrior, come with your near friends and catch me...” Not knowing any limits in his debauchery passed to him by his Jewish mother, Myshdauly immediately galloped with a huge army to the appointed place at the Shir. But, having approached and seeing the wife of the Kan only with three djuras, he left the army and raced to her with a hundred of his servants. Chained in an armor, he was confident in his safety in any circumstances. The Balynians did not know about those iron arrows and the big bows which began to be produced in the Bulgar. At the approach of the Balynian Ulubiy, Sabir, the brother of Mardan, who rode next to the Bika, shot such an arrow, and sent Myshdauly to hell. While the Balynians were coming to their senses from the shock, Minlebika with her entourage trotted away. With the death of this Balynian his house crushed at once. The !!Saksin again obtained its peace. But Khin-Kubar with his people disembarked from 400 ships near the Bolgar and began to ravage its suburbs. The Kan sent toward him the bakhadirs of Mardan from the Bulyar, the Kyrgyzes of Kuman, and the fleet headed by Kaf-Urus and the son of Tuka Kadyl. Prior to that the fleet was at the Kashan, besieged by the subashis, who were indignant with the Kan’s decrees and actions, but Baluk decided that the city Ibragim was more important...

Our cavalry fell upon the enemy simultaneously with the fleet. The Galidjians treacherously left the Sadimians and sailed down the Idel, and we stomped and shot the army of Khin-Kubar. Mardan wanted to spare the Sadumian leader for his bravery, but the Kermeks already hung Khin-Kubar, covered with wounds, on a tree. The Galidjians were captured by the Mardanians by the menzel Timer-Kabak in the mouth of the Samar-su which later began to be called Samar. After that, having received the news about the capture of the Bashtu by the ally of Myshdauly, the Kan sent Gilas with a part of the Bellakian Badjinaks to the capital of the Russ. On the way he was joined by group of the Kashan Badjinaks, who at first helped him besiege the Bashtu, but then enticed his Badjinaks to go with them with the stories about their carefree life. The ally of Myshdauly fled from the Bashtu, but the leader of the Kashans at night warned the city that all the Badjanaks are leaving, and at the daybreak quietly took all of them to the Kashan. The Balynians immediately attacked the empty camp of Gilas. The fooled Ulugbek with 150 Arbugans began to retreat to Kharka, but there was surrounded by the Anchians and surrendered, because of his unwillingness to shed the blood of the Anchians. Ar-Aslap was not slow to come to Bashtu and offered to Gilas his service... Gilas, considering himself dishonored, agreed to remain in the Russ and was appointed the Anchian head. Ar-Aslap aspired to a peace everywhere. With this purpose he made a number of concessions to the Anchians in the Bashtu province, and immediately concluded a peace with Baluk, with an obligation to diligently pay him the Djir Tribute. The needy for the capital Ashraf was satisfied with it and even did not demand an extradition of Gilas, who irritated him by his refusal to double the Mardanian tribute, but he exchanged the body of Khin-Kubar for the gold of equal weight. The new Bellakian Ulugbek Balus, the son of Gilas, was forced to accept the demands of the Kan, but bore a grudge for this humiliation...

Meanwhile the war of Kuman with the risen subashis, and the kara-chirmyshes and kurmyshes who joined them, continued. Being mindful of being removed from his post, Kuman was running the war seriously, but did not achieve any success, and in the 1050 AD he was replaced by Akhad, the son of Azgar. The new Ulugbek quickly reckoned that it is impossible to win the war with his own people, and concluded with the leaders of the Subashes an armistice agreement. According to the agreement the Moslem subashis remained in a former status on the newly acquired lands, and the others remained in the former categories. This split the insurgents, and Akhad subdued the kara-chirmyshes and kurmyshes, who were left without support. So ended this revolt, which received the name "Five Axes", for it was headed by the five leaders armed with axes. After that the Kan made an unprecedented lapse, he cancelled the rule according to which the ingichi who accepted Islam could transfer to the category of the subashes or ak-chirmyshes...

After the death of Ar-Aslap the new Urus Ulubiy refused to pay the Djir Tribute. Angry Baluk ordered Mardanians to punish the prick, and to make the impact stronger, attached the Saksin again to the Bellak. Balus decided that time has come for the Shir Türkmens to go to the war. But those suddenly rose and with a shout: ”Let the Badjanaks go to war and wash down the shame of the betrayal their relatives!” they besieged the Khin. Balus with the help of the Kuman’s Kyrgyzes and the Ishim’s kursybai beat off the rebels from the city, and they retreated to the Russ. Balus, pursuing them, broke to the Batavyl and besieged it. But the Vali of the city, Rahman Gilas, did not hand over the fortress to his son, for his grievance with the Kan was still strong... In the 1060 AD Balus replicated the campaign and defeated Syb-Bulat near the Buri-Aslap. Besieging this city in retaliation for the sheltering by its inhabitants f the run away Türkmens, the Mardanians and Kumans plundered all province between it and the Bashtu. The Bek of the Uruses had to restart the payment of the Djir Tribute, gave the ransome for himself and promised together with Bulgars expel the Türkmens from the limits of the Russ. But at that time Akhad suddenly besieged the Bulyar with the forces of the kazanchis, the Kumans of Azan, the son of Ishim-Khan, and Tamta's Bulgars... Azan barely managed to save from the carnage even his sister with her son Adam from the Kan...

The unwillingness of Baluk to recognize the igenchis of the Katan and Martüba as subashis repelled from the Kan a significant part of people. The kazanchis, sent to suppress the subashi disturbances in the Martüba and Kashan, after the initial fierce skirmishes with despaired ingichis preferred to accede with them about a division of the inflamed provinces. As a part of the deal, the Moslems agreed that kazanchis would enslave the igenchis- heathens, for those were much smaller minority.

The Kan did not recognize this conspiracy... and ordered the kursybai to transfer by force of Bulgars-subashes to the status of the ak-chirmyshes. And the ak-chirmyshes paid twice larger taxes and had heavier duties than the subashis, as I already wrote. The kursybai decided that it is already too much, and came into a conspiracy with the kazanchis, who resolved to overthrow the Kan and to replace with the aged Azgar. Akhad, mindful of the responsibility for the conspiracy of the kazanchis with the subashis, talked Balus, who came back from the vicinity of the Bashtu, into the plot. He achieved that by telling him that the Kan plans to conquer the Russ using the forces of the Mardanians. The Mardanians were not impressed by the perspective to cover with their bones the dirty roads of the Russ, and the Ulugbek opted to support the conspirators. Not to break the custom prohibiting Bulgars to shed the blood of Bulgars, they decided to send the Kumans of the Khan Asan against the Bulyar.

Before that, Asan was sent against the subashes, but he refused, for what the Kan’s groom beat him up wth a whip, and he was expelled from the service. The khan had nowhere to go, and he willingly agreed to assist the conspirators...

His units suddenly broke through to the Bulyar and besieged the capital. After the Kashan subashis pierced the wall of city in two places, the Kumans pushed through into it and killed the Kan and seid Nugman. Akhad, who was behind the Kumans, hastened to ride into the capital and to stop the bloodshed. It happened in the 1061 AD.

Chapter 17. War between Akhad and Adam and the reign of Adam (1118 - 1176) AD)

To the throne was raised Azgar, but soon he mysteriously died during a hunt near the Nur-Suvar. Akhad became the Kan, and he immediately ratified the arrangement between the kazanchis and the subashes of the Martüba and Kashan, and with that he calmed the country. After that he helped Asan to secure in the Shir area. The kursybai gladly took part in this campaign against local the Türks. Asan with the help of the Kan fought against the Rus for few years, but was defeated and enticed by the Rus to leave from the Bulgarian service.

In the 1076 AD the Kan had one more trouble, Emir Adam, the son of Baluk, escaped from the guards. The Khin Tarkhan Dugar sheltered the prince, married him to his daughter and, in exchange for a promise by the Emir to give him a bigger autonomy, agreed to help with winning the throne. Akhad too hasty declared the Ibragim city a capital, and Adam took Bulyar without any resistance and proclaimed himself the Kan. Bulyar became again the capital. Akhad recognized the new Kan and kept the Ibragim for himself...

As an excuse for the overthrow of Akhad was a refusal of the Rus to pay the Djir Tribute after the defeats of Asan, and the Kan’s acceptance of the refusal. Adam aimed to restore the tribute and the ways to the Artan and Bashtu.

In two years the Emir Akhad under his order made a campaign by the river Moskha, and defeated and killed the Galidjian Bek Khalib. Emir brought with him a big tribute collected near rivers Djuk, Moskha and in the Djir, and also brought many Djirian Biysuyans who wanted to return to the State. These Biysuyans were settled in the Chulman and included in the caste of the kara-chirmyshes.

The popularity of Akhad, nicknamed Moskha in honor of this victory, grew, and it frightened Adam. Casting on the Emir the fault for the death of Azgar, he, together with Dugar, went against the Bolgar. Akhad opted to flee to the Kan, where sat the grandson of Myshdauly, also Myshdauly. The Bashtu Bek Syb-Bulat who restarted paying the Djir Tribute and opened the roads after the Akhad’s campaign, wanted now to help the Emir to return the throne in exchange for the promise of ending the "rostovcschina" (“usury” in Russian - Translator’s Note). But the Emir Balus with the Mardanians, carrying out the order of the Kan, outpaced the Bek. In the beginning he defeated the son of Asan from the daughter of Baluk Sharafhan, who had captured the Khin from Dugar, and took that city. And then, supported by the kursybai, he crossed at night the river Sain-Idel and at the dawn attacked unexpectedly the camp of Syb-Bulat near the Kan. The head of the Urus army Ahmet had barely enough time to flee together with Akhad, and the panicked army raced to the Kan. Balus broke into city on the shoulders of the running, and took it. He wanted to spare Myshdauly, but when Myshdauly obediently came out to him with the words ”Allah akbar”, one Mukhshanian shot him in the back and killed him on the spot. This Mukhshanian was immediately chopped into bits and which were impaled on the stakes of the palisade.

Furious that he did not chance to save the Bek, Emir ordered all captured biys in the Kan to convert to Islam. The circumcision was done immediately, at the market square...

To annex the Kan to the State, in view of the love for freedom and multitude of the population, would be senseless, and Balus, having properly punished the participants of the resistance, and having taken their wives and children as hostages and into a captivity, returned to the Bandja.

The circumcised biys, not baring the sneers of the fellow tribesmen, left the Kan and founded upstream of it by the Sain river a new city Kisan... The Kisan soon have grown and subordinated the Kan...

Scared Syb-Bulat portrayed his actions as an attempt "to help" Adam to punish the Kanians, and deprived Amet of his village Amet by the Kara-Idel, on a road from the Djir to the Galidj. The demoted Amet was given a place in a wild province, a possessor of which was appointed Akhad Mosha, who transferred to the Batyshian service. The business-like Akhad immediately chose a place for his residence, and built there a fortress. In honor of him it began to be called " Moskha"... Here grew up his son, Emir Selim with a nickname Kolyn. The Kisanians made him their Bek. All this was not to the Adam’s liking, and he waited only for a chance to eradicate the Akhad’s nest in the Rus...

Adam was a real Kan, he did not tolerate any objections. Only the seid Yakub, son of Nugman, lived nicely with the Kan, because he knew how to please him.

Taking an advantage of the Adam’s horse falling, during his trip to the Bolgar, into a cave, which, it turned out, served as a school, the seid attracted the attention of the Kan to the miserable condition of the education in the State. I heard myself from my father that at that time many lost their conscience, and, for example, the inhabitants of the Tukhchi turned the main city mosque into a hayloft, and it was dubbed “Kiben”. This story of the seid gave creeps even to the usually cold-blooded Adam, and forced him to direct a significant part of his means for the rectification of the matter. For this money Yakub built five hundred new mosques and the main mosque of the capital. It had two minarets, and consequently people gave it the name of the two-headed Elbegen, Baradj. At the main mosque in 1080 the seid founded the ”House of Science” (university) "Mohammed-Bakiriya", which began to teach not only the Ilahiyat and the basics of the Arabian and Persian knowledge, but also the geography, ethics, the advanced arithmetics/linguistics, history. Yakub personally rewrote and completed the ”History of Bulgar”, called ”Kazyi kitaby”. My father knew it by heart and was repeatedly retelling it to me. It burned down in the Uchel together with all the library of my father, when the city fortress was burned by the order of the Bek Kantüryay.

All his life the father regretted the loss of the library, which was considered one of the largest in the State. It held the books of Bakir, dastan s of Michael and Gabdulla, and many others...

In the 1095 AD was the wedding of the son Shamgun of Adam from the daughter of Dugar, and the daughter of the Khan Ayübai. Ayübai was displeased with Dugar, who proclaimed himself a Kan of all the Kara-Saklanian Türks and Kumans, and therefore did not care to come, but Dugar-Kan joyfully set out with an army of 5 thousand daring swordsmen. And it should be said that in the world there were no people who loved the battering more than Kypchaks. At this time the Khan of the Kara-Oimeks Sham or Sam attacked the Bulyar. The Kan, not distinguished with a military talent, was confused at the arrival of the 100 thousand Oimeks in front of the walls of the capital. The Bulyar then did not have a third wall, and it could provide only 5 thousand militiamen. The situation was saved by Shamgun, who was the Ulugbek of the Bolgar. At the dawn, on Friday, he came to the capital with the Bolgarian kazanchis and from the run attacked the camp of the Oimeks. Many Kipchaks fled in a panic, but the Khan Sham managed to stop them and to lead into fight. The kazanchis had it rather tough, for though they highly surpassed Kypchaks in the armaments and the military art, there were too many nomads. At that time came Dugar-Kan and began to hinder the Oimeks with the attacks from the rear. When Sham was forced to deploy a part of his troops against the Kumans, followed a crushing blow from the third side, this time by the kursybai and Tamtais. The larger part of the Oimeks began to flee, but Sham in the head of the 20 thousand of the best troops remained in the place, surrounded with the arbas (wagons - Translator’s Note). The kursybai, which had the same medium arms, could not take it, and only the iron-clad kazanchis, with the help of the Bulyar infantry militiamen who came out from the city, managed to cut through the vehicles and a crowd of the sturdy Kypchaks, and to fatally wound the Khan. ”You, a boy, how dare you to defeat me, the great warrior?”, shouted dying Sham, choking with blood, to the approaching Shamgun. Customarily, Shamgun took the name of the famous enemy defeated by him. The running were killed all the way to Djaik...

And the Oimeks brought with them a few tribes with wives, children and belongings, telling them that the gained lands will be given to them. Men were wiped out by the raging warriors, and their wives, children and property fell prey to the Bulgars and Kumans. Especially many of women and children took the Tamtais, that’s why the language of the Bulgars of this province changed somewhat. And even in their customs and appearance emerged the Oymekian features of their Kypchak wives and the children adopted into the families.

A lot of goodies were also taken, for the Oimeks during the flight left in the space from the capital to the Djaik not less than 30 thousand of the wagons and yurts with the carpets, clothes, utensils and weapons. Among the rest, in the Khan’s arba was taken a surprisingly beautiful set of the vessels for the preparation of miraculous and fragrant mixes. The Kan took these vessels for himself, and they were called “sam-abar”...

Was made a magnificent wedding, after which Dugar went to the campaign against the Bashtu, and was killed there because of the betrayal by his Kumans, who colluded to switch to the side of Aübay, the son of Asan.

In the winter of the next, 1096 AD, chance came to Adam to expell the clan of Akhad from the Rus: there began a war of Alikay, the Bek of the Karadjar, with the other Urus Beks.

Securing the support of the Kan, he took the Kisan and went further. Kolyn fled to the Moskha, and the armies of Alikay and Shamgun closed in near the Kan. The Bek Kinzyaslap of the Kan, the son of the Bashtu Bek Bulymer with a nickname Altyn-Kalgan, tried to urge his people to resist, but those, as soon as they saw “chalmas” (turbans - Translator’s Note), i.e. the images of Baradj on the banners of the kursybai, chose to open the gate. Kinzyaslap came out from the palace with a sword, but, hearing the laughter of the iron chain mill clad kazanchis, surrendered to Shamgun. The Emir gave the Bek to Alikay with a condition that he would spare the life of the captured, who became blind in his youth from an illness. But Alikay ordered to execute him immediately. The unfortunate, who possessed a mighty power, broke off from the hands of the executioners, and threw himself into the Sain-Idel, but, not seeing anything, came back to the same bank, was seized again and ruthlessly killed... This strongly riled Shamgun...

Then they came to the Balyn, defended by the Emir Kolyn. The son of Akhad, who got caught in the trap, chose to surrender to Shamgun, who after the capture of the Kan-Sain was also called Sham-Sain. After that there was a dispute who should posess the city. As nobody would concede, the Emir ordered to conflagrate it. The Balyn burned down with the cries of Bonyak who was expecting the spoils. The upset Khan hired by Alikay, left the allies and went to his headquarters at the Audan Aktash.

Then the Djir, to which he promised a mercy, surrendered to Shamgun. However, contrary to the instructions of the Emir, Alikay as a last burlak (barge hauler - Translator’s Note), broke into the city and plundered it to a last thread. It overflowed the Shamgun’s cap of the patience, and he, under the intolerable for him screams of the tortured townspeople, left the Bek.

He had started to the Galidj, to burn it down in retaliation for the bandit raids of the Galidjians in the Biysu, but at the Amet he met with the son of Altyn-Kalgan Myshdauly and reconciled with him. Having received a promise to stringently pay the Djir Tribute to the State, and to forbid the Galidjian robberies, Shamgun went together with the Bek to the Djir, to end the ravaging of Alikay. The Karadjars, merely catching a sight of the imperial banner-chalmata, fled to the steppe in a panic...

The Emir returned to the Bulgar with a huge spoils, passing through the Chirmysh balik of the Mishar Bulgars in the Djunné-Kala at the Tukrantau in the estuary of the Sain, which was erected by the order of the Kan Ibragim by of the one of of the descendants of Barys. After that the Kan engaged in of the reinforcement of of the eastern border of the State, which continued to be harassed by of the Kara-Oimeks. Between of the Bulyar and the river Baradj-Chishma were built eight earthen ramparts with moats, watchtowers and abattises. They were populated by the Baytübans and impoverished Tamtaians, re-listed to the category of ak-chirmyshes and relieved from the taxes for the purpose of carrying the sentry service and repair work. The fortifications were beginning to be built also in the south of the Suvar province, for the Kumans of Aübay concluded a union with Rus against Bonyak and Sharafkhan began threatening the situation in the State. The staffs of the banners of his horde were capped with a half moon, which especially irked the Kan, for the half moon and the axe were the symbols of the Khans’s line for the Bulgars.

The Rus, encouraged by the union, stopped paying the "rostovschina", closed the roads, and the Kisanian Bek even dared to break into the Martüba and plunder the Misharian Ars...

Adam was all upset and sent Shamgun to rectify the matter. In the winter the Emir with the kursybai invaded the Kisan and defeated the local army with an active support of the injured Ars. When he came again the next year, the Kisan Bek sued for peace and paid him a huge tribute.

The Emir knew what to act against the Djir through the Deber is inconvenient. Therefore he ordered, right after the Kisanian invasion, to build for this purpose a new city at the Arsu river. In the 1103 the city has been built in the presence of the Emir, and named Uchel (“Three Cities”), as it consisted of the three parts. Two of them were on the mountain Bogyltau and were called Ügary Kerman and Kalgan, and the third one was located down the mountain near the lake Akbi-kül and consequently was called Akbikül. Kalgan was connected with Akbikül, but was separated from the Ügary Kerman by the Sain moat and by a part of the mountain without any buildings...

The name Ügary Kerman was because it was located on the highest point of the mountain that dropped abruptly to the Arsu. The separation came about because in the big haste Ügary Kerman could not be extended to the Sain moat, and the money difficulties that arose. This space began to be used as a place for the parking of the Muslim merchant caravans and as a market square. The Ars coming for the trade were placed in the Bish Balta, whose honey was considered the most tasty in the State, and the Uruses stayed behind the channel Bulak, which connected the Kaban lake with the Arsu.

The first viceroy of the city, Subash, with his kursybai, endured here for a few years, while the Three-Year War with Rus was going on. He collected a tribute from the Undj province, crushing a few of the Balynian detachments, and the next winter attacked with Shamgun the Balyn. The siege was raised only after Altyn-Kalgaн agreed to restart the payment of the Djir Tribute...

Subash left Uchel with a great pleasure, and there was appointed Selim, who attained the pronouncement of the Uchel as the capital of the Martüba. The Debers took it with a big pleasure, as they hoped to ease the abuses of the officials...

Kolyn quickly understood the futility of collecting the tribute, from the Ars and the living among them on the Mountain side Serbiyans, with a force of only 30 djuras and 200 ak-chirmyshes. Therefore he attained a transfer into ak-chirmyshes of two Seber tribes living among the Ars, the Kukdjaks and Batliks. They were excellent soldiers, as all Bashkorts: Esegs, Modjars, Sebers...

However, Kolyn also was the Ulugbek not for long here...

Initially Ayübai was breaking through to the Suvar il along the edges of the Mardan, and then started raiding the Bukhara road through the Saksin.The Khan Sharafhan, expelled by Ayübai from the Shir, on his own occupied the Khin. The roads to the Saksin and Khoresm became unsafe, which could not be tolerated. Subash barely secured the situation. Having lost a third of the kursybai, he succeded in saving the Hins from the demise, and transfered Türkmens to the Mardanian Burtas district, and the Badjanaks to the Badjanak district. A part of the Badjanak district, settled with Badjanaks, was, at the request of the resettlers, separated into a new district Kinel...

The inability of Balus to stop the Kumanian buccaneering made the Kan upset. He ordered Kolyn to take the post of the Mardanian Ulugbek, and Balus to take the post of the governor of the Uchel. It was an unheard of violation of the rights of the Bellak and the Mardanians obeyed only after Shamgun drew near this il with the armies of the kazanchis and Subash. In two years after that, the cunning and inventive Kolyn managed to lure Ayübai into a trap. He convinced the Kan of the necessity to arrange a marriage of the senior son Arbat of Shamgun on the daughter of Bonjak, who was subordinated to Ayübai, and to invite Ayübai to the wedding. ”Ayübai could not miss the wedding of his grandson and the daughter of his main supporter, Bonyak, for it would be a terrible insult to the customs of steppe”, explained Selim to the Kan. “Open one road through the urs (border fortifications) to the Bulyar, and close it behind the Khan. He will be trapped, and you could do to him, in the capital, anything you want”...

Kan followed the advice of Kolyn, surprised by his wisdom and perfidy. Ayübai was allowed to pass through the portals of the earthen ramparts, together with 11 thousand of his best soldiers, so that he noticed nothing. Behind him these passes in all eight earthen ramparts were immediately tightly closed. Once in the Bulyar, one thousand of Ayübai soldiers stayed in the Hinuba, which was then protected only by an earthen rampart and had not too many buildings. Another thousand was with the Khan in another part of the city, Men Bulyar, where the wedding was taking place. Ayübai did not want to celebrate in the citadel, Martuan or Bulüm Kerman, seeing in it a mousetrap. The wedding was feasted in the best caravanserai in the Menbulyar, the ”Dyau Shir” (“Great Shir”)... In front of the caravanserai was a huge market square. The Kumans stayed there, and into the ”Dyau Shir” with the Khan went five hundred soldiers. In a heat of the feast, when the visitors were drunk enough, the wife of Shamgun brought to her father a cup of sudja (“sweet water”, the traditional drink, usually with honey, known from the Herodotian times - Translator’s Note) with the poison. She did not know about it, and Ayübai, not reading anything disturbing in her joyful face, calmly drank it for the young, and in a few instants fell on the carpet.

It was also Kolyn who advised to serve the poison, and when the Kan started objecting, he said: ”If you do not give the Khan sudja to drink, he will give you blood to drink”. When the Khan fell, the Kan’s warriors immediately jumped on the visitors with bared swords and chirkeses. Only Bonyak, who became mute seeing all this, was pulled up by his underarms and taken to a safe place... The sister of Shamgun, who was married to one of the Ayübai’s sons, braced her husband in an embrace and smothered like a baby mouse. Arbat, with a huge club, one by one dispatched nine more sons of the Khan.

All Kumans in the caravanserai, Men Bulyar and Hinuba were killed. Simultaneously, the kazanchis also attacked the others, outside of city, in the aul Karak burglarized by the Kumans. They too were fairly drunk from the plentiful oblations, but instead of the expected gifts suddenly saw in front of them the death in the form of the bakhadirs. When the kazanchis of the Shamgun drove the Kumans, the kursybai entered into the action. The Kypchaks raced by the old road to the steppe, but in their way rose barricades of the earthen ramparts, moats, and abattises, protected by the Tamtaies and Baytübians pitiless to the bandits. There was a great slaughter of the stunned by the horror Kumans. The inhabitants of the neighboring auls came out from the houses and beat Kypchaks with what they had on hand. Of the nine thousand of the fleeing only one thousand, led by the eleventh son Manuk of the Khan, broke out to the steppe. The people joked about this occasion that they lacked the ninth rampart for the Kumans...
Manuk left to the Oimeks and continued to raid the State with them through the Tamta, sometimes crossing also the river Baradj-Chishma. But in the west the tribe of Ayübai was not there any more, and the roads to the Saksin, Bashtu and to the Dima-Tarkhan became secure. Kolyn finished the task, channeling the remains of the restless Kypchaks beyond the Djurash, into the Gurdjian province Khondjak. There lived the descendants of the Hons who have accepted the language and the faith of the neighboring Gurdjianian tribes. In memory of this battle, which received the name ” Ayübai Wedding”, Adam ordered to crown the staffs of the Bulgarian battle banners, alongside with the Baradj and the half moon, also with the sign of Alamir, V...

The Kan thanked the Emir by appointing as the Suvar Ulugbek his son Khisam Anbal, married to the Kafian Saklan girl, and therefore he received the nickname As. Anbal was immediately entangled by the kazanchis, whose clans grew and could not any more be sufficed with the ancestral lands. They were thirsty to receive the igenchis of the other provinces to gorge on them, and for this purpose they wanted to install the obedient to them Emir as a Kan. Such was Anbal, for whom, during the unfavorable times for his family, the main thing became the aspiration for a life of a continuous pleasure. He, like the Kan Mohammed Mumin, hated the state affairs and was ready to carry out any whim of his favorites, the kazanchis.

When the kazanchis told Kolyn about their desire to make his son their Kan, the Emir did not oppose and decided to become the leader of the plot to secure the position of his house. He conspired with the Mardanians that he would leave them alone, and will also respect their rights, with a condition of their support of the plot. Balus who was toiling in the Uchel, which after the huge Bandja seemed to him a miserable aul, eagerly joined the plot in hope to return to the Mardan.

Chapter 18. Bulgars in reign of Kolyn and Anbalа (1118-1163)

In the 1118 AD Adam unexpectedly died, and Shamgun became the Kan. Before the death of Adam, the subashis and small owners, impoverished by the Oymekian and Kumanian raids, were asking about a tax relief. Right after the death of Adam, the Baytübians began throwing out the bilemchi officials, and in the Bulyar itself flared up a revolt against the city magistrate. The magistrate in the capital and in other big cities was called “Suvar Yorty”, for the people called merchants and masters (ostalar), i.e. the, owners, the “suvari”. The protesters beat several of his suvarbashis and bilemchis. In spite of the warning by Yakub, Shamgun decided to suppress the discontent with force, and summoned the kursybai. Subash refused to play the role of the executioner, and then the irritated Kan dismissed the kursybai and ordered Subash to come with a repentance. Subash hid in the Mardan, which was not extraditing the fugitives. Then Shamgun summoned the Bulgarian and Suvarian kazanchis, and those gladly suppressed the revolt. And they boasted to also do the same in the Mardan. Out of a hatred to the Mardanians they called them, and the Bandja, and the whole Mardan-Bellak as “Burtas”. It irked the Mardanians, and in retaliation they began to call “Suvar” the tiniest city of the province, Razi-Suba...

After all this the Kan, not feeling secure in the Bulyar, moved the capital to the Bolgar...

In the 1120 AD Kolyn, conspiring with the Balyn Bek Djurgi, decided to overthrow with his hands Shamgun, who lost the love of the people. Under his order Balus let pass the fleet of the Balyns through the Martüba, and Djurgi suddenly besieged the Bolgar.

Nobody supported the Kan, and he had at hand near him only the remaining 50 djuras. He tried to prevent the disembarking of the Uruses even with them, but, however, lost half of his people and was forced to retreat to the “Mumin”. Bulyarians and Mardanians did not send any help, and the kazanchis coolly waited out for the capture of the citadel by the Uruses. Djurgi, however, was slow, because he lost 1250 troops, in the fight with the djuras and with the plundered by the Uruses inhabitants of the Bolgar baliks. Then Shamgun, who by his character was simple and not arrogant, though quick-tempered as his father, declared to people his decision for tax relief. The lay townspeople immediately collected a militia and took positions on the walls, and those not injured by the punishment Bulyarians quickly sent a company to the Bolgar. This forced Kolyn to come to the citadel and declare to Shamgun: “Kan! You see, that is happening! Give me, with my loyalty to you, the Bolgar, and you yourself go to reign in the Bulyar!”

Understanding, that joint kazanchis with the Uruses will be disastrous for him, Shamgun followed the advice of the sympathetic Selim, and left to the Bulyar. So Bulyar again became the capital. And Kolyn, to prevent the Kan from suspecting him, attacked the camp of Djurgi with the Suvars and the fleet, with a pretext of punishing him for the sluggishness and cowardice. Seven out of eight thousand Uruses were slashed, stomped and drowned by the kazanchis and salchis. Djurgi had barely time to flee with the last thousand, and never more in his life thought of a campaign against the State.

His father Altyn-Kalgan wanted to execute Djurgi for the loss of the army, but, learning about he captured 25 djura's armors, said: “Let it pass! The armors are excellent, and if the Bulgars were selling them to us, I would give them in exchange and even more of these lousy mujiks!” Nevertheless, my father saw once at the Balynian Bek the Urus book, in which it was written about a victory of Djurgi in this Kolyn war. When he told the Bek that it was untrue, and told him how it was as witnessed by Yakub, the Bek burst out laughing and noted: “We have different concepts of the victory. For us is important, that Djurgi defeated Shamgun and hauled off valuable for us spoils, and how many people the Kan had, and how many mujiks we lost in fight is not important for us”.

And my father, and I, when we were in the Rus, did not stop being astonished of the contempt and indifference with which the Urus Beks took their people. And we also noticed, that the Balynian books did not write about the events in the neighboring, Urus Beilyks, unless only it was a concern for them...

And the Uruses are very diverse people, and they are strongly subject to pursuits, bad and good. So any one writing about this people on a short acquaintance can write about them as very bad and very good, but thus both this and that will be truthful.

Generally to know them well, one has to live for a long time among them... Their nobleness to you can run along with treachery and inhumanity to others. The insults from the stronger neighbors made the Uruses inclined to inconstancy, insidiousness and a deceit.

And the Bek Kushtandin told my father that disaster of his people was the drunkenness, and that some people are inclined to blame for the spread of it the “nasraniyat”. But their false doctrine has nothing to do with it. Actually it comes from the old heathen custom. Once the Ulchians were most kind people, unable to spill anybody’s blood, even of the criminal. But then they experienced terrible attacks of the enemies, and they had to fight. Their Kakhins (volkhves) ( Slavic term for pre-Christian clergy, spiritual leader, magic and medicine men - Translator’s Note), who were called boyars by the Hons, began giving the soldiers inebriates before the fight for bravery. Drinks also were given to the people after the fights, so that they could live through those awful losses which they had. So people got used to the drunkenness, and then this heathen custom also corrupted many of their clerics, the priests. Such papazes should be executed, but it was not possible, as they were an only force resisting to the even more wild heathen customs. Besides, the priests were also drinking to earn the love of their drinking flock. Also it comes out that sometimes papazes drink more than parishioners. So, I saw in Balyn a drunk priest who choked to death with a soup, which he drank directly from the kettle after blessings the fishermen for the fishing...

And when the Urus drinks, he becomes either very kind, or very spiteful and bloodthirsty. And a kind can become malicious, and a malicious become kind. This, by the way, is also used by our merchants when they want to buy something from the Urus dealer cheaper, and more often they win...

It is said that Djurgi, returning from the campaign, heavily drank and, coming into a fury, ordered to execute immediately the aged Akhad. And he compelled the Kisan Bek Ar-Aslap, one third of whose army was killed at the Bolgar, for the murder. Then, after the death of Altyn-Kalgan, who was afraid to irritate the Kan and who brought his apology to Shamgun for the unauthorized raid of his son, Ar-Aslap, also provoked by Djurgi, closed the Khorysdan road. The son of Ar-Aslap from a Kaubuy girl, Ryshtauly, objected to this and was thrown by his father into a dungeon. From the incarceration he was helped to flee by a Kaubuy servant. Ryshtauly came to Kolyn, was received fondly by the Emir and in the winter sent home with the kursybai of the Subash son, Khalik Kandjalyi, who transferred to the service of Selim.

Mukhshanians, who disliked Ar-Aslap for his servility to the Balyn, opened the gate of the Kisan, and the kursybai rode into city in a full order and without looting which usually accompany a war. The young Ryshtauly immediately sat on the father’s throne, and Ar-Aslap plunged into his own dungeon, where he soon died from affliction.

Pleased with a peaceful mood of Kandjalyi, the Kisans immediately freed the seized earlier Bulgarian merchants, and paid a huge tribute, an excellent squirrel pelt from a household. Though, the pleasure of the victory was clouded by the grief of the new Bek. He learned, that his heartless father, in retaliation for his flight, told his mother that Ryshtauly drowned in a river. The mother of the Bek died from the grief, and Ryshtauly vainly called for her at her tomb. The grief of the Bek had such a sorrow form that even the grievous Kandjalyi began to cry as a child.

Ryshtauly became a faithful ally of the State, despite of the temptations, instigations and threats coming from the neighboring Urus Beilyks. He was the first Urus Bek to whom, out of respect for him, the State gave a title of Emir, that is the Great Bek. With that, he was equated with the Great Beks of the Bashtu...

In the beginning he was quite annoyed by his brothers from other wives of his father. They fled to the Kumans of Bonyak, and warred with him against Ryshtauly, until in two years Kandjalyi came again, and squashed them all in the fortification Boryn. Only one of the Ar-Aslap’s offsprings could to flee and secure himself in the Kan-Mukhsh with the help of the Balyns. The other five were laid on the spot, as they attempted to resist, and were fouled by the murder of the merchants.

Kandjalyi caught up with the fleeing Bonyak in the field called “Khelek”. The unlucky Khan tried to fight off in the fortification made of the wagons on the bank of the Shir, but was caught and tied down...

Kandjalyi gave Bonyak to Ryshtauly, and Ryshtauly gave him to the Ulubiy of the Bashtu as a present. It is said that he was forced to accept the false faith of the nasrans and died in a monastery.

Kandjalyi received for this victory a nickname Boryn. The Khorysdan road has opened, which calmed the merchants...

Instead of Kolyn, the Mardanians elected the son Hajdar of Balus as the Ulugbek. When Balus expressed in this connection his complains to the Bellakians, they answered: “You forced us to be at war too much, and Hajdar is peaceloving. Besides Hajdar is your son, and you should be pleased by his advance”. The complaint of Balus also rejected Selim, with the words: “I can’t fail to consider the decree of the Kan and the will of the Mardanians, otherwise I will look like a criminal”.

Emir Kolyn-Selim was one of the wisest men of the the State, he put its interests higher than his own, but with that he also knew his price. He could easily overthrow the Kan, but he saw the danger of the kazanchi’s domination which was restrained only by his silent alliance with Shamgun...
In the 1135 AD, when the Kan went to the Baradj to repel the daring attack of the Kara-Oimeks of the Khan Manuk, the state was dignified with a visit of the mullah Abu-Hamid from the Garnatian kingdom. Unfortunately, my grandfather Arbat Os-Ladj, who was earlier the Ulugbek of the Bulyar, and after the Kolyn War was transferred to the post of the governor in the Saksin, which was separated then from the Bellak, showed indifference to the matters of the faith, and consequently did not render to Abu-Hamid an appropriate honor. More welcoming turn out to be the other son of Shamgun, Emir Otyak Ulug Mohammed Djangi, who substituted for my father during his absence in Bulyar...

The mullah, as is customary with the great preachers, refused to enter the palace of the Kan, and then the Emir honored him with a pleasant conversation in the Altyn-munch. Seid Yakub met the mullah with even greater courtesy. At his request, the descendant of Atrak ibn Musa, the owner of the big trade and craft house Abu Bekr ibn Ahmed, gave the mullah one of his houses for a residence.

In the conversation with the seid, the mullah admitted that what he had seen in the state surpasses anything that he have heard about it before. The son Idris of mullah remained in the Bulyar to study in the house of sciences “Mohammed-Bakiriya”, and the mullah, after making his acquaintance with the country, went by the Horys-yuly to the Rum on a business. On the way he visited the Kaubuy Beylik, where Yakub was successfully spreading the light of the true faith, and prayed in the mosque of the Kaubuyian capital Kyr-Kuba near the Batavyl. The mosque was called by the Kaubuys “Baryn”, in honor of the Alp of the Buri victories. Yakub had to take it so to repel the Kaubuys from the faith...

That campaign of Shamgun was the last for the Kan. His Baytübian militia was surrounded by the Oimeks of Manuk and only the arriving in time, under the order of Kolyn, kursybai Kandjalyi could overrun them. When Oimeks started to flee, the Kan angrily told to Khalik: “Why you did you disobey my decree and did not dismiss the corps?” And the kursybai was saved due to the means of Selim, The cautious Emir decided to ignore the will of the Khan, for the the state could not do without the kursybai.

From the difficult situation the sardar was saved by a poisoned Oimek’s arrow, shot by a fleeing Kypchak. It slightly scratched the face of the Kan which was open for the conversation, but the poison killed Shamgun soon.

Kandjalyi in a fury sent his arrow, which went through the head of Manuk, and then caught up and without any mercy exterminated all army of the Khan...

The underpinning of the Kolyn’s influence fell, and he did not dare to counteract the kazanchis who have raised Anbal to the throne. However soon he came to the Bulyar together with the Kandjalyi’s kursybai and offered the kazanchis to conclude an agreement with him in the presence of the Kan. And to ensure that ulans did not evade the negotiations and did not undertake any rash actions, he warned, that he gave Kandjalyi and Haidar an order to storm the capital in case of the failure of the meeting. Then Selim nonchalantly went alone to Suvar Yorty, right into the epicenter of the kazanchi’s gang, and declared there: “A good politician is a good merchant. So let's negotiate”.

It is said that in the Magistrate the shouts were flying higher than in the market. Not once the ulans moved against Kolyn with naked arms, but eventually they were forced to a deal with him.

The contract was the following: the kazanchis were exempted from the compulsory military service and from the tax from estates; the territories of the subashes’ provinces in the Northern Djebelstan, on the right bank of the Kara-Idel of the Martüba, Suvar and Bulgar ils were reduced in half in favor of the kazanchis, and all the lands on the river Alat in the Martüba district of Kukdjak also were transferred to the ulans; the means of the Kan’s court increased tenfold from the state treasury, and could grow only in a case of the income exceeding the level of the income in the 1135; Selim received the post of the Bolgar Ulugbek for life, the right to control the government officials and the treasury, the Suvar Yorty in the Bolgar, Nur-Suvar and Saksin, the foreign policy, Kashan, Saksin, Ur and Biysu provinces of the state; Mardan - Bellak kept its rights...

After the negotiations Kolyn went to the Bolgar, conceding what he yielded to the devouring kazanchis. The kursybai was permanently stationed in the areas handed to the ulans, so that they did not annihilate all subashes and each other during the reshuffle...

The Kan, having delegated the affairs to several of his favorites, engaged in the hunting, feasts, burdensome for the population trips in the Inner Bulgarian ils of the Baytüba, Tamta, Martüba, Suvar and Kashan, during which the events rarely went without robberies and murders of the subashes, without dishonoring the wives and daughters of the kara-chirmyshes and ak-chirmyshes. The seid Yakub, who contrived to contend in writing and orally with the Kan, was had his tongue cut and eyes gouged, and died soon. It is said that in his last days he, deprived of everything, earned a livelihood by playing a dombra at the market. And his house of sciences was transformed into a den where the Kan surrounded by the ulans and their mistresses drank quite often. A favorite entertainment for Ambal and his clique was a corruption of the chaste shakirds by forced drinking and forcing on them wanton women who were made to sit half-naked on the laps of the unfortunate pupils.

The grandson Kul-Daud of Yakub, who came back from the hadj (during which he fell into slavery and was ransomed by the Khondjakians in the province Tatyak for a silver jug), was so terrified with this situation that he organized a brotherhood of Sufis and dervishes at the mosque “El-Khum” in the Nur-Suvar and said to the brothers: “Allah deprived the Bulgars of his favor for the widespread of the faithlessness infection. Include in a circle of our brotherhood “El-Khum” the new members, and pray and devoutly have faith for two, three, five, ten of the common believers. When the force of our faith will be equal or surpass that which would be in case of all faithless in our State accepting the Islam, then the Merciful Creator will save us”.

Anyone entering the brotherhood endowed all his property, and lived on the received from the “El-Khum” means not richer than a kurmysh, and called for denouncing of the luxury, war, all kinds of oppression and slavery, hypocrisy and deceit. In the Bulyar the brothers, led by al-Garnati Idris, the son of Abu-Hamid, settled in a part of the Hinuba. Among the brothers were many subashes and ak-chirmyshes, who gave up all of their property under a threat of its capture by the kazanchis...

In 1153 the ulans, hating the brotherhood, seized Idris and martyred him. After that the brothers moved to external balik of the Saklan city, and there called their uram Tatyak, and in the capital the palaces of the kazanchis began one by one to go up in flames... No new trouncings of the dervish khanak could stop the arsons. When the raging kazanchis surrounded the mosque “El-Khum” in the Nur-Suvar, the Suvar Yorty went to protect the brotherhood, setting up a militia for the protection of the khanak. The cousin of the Kul-Daud father a Suleiman, who was the son of the Saksinian seid Daud, and himself the seid in the Nur-Suvar and Bulyar, called for Kolym to intervene immediately, and the Emir did not miss a chance to wound the kazanchis. He encircled the Nur-Suvar with the Bulgarian militia and the kursybai of Kurnay, the son of Kandjalyi, and also with Arbugians, who do not have any concept of a fear or a pity in the war, and declared: “Our state emerged and prospered by the will of Allah. Now some kyafirs are going to exterminate all the truest of the devout, to deprive her of the favor of the Creator. It can not be tolerated, and at the first new murder of a dervish I will trample the guilty into a dust”.

The kazanchis, clenching their teeth, retreated, though in the secluded places, given an opportunity, they secretly continued to revenge with the brothers.

In that year Abu-Hamid al-Garnati again came to the Bulyar, and met with an open hostility of the Kan and his spongers. Abu Bekr was not any more in the capital, he moved to the Bolgar because he was afraid of the pillages by the kazanchis,. Suleiman could barely find for him a pity dervish shed in the Tatyak where a corpse of his son was brought to him. We expected sad cries and moanings, but the mullah only said: “He left this world by the will of Allah in the name of the best”, and began to pray eagerly. Abu-Hamid arrived by the Horys-yuly through the Bandja, which the Arabs were calling by the name of the local sacred creek Nut, and was immensely surprised with the changes in the State. His friend Emir Otyak was hiding from the kazanchis under a wing of Kolyn in the position of the Saksin Ulugbek, and the Moslems were sighing and secretly complaining to the Creator about their misfortunes...

However the external affairs, thanks to Salim, were good. The destruction of Manuk forced the Kara-Oimeks to be quiet, and, after negotiations with the envoy Kurnay of Kolyn they agreed to submit to the State and to form a Tubdjak province subject to the State. Only one Oimekian Khan Bashkort decided to remain independent and, with the help of Otyak, peacefully passed with the Oimeks through the !!Saksin to the Kumanian steppes. The Bukharian or the Khorasan road became quiet again...

The Balynian Bek of Djurgi tried to implant in the Kisan his viceroys, but it was repulsed every time.

In the 1140 AD just an appearance of Kurnay was enough for the Balynian armies to flee from the Kisan...

In 1150 the son of Djurgi Khan-Türyay dared to refuse paying the Djir Tribute. Simultaneously the Galidjians began to disturb the districts of the Biysu province with their raids: Nukrat... and even the vicinities of the slammer Tuymas-Artan on the river Biysu, where from the Chulman Sea came the Sadumian ships and for the trade gathered the hunters, fishermen and shepherds of the Tunay (North) tribes, the Tunians...

And the Tuymas-Artan established the Bulgarian merchant Tuymas,who was trading with Artan, at the time when Ugyr Bashtu closed the Artanian road through the Galidj. The guarding of the slammer was by slammer Shudian clan Kuyan, famous for the trade of the excellent hare pelts.

And Yakub wrote that during the Mar’s time these pelts served as money and were called “barmal”, i.e. how the Shuds called the Bulgar. And the first coins, minted with the Michael insisting during the Bat-Ugyr Shamsi-Malik time, were called “barmals” too...

Disturbed with the behavior of the Ulchians, Kolyn summoned Kurnay and told him: “I helped you and your people during a hard time for the sake of the well-being of the State. Now came the time for you to pay off and to make a big campaign against Tunay”...

They set out together in the winter of the 1150, heading the kursybai and ak-chirmyshes to the Tunay, where they established a new center for the Biysu, the city of Kolyn near the balik Nukrat on the Nukrat-su, crushed some slammers of the Galidjians on the river Tun, and in the end besieged the Ar-Aslan and left it, after receiving a squirrel pelt from each household.

After that Khan-Türyay invaded the Kara-Mukhsha and captured the Kisan, but escaping from him Ryshtauly, together with the arriving just in time Mardanians of the son Haidar of the Bek Baychura quickly righted the situation...

It is said that at a dawn Ryshtauly came again to the Kisan with a small group, and after a short exchange of fire run to retreat. The Khan-Türyay was celebrating the victory all night long, and could not get up from the bed, and sent his commanders in pursuit. Those got in an ambush of Baychura, and were mercilessly wiped out by the Arbugians.

A few of survivors rushed back to the city with awful cryes and brought in a confusion. Khan-Türyay, learning about the death of the commanders, barely had the time to ride back from the Kisan to the Balyn, half naked in one boot. The rest of his troops also rushed to follow. Baychura reinstated Bek Ryshtauly in the city, and then also kicked out the Balyns from the Kan. The Bek did not plunder, but took from the Kan a squirrel pelt from each household. In two years Balynians again took the Kisan from Ryshtauly and robbed the Bulgarian merchants. In response Kurnay and Baychura in the winter burnt the provinces of the Kisan, Kan and Bulymer.

In the same year died Emir Kolyn, and the State for ten years plunged into a gloom of the kazanchis’ despoilings. The kursybai was disbanded. The kazanchis, as hungry wolves, broke in into the subashi areas and began to press ingichis into the wilderness. The ulans settled the seized lands with the Serbiyans and Ars, who they captured in open raids on the treasury lands.

The Martüba Ulugbek Os-Ladj did not interfere, afraid for his life. Seid Suleiman, in horror from the happenings, fled to the Emir Otyak to the Saksin, but soon he too had to seek safety in a flight to his father-in-law Bashkort. Kul-Daud, installed as a seid of the Bulyar by the demand of the suvarchis, barely held the pushy kazanchis from the pillaging the suvarchis’ homes. Everywhere the tax collectors committed unruly roguery collecting taxes increased in two-three times. When the representatives of the Kan came to the Bandja with the message that the tribute from the Mardan is increased twofold, Baychura exclaimed: “No overseas enemy oppress us more, than our own Kan!” Though the Bek paid the tribute, these words of his were not forgotten...

In the 1117 the son Sarychin of the Khan Sharafhan flew to Saksin. Not trusting anybody from his own, the Kan appointed the Sarychin,s son As to the vacated post of the Saksin Tarkhan. And here and in the provinces Biysu, Mardan-Bellak, Ur, Tubdjak the governors were called Tarkhans, and in other ils they were called Ulugbeks (or, sometimes, Ulubiys). As the Saksinians looked upon the new Tarkhan as at the pillager, most of the time he stayed in the aul Bekhtash, where began the road from the Idel to the Shir. Later, nevertheless, the inhabitants of the Saksinian Suvar had pity on him, and he transferred his court to this city...

Offended by Bashkort, the Khan was afraid of attempts from the side of the Oimeks and consequently called from the Gurgjans his brother Atrak who was serving there. Atrak, however, not for long suffered in the service to the State, and fled under the wing of Bashkort.
During this sad time only Arbat kept his calmness, for he was guided by the words which said seid Bakir to the Bulyar rebels and had them confused: “Charge Allah with your life and fate!” [...]

Deciding to build up the Ügarykerman wasteland, he prepared stones and asked the son Aslan of Kuchak-Kachkyn to erect some beautiful buildings. Aslan with the pupils erected the palace of the Bek, amazingly decorated with stone leopards, lions and other images, and the big portal for the Ulugbek Court, however an attack by Otyak stopped the construction. Envying the craftsmen, the Balynian Biy for the huge money hired Aslan and his assistants, and they erected for him precisely the same buildings. And a part of the stones which became not needed, tracked to Balyn and built a few churches from them...

Otyak, exhausted by the inconveniences of the wild steppe life, left his father-in-law and moved to the Bashtu, where in the 1159 his wife gave birth to his son Gabdulla... He was a small copy of the grandfather Khan, and Bashkort adored him and frequently visited his son-in-law in the Bashtu to see his grandson. The Uruses not only did not interfere with this, but were even pleased, as at that time there was a peace between them and the Kypchaks of the Saklan, headed by Bashkort.

Having lived for some time in the Bashtu, Otyak moved to the Balyn, to the Khan-Türyay, who promised to help him to take the father’s throne...

Meanwhile Anbal did everything to lose the throne. The plunders of the kazanchis and officials, impacting everybody, except for them, caused a popular hatred of the Kan... The ak-chirmyshes of Kukdjak and the subashis of Arsu united with the Ars and began to repulse the brutes. Simultaneously the former kursybays of Kermek and now the subashis, finished off the tax collectors. In the Kermek auls the bilemchis tried their abuses as they did in the auls of the other provinces, but the severe bakhadirs who were not used to the abuses, mangled then on the spot. Baychura immediately declared, that he will stand united with Kurnay, and the scared Kan decided to overcome him by entrapment. But in the beginning he sent the son of Sarychin to the Martüba. Well knowing the situation, Arbat invited the Tarkhan, and suggested to him to go round the auls of the subashes and ak-chirmyshes. As-Tarkhan did that, using the kara-chirmyshes. He sold some captured Ars to the kazanchis, and the others tied to the bulls and, flogging them with knouts, drove to Bulyar...

After that the Kan wooed the daughter Samar-bi of Baychura and invited him to the wedding. The unfortunate Tarkhan could not refuse to come to the wedding of his own daughter and arrived in the Bulyar. Right at the entrance to the capital he was chopped up into pieces by the kazanchis. Samar, learning about it, fled to the Bandja and there she was proclaimed the Ulugbika...
Finally the power of Anbal was sapped by the death of Kul-Daud. The court of the restless seid in the Tatyak with the beginning of the troubles, under an order of the Kan, was surrounded by the kazanchis who did not allow the allegationsof the mullah to leave the Saklan balik. Then Kul-Daud refused to accept food until the abuses end, and died of starvation. It was in 1163. On his tombstone per his will was written: “In the court of the Allmighty will be judged my father and mother and I, who died for the faith”.

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And during the reign of Khisam the stone construction gradually stopped, and in the stone quarries accumulated plenty of the slabs. Kul-Daud ordered “El-Khum” to buy them and put on the tombs of the devout Moslems with a corresponding inscriptions, so that Allmighty could distinguish the righteous from the infidels...
As soon as the message about the death of the seid reached the Bulyar, people went on the streets and with were dispersed with an extraordinary cruelty...

Chapter 19. Reign of Otyak (1164 - 1178)

At this time Otyak and Khan-Türyay invaded the State along the Kara-Idel with a horde of the Balynians, Kanians and Kisanians on. In the beginning they besieged Uchel. At night Arbat, who loved the game of shatrandj, saw in a dream that he lost to Otyak. Taking it for a bad omen, in the morning the Ulugbek handed over the city to his brother. Otyak wanted to spare Uchel, but the malicious Balynian, threatening to break their union, insisted on burning the fortifications of the Ügary Kerman and Kalgan on the Bogyltau. The inhabitants were moved to the balik Abikül surrounded only by the palings and consequently not able to serve as a fortress.

The daughter of Khisam Bajgjul-bi was also captured with Arbat and his family. When the wife of Anbal, the Saklanian Uslan-bi, not able to stand - the philandering of the husband, left to the Mountain side, and also the daughter, for the same reason, left to Arbat. Uslan -bi died in the aul Mar-Kaves, and the mountains along the right bank of the Kara-Idel received her name, Uslantau. And her tomb became a place of pilgrimage, for many people thought that she was a saint...

Then the allies landed at Boltar, and met here As who was sent against them. The Tarkhan, who was initially summoned for the campaign against the Bellak, was, to his joy, turned around to the other side and threw against the Uruses not his, but the hired cavalry of Khondjak, the son of Atrak. Khondjak was defeated, and the son of Sarychin, as though he was expecting it, immediately fled with his contingent and the escaped Khondjak to the Bulyar.

As soon as the Tarkhan appeared before the capital on a foamed horse and with the words about the defeat, the Suvarbashis immediately called to arms the militia and tied up the Kan. Nobody in the country did even not conceive to defend Anbal, and his favorites and the escaped the from popular wrath bilemcheys chose to ride off quietly to the Nur-Suvar and Bolgar.

My father recalled that the Khisam’s son Selim Chalmati, the Ulugbek of the Bolgar, sent to Otyak a secret message. In it he promised Djangi not to hand over the city to the Uruses and to open the gate only to him himself. Otyak, learning about the overthrow of Anbal, raced to the Bulyar and was immediately raised to the throne by Kurnay, who joined him at the Nukrat, and also by As, the son of Sarychin, by the head of the suvarchis Umar, and by the Tarkhan of the Tubdjak Khan Turgen.

Khan-Türyay, deciding that Otyak abandoned him, in an extreme anger plundered the unreinforced Aka-Basar, Khwarezmian and Ibragim baliks of the Bolgar and proceeded to storm the citadel and the Baryndjar balik. Chalmati and the Baryndjarians, however, beat off the attack of the Balyns without much effort for the Uruses could not take the Bulgarian cities with their bad arms and the absence of any machinery. Only when Otyak again came to the Bolgar, Khan-Türyay calmed down and gladly agreed to leave with the reduced in half army, after a delivery to him of Anbal, his daughter Baygül, Arbat and his son of the Azan. The rumor, however, was that they were turned over by Otyak, who desired to get rid of the contenders. The fact that Chalmati, awfully grievious for the Balynians, serenely remained in the State, and that all captives were well taken care of, speak about it. Khisam became the first Balynian ulan or boyar, and Arbat became the commander-in-chief of the Moskha. Against the will of Baygül, but with the blessing of Anbal, Khan-Türyay took her as a wife. The Bika, hotly in love with the native land, did not forgive the Balynian the trouncing of the Uchel, of the Bulgarian baliks and of her favourite manor where she was born. Chalmati also felt the same, and in reply to the demand to turn over the captured Uruses he gave them to the Balynian decapitated and with one Bulgarian boot on each corpse. At the Uruses only the Beks and boyars had boots, and evrybody at once understood that the Emir reminded to the Balynian of his disgrace in the Kisan.

The new Kan immediately cancelled the increase of the taxes and froze the position of the sides in the Martüba. This calmed people at once. Retaliating to the kazanchis who were surrounding the Anbal’s throne, the Kan ordered them, headed by the ulan Saran, to relocate to the deserted parts of the Mardanian district Muhsha and to build the city of Muhsha and Saran. Bellak was to receive for it a tribute from Muhsha, triple the size of the former tribute from the Burtasian Ars and Serbiyans. In the neighbourhood, on the Shir, were the possessions of the Kumanian Khan Chishma, the son of Bonyak, who was serving in the Baradj-Chishma during the Shamgun time, and who rode off to the Shir after the death of the Kan. He was reputed a brave warrior, and between him and the Mardanians was a respectful unwritten arrangement about non-attacking the possessions of each other. He has beaten Khondjak, who gained a doubtful glory of the worst robber in the Saklan, and since then went way around the upper flow of the Shir...

The Kan's alliance with the Balynian lasted for not too long. The absolutism of Khan-Türyay displeased the boyars and the Kisanian Bek Khalib, the son of Ryshtauly. To overturn the Balynian, Khalib decided to clash him with the State and with his own son. He persuaded the ambitious son of Khan-Türyay, Myshdauly, to make a victorious attack on the State and thus receive the reasons for taking the throne. For the excuse of the attack served the Otyak’s order to restore the fortifications of the Uchel. ”Let us go in the winter”, told Khalib to Myshdauly. “The Kan left to the Kolyn, in this season the Bulgars do not expect an attack, and we will easily take rich spoils”.

The Kan really went against the Kolyn, the capital of the province Biysu, through the Uchel, for the local Tarkhan of Mer-Chura was outraged by the doubling of the tribute. Mer-Chura was secretly inspired by his father, the Urian Tarkhan Seberian Aley-bat, who anticipated the same. The brother of Aley-bat Akbalyk was the Tarkhan of the province Baygul, and he also stealthily supported the revolt. The fear of the Tamta’s Tarkhan Insan, and of Turgen prevented the brothers to act openly.

Myshdauly with Khalib drove into the limits of the State and crushed the large Misharian aul Altysh on the river Chuyl, and then proceeded to Deber. The Deberian subashis, angree at kazanchis, di not even blink, and with undisguised joy watched from the walls the fires in the ulanian estates.
Khalib remained at the Deber, as if deciding to take it, and Myshdauly set off to the Uchel, whose fortifications have not been completed even in half. The defenceless Akbikülians fled into the forest beforehand, so the Bek did not get anything. He returned to the Deber in extreme irritation, and found out that Khalib has already escaped, and that the Bulgarian militia of Chalmati with two thousand kazanchis angry at the Uruses is nearing the city.
Kazanchis seized a Balynian wagon train and fell behind, giving the militia to pursue Myshdauly, who was wounded in the neck with a spear. But the townspeople were not good horsemen, and Myshdauly slipped out. However, his wound did not heal, it became inflamed, and eventually the Bek died of it.

After that Khan-Türyay, to be cleared of the accusations of the friendship with the Kan, announced a preparation for a new attack on the State. It overflew the bowl of discontent with the Bek. Anbal, encouraged by Khalib, talk the boyars to install to the throne of the son of Khan-Türyay and Baygül-bi Djurgi, whom we called Lachyn Hisami. Baygül joined the plot with an eager soul, and at night she let the conspirators in the bedroom of her husband. She hid the sword of her hated husband beforehand, and he, unarmed when attacked, was killed by the Anbal’s axe.

The Kan was caught flat-footed by these events. Returning from the Kolyn with Mer-Chura and a thousand of his biys captured by Kurnay, Otyak encountered the Chishma’s raids. It is said that the rancorous Mukhshian kazanchis incited Chishma against the State, and let him pass through their district to the Martüba.
The first such raid the Kumans made during the Myshdauly’s raid, and distracted on themselves the Mardanians and the Misharian ak-chirmyshes. And among the Mishar Bulgars always were settling many Kumans, and therefore they are more than the Bulgars of the other provinces, similar to the Kumans... They were unable to protect all borders, and consequently the Kan transferred kursybai to the Mukhsha. The fighting capacity of the corps, however, fell strongly because of the insufficient salaries to buy the arms at a risen price, and Kurnay was obviously loosing to the more numerous Kumans. Khondjak secretly helped Chishma in hope of Kurnay’s weakening.

In one of raids the Kumans broke through to the Deber. Otyak came to the strongest fury, for the most part of the district already belonged to the State and the Kan, and disbanded the kursybai. For the freed assets he forged a new corps from the Insan’s Yarchlynian Tintyauses and sent him to the Mukhsha. The favorite junior wife of the Kan, the daughter of the Kisan Bek Khalib Bish-Ulbi, during that time talked her husband to also transfer there the capital of the state, to be closer to her father. When Otyak arrived to the Mukhsha, there came a message about the death of Khan-Türyay. The Kan immediately sent Insan to the Balyn, and he besieged and burned the city of Kul-Asma. The Bek of city, Michael, jumped out of it in his underwear and was taken prisoner, but was released on the order of Otyak, as the new Bek Syb-Bulat of the Balyn promised, for his release, to renew the payment of the Djirian tribute rescinded by Khan-Türyay.

While the pacified Kan was busy with the Mukhsha, Syb-Bulat caught the rioters and severely punished them. Anbal was drowned in a box, which was nailed with him still alive, and Baygül was tied to the crossbeam of the gate and shot from the bows.

Lachyn fled to the Kisan, which caused a collision between Balyn and Khalib. Otyak backed Khalib, for Syb-Bulat did not send the promised tribute, and Khalib went against the Moskha together with Insan. The Тарkhan, whose people were tired of the war, and whose masters were withdrawn to the Mukhsha, fought without any desire, and Arbat, in a foray from the city, crushed and captured Khalib. The son Urman of Khalib, friendly with Balyn out of fear of the State, immediately occupied the Kisan and talked Chishma into attacking the Mukhsha...

Unfortunately, the quick-tempered and light-headed Kan wrangled with Insan. Bish-Ulbi accused that the Tarkhan was guilty for the capture of her father, and the Kan in anger struck him with a whip. The Tintyauses, the last of whom would never yield a way even to ulans, were indignant and on their own left to the Deber. At that moment attacked the Kumans. It was in the 1178 AD.

Leaving 50 djuras to protect the city, the Kan began retreating. Taking advantage of the confusion, Bish-Ulbi fled to the Kisan with her two sons from the Kan, Khalib and Altynbek Djelalet-din. The Kan, coming to the river Deber, which later began to be called Züya, decided to take a rest. At the dawn to camp came Insan. He was embittered by not being allowed to pass to his home by the Bulgarian kazanchis, who suspected that he switched to side of Chishma. One of the djuras of the Kan, seeing the Tintyauses, being half-awake took them for the Kumans and raised an alarm. And Insan took the Kan’s camp for the encampment of the kazanchis and immediately attacked it. 49 out of 50 djuras of the Kan were killed. Otyak himself jumped out from the tent and raced on a horse to the Deber. But in the river the Kan suddenly fell from a racer and sank. Only one of the djuras, whom the Kan sent earlier to the Bolgar to the located there Gabdulla, raced to the destination.

Chelbir immediately hastened to the Deber with 400 militiamen. Near the city he found Insan brawling with the kazanchis, and could barely separate the fighters. He could not establish the true culprit of the death of the Kan, for the Tarkhan said that he was retreating with the Kan and got lost in the forest before the Deber. In the place of the Kan’s camp, which began to be called Otyak Field, were found the Kumanian weapons of the Tintyauses. Insan hastened to declare that it testifies to the guilt of the Kumans, and Gabdulla could not reject its validity. Only before his death the Tarkhan told the truth to my father, to redeem his soul, and trusting firmly my father’s decency.

Fortunately for Insan, one of the Chishma’s contingents appeared at that time in front of the Deber, and Chelbir threw over it with all his fury. Three thousand Kypchaks were chopped up, and their heads piled in a heap. Especially zealous was Insan, afraid that his fidelity may be questioned by Gabdulla.

Chelbir nevertheless did not forgive the Tarkhan for the death of his father, and ordered him to reside permanently in the Deber district. But Insan was already glad that he avoided the worse...

Chapter 20. Bulgar under rule of Gabdulla Chelbir(1178 - 1225)

Gabdulla, raised to the throne by Djalmati, Kurnay, Martüba Ulugbek Dair and the son of As-Tarkhan, saw in Chishma the murderer of his father, and soon fell upon Shir with the forces of 4 thousand Bulgarian and Suvarian kazanchis. But it was hard for the heavily armed ulans to chase in the steppe after the light Kumans, and in about two years they swayed the Kan to relieve them of the external wars for a redemption. On these means Gabdulla restored the kursybai and charged with it the son of Kurnay, Bek Guza. The kursybays ruined the Kumanian stans on the Shir and delivered the head of Chishma to the Kan. Chelbir ordered to throw it in a pit next to the tomb of his father. Guza did not fall behind the Kan in the severity, and also piled a hill of the Kumans’ heads in the place of the Mukhsha, ruined by them...

In the 1181 AD, however, the sight of the violent Kan left the Saklan for a while. This year grew the impertinence of the Galidjians, who, feigning to be the Balynian fishermen, proceeded by the helpless Uchel and the sleeping Bolgar to the Nukrat-Idel and plundered the castle “Alamir-Sultan”of the Kan Ibragim. From the castle survived only the Alabuga tower. The son of Akbalyk, Masgut, appointed as the Tamta Tarkhan, pursued the robbers and annihilated them all near his father’s city Kargatun on the Chulman. But the soul of the Kan was inflamed and burned with a hatred to the Balynians who let the robbers into the limits of the State.
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In the winter of the next year Guza burned the vicinities of the Kan and Kul Asma, one year later, the Radjil. A scared Syb-Bulat persuaded all Urus Beks to help him, and in the summer invaded the State.

The cousins of Urman Bat-Aslap and Khalik, and also the Kan Bek Ryshtauly made a distracting strike on the Deber and forced Gabdulla to throw to the aid of the city Guza and Torekul, the son of As-Tarkhan. Khondjak, who gave his five-year daughter Sauliya for the ten-year old Kan’s brother Mir-Gazi, hastened there too. Khondjak was forced to join the State by the Uruses, who were pushing him in the steppes after of route of Bashkort...

The daughter of Bashkort, the mother of Gabdulla Kungur, ransomed her father from the Bashtu Bek, but the Khan remained to live in the Saklan...

While Guza fought alone near the Deber, the cunning Syb-Bulat with 45 thousand infantry sneaked by the Kara-Idel and Agidel to the mouth of the Dyau-Shir and landed west of the Tukhcha. He was with the Karadjar Bek Bulymer, Burisala Bek Kinzyaslap, Shamlyn Bek Myshdauly, Urman and four more Ulchian Beks. Syb-Bulat also took with him Azan Bek, my father, who he wished to install on the Kan’s throne. But, remembering the flight of Otyak from Khan-Türyay at the Bolgar, Syb-Bulat ordered my father to remain at the landing site of under a guard of 5 thousand soldiers. With the others he, after an unsuccessful attempt to take the Tukhcha, went to the Bulyar...

The Kan was not in the capital, for he was ousted from it by a rebellion of Mamli-Omar or Mamil. Mamil was the senior son of Hyzyr-Hudja, and after the death of Kul-Daud was appointed as a seid of the capital. However Chelbir did not get along with him, and in the 1179 he appointed the as the seid Mirhudja, the son of Kul-Daud. Mirhudja, fervently devoted to the spread of Islam, all his life preached in the remote corners of the State, until, at last, he has not settle in the mouth of the Tamta or Djalmat-Zay.

And the Djalmatians or Tintyaus were one of the mighty branches of the Saban people. A part of the Djalmatians separated from the other relatives and, together with the tribes of Kharka and Kangly, formed the Badjanak people, so the Tintyau Bulgars looked at the Badjanak Bulgars of the Mardan as at their own, and constantly kept kinship with them.

The Tintyau Djalmatians were also called Bish-Kalpak, which meant ”five men” for they had the kalpak headdress as an sign of a manhood. Yakub wrote that once Khazarian Türkmens wiped out their tribe, and only five men remained of it. They came to Djalmat-Zay and here restored their people. And by the names of husbands were also called their main clans: Ardim, Dim, Guzi, Min or Mun, and Tabyn. And from the other Sabanian tribes Yakub mentions the Djuluts with two main clans of the Baryndjars and Arbugains...

And though Tintyaus were converted into Islam by Michael himself, they still strongly held the heathen errors among them. Thus, during the Sabantuy between the local Bulgars the women were coming out to fight the men. Mirhudja tried forbidding it, and once a crowd of the Tintyaus almost ripped him apart because he hindered a fight of one lad with the daughter of the Tabyns’ Biy Ümart-Tabyn. The Biy barely rescued the mullah, and, by the will of the Allah, the same girl became his wife and in the 1172 gave birth to his son Mohammed-Gali. During the resettlement of the family to the Bulyar she caught a cold and soon died... The Bulyarians nicknamed the new seid Nakkar, for his sonorous and beautiful calls to the pray... Mamil left to the Tatyak and there headed the “El-Khum”.

The position of the people by then became completely sad. The subashis, the small owners, the ak-chirmyshes and kara-chirmyshes were exhausted by the additional taxes and the duties introduced by the Kan in connection with the discontinuance of the receiving the Djir Tribute, and the construction of the fortifications in the Baradj-Chishma, Deber and other places, and also in view of the necessity to replace the expenses for the continuous wars. The trouble was worsened with a poor harvest, which caused the strongest famine. In the brotherhood the lead was seized by the most aggressive group named “Amin”, whose banner symbol became the Alp Simbir-Karga. It opposed the excessive taxes and duties, and for their stability, for the elimination of the allodial lands, for the transfer of the ulans into the category of ak-chirmyshes and kursybays, and the transfer of the kurmyshes and kara-chirmyshes in the category of ak-chirmyshes and subashes under the condition of their acceptance of the Islam.

The propagator of the Aminian ideas, began to be called “Rooks”, became the house of sciences “Mohammed-Bakir”. Here under their influence fell two shakirds, Mohammed-Gali and Emir Mir-Gazi. And they were of the same age, and there became friends. Ah, how I in my time dreamed about studying at the university, but my father forbade it with the words: “If you happen to be within the walls of this institution, you could never become a good ruler”.

The Aminians wanted to carry out their plans by overthrowing the Kan and raising to the throne a their follower. Such, in their opinion, was Chalmati. The conspirators were also helped that the kursybays expressed discontent with the low salary and that sometimes they received even less than that.

The disturbed Kan declared the assembly in the winter of the Baytüba’s ak-chirmysh militia. But when the warriors gathered at the capital, Mamil intised aroused them for a rebellion. One of the militiamen immediately raised a gold flag with an image of a rook, handed to him by the mullah. It served as a signal to the beginning of the rebellion...
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The rebel crowds rushed to the zindan “Shaitan Bugaz” and released a 300 Kolyns, who were still alive. After that the beggars began plundering and setting fires to the houses of the bilemchis and noble people. The Kan, learning about it, fled from the Bulyar to the Bolgar. It is said that when Chelbir passed by a seid who stepped out to the street he asked him: “Are not you going to leave the city together with me?” The nakkar responded: “Khans can flee and come back, but the ulemas should always be with the people”...

The rebels seized the capital and immediately, in the Suvar Yorty building, raised Chalmati for the reign, and formed a 10-thousand strong militia. Mamil became the Visir, and Mirhudja remained the seid, for he was liked by the people for his honesty and fairness...

The Kan summoned Turgen, but the siege of the capital by the Tubdjaks in the presence of Chelbir was not successful. Mer-Chura, during one of the attacks, pierced the Tarkhan with an iron arrow, and the Oimeks flinched. The Kan, leaving the son of the diseased Khan, Mergen, near the city, returned to the Bolgar and summoned Guza, the son of As-Tarkhan, Khondjak and Samar-bi. Samar-bi refused to come. Guza arrived, but straightforwardly told Chelbir that he will not storm the capital because of unreliability of the impoverished kursybays. When Gabdulla hollered at him, Guza proudly noted that he is of the same descent from Bat-Boyan as the Kan, and that if Chelbir does not double the salary of kursybays, he would leave to the Kermek. The Kan thought over, lowered the sword and ordered to declare an increase in the salary of the kursybays. ”Now you will go on Bulyar?”, asked Chelbir the sardar. ”Only if you will not execute even a single rebel”, answered Guza. The Kan came to a full fury, but with all the temper coming from the hot heart he inherited from his father, he had a rather cool mind, and therefore he also sensibly abstained this time from punishing the bakhadir, and with a poorly hidden irritation he promised to be merciful.

But at that moment, when the kursybai was ready to charge to the capital, came a message about the intrusion of Syb-Bulat, and Гузу was turned to the Deber. The Kan did not presume in the Ulchians, whom he despised, the ability for a military cunning, and consequently, when Syb-Bulat landed in the mouth of the Dyau-Shir, only moaned from a powerless fury. Only Mergen, appointed a new Tarkhan of the Tubdjak, roamed near the Bulyar, but with him there was little hope. At least it was good enough that Akhtyam, the son of the Kashan Ulugbek Alabuga, who was the commander of the Tukhcha, turned out to be a worthy descendant of his ancestor Kermek, аnd he beat off the attack of Syb-Bulat and it delayed the Uruses...

When the Balynian drew close to the Bulyar, at the ravine As-Elga he met Mergen and on behalf of Azan entered into negotiations with him. The Tarkhan, not knowing who will end up with the power, made a concession to the Uruses in the vicinity of the capital, though he himself remained nearby.

The Balynians besieged the city for two weeks, but the militiamen strongly held on. Once at a dawn Mamil accented the Suleiman high minaret of the Baradj mosque to call the devout to the morning prayer. Suddenly he saw that the Uruses, exhausted by a long and ceaseless siege, are soundly asleep. Then the Bulyarians, instead of the accustomed call, heard from the mullah an appeal to attack the enemy camp. Chalmati, without a delay, opened the Red and the Bull gates and attacked the stans of the enemies. He managed to chop down the Shamlyns’ and Kan’s camps, but Kinzyaslap managed to raise his troops and strike Chalmati in the side with a heavy lance. The Emir fell and soon died, and the Bulyarians hasty retreated behind the walls. Kinzyaslap rushed after them and was also striken by the arrow of Mer-Chura, and the Uruses were beaten off.
Mergen, taking advantage of the disarray, attacked the untouched camps of the Ulchians, and began retreating to the Bolgar. Guza was coming towards him, after defeating the Kisans and having charged the Arbugains and Saksins, who just caught up with him, with squaring away the remnants.
Both Kisan Beks were killed, and Ryshtauly drowned during a flight in the Deber. Of the 15 thousand Urus horsemen only 5 thousand avoided the destruction.

Syb-Bulat, however, was held up at the capital, in the negotiations with Mamil. Mirhudja with his ten years' old son Mohammed-Gali rode for the meeting with the Balynian. The Mamil mutiny intoxicated young Gali and for a time made him an adherent of violent actions in establishing the Kaganate of Goodness and Fairness dear to his heart. Later Gali told to my father that they went to the camp of the Uruses without any guard. There he saw a dying Kinzyaslap. The Bek, seeing the boy, smiled and ordered to present him with his sword.

The negotiations ended with a mutual consent: the rebels agreed to raise Azan to the throne, and Syb-Bulat agreed to remove his troops from the capital. Also started an exchange of the captured, which was interrupted by a thunderous word about approaching of Guza. Smelling a rat, Urman with the other Kisan’s and Kan’s Beks and boyars fled to the mouth of the Dyau-Shir on the horses seized from the Oimeks. Guza, who received an order from the Kan to take first of all the capital, did not want to interfere with the flight, and sent Khondjak to intercept them just for show. The Kypchaks, as expected Guza, were crumpled by Urman, but Syb-Bulat with the other Uruses, barely crossed the Cheremshan, did not follow the Kisans, to the great disappointment of the sardar. Bewildered, he ordered to surround himself with wooden shields and wagons, at a place between a small river Kuy-Elga and the As-Elga ravine. But it was impossible to stay in this fortification for many soldiers for a long time, and therefore Syb-Bulat ordered his troops to break through a passage.
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The Uruses, desperate in their attempts to save their lives with a slightest chance for a hope, went forward as a huge marching crowd. At that moment came one thousand of the kazanchis, headed by the Bolgar Ulugbek Lachyn Khisami. Taking for the shyness the unwillingness of the sardar to close the way to the Ulchians, they began to tease him loudly. The sardar, not taking it easily, unfolded his army for the battle blocking the way to the Agidel. In the front ended up the Kypchaks of Mergen and Khondjak, behind them were the bakhadirs of Guza, and behind them were the kazanchis. Started an unprecedented in its bitterness battle, which lasted for three days. In the first day fought mainly the Kumans, and the kursybays corrected their situation only occasionally. In the second day a bit tired Kypchaks fought lethargically, and the kursybays had to use all their might to repulse the breaks of the enemy. In the third day, alongside with the infantrymen, in the action entered the small Urus calvary, headed by Bulymer and Syb-Bulat. Bulymer cut through a ring of the bakhadirs and was already breaking through the lines of the kazanchis, who lost 500 persons, when he saw that Syb-Bulat was stuck in the fight with the kursybays, and threw himself to the aid. We immediately closed the lines and again drove the Uruses into their camp. In this fight the selfless Bulymer was felled from the horse and lost an arm with which he covered from a strike, and which the bakhadirs immediately impaled on the end of the seized Urus’ banner. The Kaubuyian Bek Elaur, who served as a koshchi (falconeer) of the Bulymer father, managed to put him on his horse and save, but he himself was taken a prisoner. After that the Ulchians, who lost 20 thousand people, did not make any more attempts to break out and stayed besieged..

Meanwhile in the mouth of the Dyau-Shir ensued the fight, after the Tintyauses of Masgut, the son of Akbalyk, came there by overland, and under the guidance of Shirdan by water came the ships of the Kan's fleet. Here again the Uruses fenced off themselves and the ships with wooden shields and wagons against the land side. Tintyauses, however, in one place managed to break through the fortifications, but the Urman’s Kisans came in time and drove them away. The less numerous Shirdan’s salchis succeded in sinking few Urus ships and retreated only after they achieved the main object of the attack, freeing Azan Bek. So said Shirdan, but my father told me that the ours were beaten off, and he himself chased after them, and reached them when already being in the water up to his belt. Urman demanded from the commander Alasha of Syb-Bulat an immediate departure, but Alasha refused, stating that for him it is better to perish here, than to come back home without his Bek...

With the approach of the night the Uruses in the camp began to pray before the inevitable death. However Bek Elaur, taken prisoner by Djurgi, managed to talk Lachyn to help the trapped Beks. ” I know, you want to become the Dima-Tarkhan Bek, he told him. “Then rescue the strongest Urus Beks, and they will help you to achieve it”.

Elaur was released and prowled to the Beks with the Bulgarian armor and one hundred horses. The Beks and their close boyars, without delay, changed the clothes and, stealthily from the other soldiers, slipped to the Alasha camp. At the very bank they came across of the Tintyau’s patrol and barely escaped. At that, Elaur again gave Bulymer, who has lost his racer, his horse, but he himself was taken a prisoner again...

Syb-Bulat, reaching the ships, immediately sailed with 5 thousand of the surviving Uruses. Near the city Kuman he picked up a few, separated from the Kisan cavalry after its calamity. At that time the Uchelians attacked the Uruses with the boats and captured a few ships.

Beks were helped that before their escape Guza, under an order of the Kan, ceded his positions to Khondjak and raced to the Bulyar. The Kumans and Oimeks, tired from the fights, fell asleep and failed to stop the Beks. Then, in front of the Kan, Khondjak blamed Mergen, who stood next to him, and Mergen blamed the Khan.

Guza, approaching the capital at daybreak, offered a surrender to the rebels, with a condition of saving their lifes. The rebels, exhausted by a long siege, opened him the gate. When the escape of the Beks was discovered, Guza and Khondjak went in pursuit, but only shot at Chuyl the Uruses from the Syb-Bulat’s ship which trailed behind. Khondjak also wanted to finish off Elaur, but Guza did not let him, and presented him to the Kan. Chelbir, who rode into the Bulyar at a dawn, was in a fine mood and forgave the Kaubuyan Bek.

Samar-bi invited Elaur and, after marring him, transferred to him, with the sanction of the Mardanian biys-aksakals, the post of the Bellak Ulugbek...

With the Kan came the “siege masters”, who with the approach of the day fired the sheredjirs at the Balyns’ camp, the jars with a combustable mixture. When a few dozens of the Uruses, pelted with the mixture, began to burn alive, thousands of other besieged run out in horror. The Oimeks started shooting them down with laughter, but Lachyn cried for Chelbir to stop the murder. 7 thousand Uruses were taken alive. Of the 60 thousand army, back to the Rus came only 10 thousand Ulchians...

On demand of Guza , who had sworn on the Koran that he would save the lives of the surrendered rebels, the Kan was compelled to withdraw his sword from their heads. Mamil with his closest accomplices was exiled in chains to the Kargatun, Nakkar, also in chains, was exiled to the Bolgar, where he became a muedzin (muezzin - Translator's Note) of the Hasan mosque. Soon, ascending in heavy shackles up the minaret, he fell and died.
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Mer-Chura with his biys accepted Islam, he began to be called Üsuf-Aly, and was returned back. The favor of the Kan made him fight robbery in the province even more zealously. He exterminated two Galidjian contingents and raided the river Tup, where he burned few fortresses. Chelbir granted him a seal with the image of a bow and arrow, Ψ, in memory of his marksmen's shot at Kinzyaslap. And on the seals of the other provinces there were such images:

On the seal of the new Bolgar - Bars (Panther) 

On the seal of the old Bulyar - Baradj 

On the seal of the new Bulyar -  

On the seal of the Mardan-Bellak -

On the seal of the Suvar -  

On the seal of the Saksin -  

On seal of the Tamta - Berkut (Golden eagle - Translator’s Note)  

On the seal of the Tubdjak -  

On the seal of the Ur – Owl -  

On the seal of the Baygul - Big Fish -  

On the seal of the Martüba -  

On the seal of the Kashan -  

And on the seal of the clan Dulo was the image of the Ax and Bow, that is Baltavar Ψ.

On the seal of the ”El-Khum” -  

In addition to that, the Biys, Beks and Emirs also had their own tamgas...

Chelbir also did not forget the services of the Bolgar, by his decree the its name was returned to the city, the name, however, only in the Kan’s letters was not mentioned. Bulyar again began to be called by its name, however many Bulyarians had time to get used to the second name of capital and continued to call themselves Bolgarians, and call the capital Bolgar. In 1193 the Kan gave Tamta a new name, Bashkort, in honor of his favourite grandfather, which was an unprecedented favor, for the heroism of the Tamtais in the wars with Syb-Bulat and the Galidjians. The Tamtа Bulgars, who were divided into a multitude of clans, accepted the new name, for “Tamtа” was a name of only a part of the local Bulgarian clans, and others were dissatisfied with it.

Soon Syb-Bulat, who has evaded the death, hastened to confess to the Kan, opened the roads, renewed the payment of the Djir Tribute, and promised not to build any fortifications on the Bulgarian border. Gabdulla was very pleased with humility of the Bek and sent back his envoy with a thousand of the captured Uruses that at the division of the spoils went to Chelbir. He also promised to the Balynian that in the years he would render the military services to the State, the Djir Tribute will not be collected. The Balynian fishermen were allowed to fish in the Idel with a condition that they would transfer a fifth of the salted fish to the treasury.

The Kan expected the same apologies also from the Bashtu Bek, whose son Bulymer participated in the attack of Syb-Bulat. However the apologies did not follow, and Gabdulla in anger ordered Tarkhan Tore-kul to punish the audacious Bek. The Tarkhan, together with the Kan’s master Nasyr Shirvani and his sheredjirs in the winter set off to the headquarters of the allied Khondjak and, together with the Khan, attacked the boundaries of the Bashtu. However in a deciding battle Khondjak suddenly fled, and the Tarkhan, not wishing to extract a victory for the Kumans without their participation, followed him. Nasyr wanted to remain to burn the vessels, but the Tarkhan, afraid to return without him, forcibly whirled the master away. Bulyak, a pupil of Nasyr, remained and had time to burn the vessels, but was taken prisoner. My father, through Syb-Bulat, succeeded to ransom him, and from that time Bulyak always followed him. From Bulyak, I learned to build and apply the siege machines. Bulyak also run a channel with a bed of logs in the Djilan bog to connect the waters of the Kaban with Arsu, and it began to be called with his name. Though, in a due course the “Bulyak” transformed into “Bulak“ and it began to be thought that the distorted name was the initial name.

The next year the Kan ordered to punish Urman, who also did not wish to apologize. This time to the campaign went Tatrа, the son of Akbalyk, nicknamed so by his Eneys in honor of the bakhadir Tat-Yran. But when Tatrа arrived on the Shir to join with Khondjak, he received from the latter a panicky news about an intrusion of the Karadjar Bek Ugyr into the Saklan. Tatrа immediately went to the aid of the Khan, and in a decisive fight attracted to his side the Kaubuys, who were the best part of the Urus army. After that the Kumans without an effort exhausted and tied the Karadjar infantrymen, who remained without the Kaubuyian cavalry. Of course, as spoils Tatrа demanded a delivery of the captured Ugyr. Khondjak promised that, but suggested to first raid the Bashtu. Tatrа, with Nasyr with him, but without the sheredjirs this time, agreed, in order to humiliate the unlucky son of As-Tarkhan and the Mardanians who avoided to participate in the campaign... While the Kumans plundered the Ulchian auls, we methodically broke the wall of a big Ufa fortress and took it with all its inhabitants...
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The only thing that Tatrа could not accomplish was to bring Ugyr, who was secretly helped to flee by the Khan. As was rumoured, he did it because the Bek was his son-in-law and promised a large ransom...

Kan was angry that Tatrа on his own changed the direction of the strike, but softened after learning of the victory, and gave his soldiers a break in duties. A few Ufa merchants, seized by him, asked a permission to remain in the State, and were allowed to settle in the Bulgar. The pleased Masgut founded a new encampment by the Agidel and called it “Ufa”, in memory of the victory of his brother.

The next year Gabdulla personally invaded the Kisan, together with Syb-Bulat, who readily agreed to help the Kan. Urman in an horror fled to the forest, and the Kan besieged the Kisan. Seeing, that the situation is bad, the boyars lead Khalib and Altynbek onto the wall and swore to kill them in case of a Bulgarian attack. In the Chelbir’s soul a second time in his life after the death of his father flicked a pity for the relatives, and, growling with a powerless fury, he returned home. However the scared Urman immediately sent envoys with apologies, gifts and 12 boyars, the initiators of the unfriendly attitude to the State. The Kan chained them, but then, thawing his heart, allowed them to reside in the houses and gradually released them in exchange for their younger relatives...

In addition to that the Balynian fleet helped the Kan to suppress a mutiny of the Undjay Ars, who had taken to protest against the tribute and who built, together with the run-away Ulchians who adjoined them, a fortress Kildysh near a big bay of the Kara-Idel. The Uruses blocked the rebels from the Kara-Idel side, and the Mishars of the aul Lachyk-Uba did it from the land side, and soon finished off with the rebellion, dispersing downwind the ashes of Kildysh...

The occupation with these affairs did not distract the Kan from setting the destiny of Lachyn. Through the relatives of his wife in the Djalda and Ass he obtain the appointment of Khisami as Dima-Tarkhan Bek, and soon, when a chance came, he obtain the appointment for him as the Emir of the Gurdja. Elaur went to raise Lachyn to the Gurdjian throne...

At the request of the Emir, the Kan allowed to settle in the Bandja, Bolgar, Bulyar and Saksin a few dozens of the Gurdjian merchant and artisan families, mostly Ariyaks, who have not been satisfied with their position in the native land...

Chelbir also favored my father and after the departure of Lachyn he appointed him as the Bolgar Ulugbek. But then, seeing that Azan was an excellent administrator, he transferred him to the distressed Uchel.

Being at the top of his might, Chelbir did not pay a due attention to the shape of the people. Meanwhile, the doubling of the tax which he left in force, on the proprietors, subashes, kara-chirmysh heathens, and also on the ak-chirmyshes, who had to pay it in lieu of their military service, was a heavy burden for the people. Their discontent pushed the Amines to a new plot, which was lead by the mullah Gali. Being initially, after the graduation of the medresé, a preacher, Mohammed-Gali received a large popularity with the people, and became the imam-khatib of the Hasan mosque in the Bolgar. From here in all the country he stretched the web of the plot, which was called the “Rook’s” after the image on the Amines’ banner. The purpose of the brothers-“rooks” was the installment as the Kan of Mir-Gazi, who shared their views and who was, unlike Chelbir, gentle and sensitive to injustice.

The Amines wanted to start the revolt in the 1193 AD. A signal to it were to be the calls for the morning prayer. In the Bolgar the people were to be aroused by Kylych voice of Gali himself, and in the capital by the voice of his assistant mullah Kylych. Fortunately for the Kan, Kylych betrayed and told him about the upcoming revolt. Hastily summoned, as if for a campaign, Mergen and the kazanchis seized 500 of the main participants of the plot who were not expecting a treachery, together with Gali. All 500 were sentenced to the severe execution.
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Meanwhile 12 thousand Galidjians attacked the Bulgarian Tunay. Having stayed at the Kolym in vain, they went to the Kargadan and there besieged the old Alay-Bat. The bandits did not notice, however, that Üsuf-Aley has crept behind them and came in time to tell the father and Masgut about the attack. Alay-Bat was not baffled and offered to the Galidjians a ransom from city... The hungry robbers readily agreed to accept fish, counting on taking the city with a full stomach. But the fish was poisoned, and, having eaten it, 120 leaders of the attack conked out on the spot. The survivors started electing the new ones and wrestle among themselves. Then, in the heat of this fight, Mer-Chura with Masgut struck them from the rear, and Alay-Bat from the city. Not more than a hundred of the Galidjians could escape back home, and the others were clobbered dead or captured. Three thousand of the captured were equally divided between the Tarkhans, and then Mer-Chura personally went to the capital on the Shirdan’s ship, with his share of the spoils. In the Bulyar the Tarkhan learned about the events and decided to protect Gali in memory of his kind father. ”Ah, the Great Kan!”, he addressed Chelbir. “I, by the will of Allah, won over the Galidjians and took prisoner one thousand of them. Take 500 of them for the lives of the “Rooks”. Gabdulla, who was valuing only the military valor, softened a little at the news about the victory. But, tenaciously not wishing to spare the rebels, he noted to Üsuf-Aley:

- Your 500 captured is my share, and I shall not give it for the lives of the damned “Rooks”!

- Then take for them my 500!”, immediately responded the Tarkhan.

TheKan, by his weakness to the people who strengthened the power of the State, could not refuse this time. The apprehended Aminians and the captured were taken to the field in front of the capital and the Kan announced to them:

- “All of you made crimes punished by death, and I sentenced you to death. But the noble Tarkhan asked for you and convinced to pardon you. Do you agree to accept my pardon?”

- “Yes, master! exclaimed Galidjians with one voice.”

- “And you?” Khan asked the “Rooks”.

- “To accept your favor means to agree with you and to justify you, and recognize ourselves as guilty. We disagree with you, we believe we are right, and consequently we reject your pardon”, answered Gali for all brothers.

- “I sentenced your “Rookie” crowd to a terrible execution”, in a fury said Gabdulla. “And I cannot break my own decree about the execution of the 500 people. Therefore let 500 robbers die for you. Allah more likely will accept the repented than the persisting.”

Before the eyes of the shocked brothers the black-axers cold-bloodedly executed the ill-fated Galidjians. After that the “Rooks” were exhibited for sale into slavery, and at once turned grey Gali was banished to the Alabuga tower, and there was chained to the wall...

The father-in-law of the mullah, the Bulgarian merchant Dayr, and also the Bashkorts of Masgut, and Elaur bought out many of the unfortunates and took them away to their places. Mir-Gazi was transferred from the Bolgar to the Kashan, and in his place was again raised my father, who also kept his post of the Uchel Ulugbek...

However, that among the “Rooks” were found a few bailiffs and even suvarbashis seriously disturbed the Kan, and he immediately removed the increased taxes from the merchants and subashes of the Echke Bulgar ils. If he did not do it, the people could start to be disobedient in this lean year even without the sermons of the brothers.

The Galidj, learning about the route of its best forces, was horrified and immediately sent envoys to the Kan. In response to the opening of the Artan road and the Galidj for a duty-free trade, they humbly asked the Kan to release the captured for a ransom. The Kan, in need of good and loyal soldiers, exchanged one thousand of his captured for two thousand Artanians seized by the Galidjians, and 130 ships with bear and other furs, Ajdakha fangs, amber, Frangish tableware, and other goods. And the size of the redemption tribute and its components were established by Sadyk, a Galidian, who switched to the Chelbir service with 500 other captured Kanians. He was telling that is a grandson of the offended by the Galidjian boyars merchant Chapkyn and the son of Vasyl, who participated in the attack on the Alamir-Sultan. This Vasyl happened to fall behind his cohorts and, to save his life, told us the place of the robber’s camp, and then he was released to go home and, subsequently, he helped the State with the reports about prepared robberies, in exchange for a sanction to freely trade in the Biysu and Ur. Sadyk himself warned Mer-Chura about the raid, and then provoked a disarray among the Galidjians.

When Sadyk told the Kan about the tribute and what can be extracted from the Galidjians, Gabdulla could not believe and exclaimed: “If the Galidjians pay me it, I shall make you a Biy!” The envoys were impressed by the knowledge of the Kan of the capacities of their city, and paid what was stated by Sadyk. My father said that when the Galidjians were berthing to the Tazik island at the Uchel, where the inspections were usually conducted, and then also the transfer of the goods from the overseas ships to ours, one of the boyar complained: “The Kan undressed us completely, not taking only cockroaches from us. But it seems to me that if he wanted them, he would also find out and their quantity!”

Sadyk received his due, he became a biy and settled on the land which Mer-Chura allocated for him near the Kolyn. He was prohibited from erecting a fortress, and he reinforced for himself one of the baliks of the Kolyn. His estate was enclosed by only a paling, under protection of which the unarmed people of Sadyk had time to hide in a fortress in case of a danger...

The ransomed from the captivity Artanians were called Shambuts. They were tall and handsome and were famed for their extraordinary endurance. Of the clothing they constantly wore only trousers, and especially well shot and fought with an axe. The Kan settled the Shambuts on the rivers Chally, Dyau-Shir, and near the caravan-sarai Sarman, erected on the road to the Tubdjak out of the walls of the Urusian camp. At that time the Ak-Oimeks began to break through the Tubdjak into the Bashkort, and tried to take the caravan-sarai. However, the Shambuts shoot down their horses and, bolting from the fortification, axed down the Kypchaks, helpless on the land, like hens. After that the robbers began dodging the Sarman, and therefore here were always many merchants who liked a tranquility.
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The Shambuts liked to go on the Shirdan’s ships to protect the freight on the Nukrat-su and Chulman from the attacks of the Galidjians, whom they fiercely hated, as all the Ulchians. These daring djigits readily served in the protection of the caravans going in Artan to see their relatives. But they always came back, for they were grateful to the Kan for the release from the shameful captivity and for the satiated life. Chelbir ordered to not take from them any taxes, and they ferociously fought with the enemies of the State under the banners of their benevolent Kan...

They worshipped Gabdulla, like an idol. Once my father saw on the river Shumbut a tree with a human face carved directly on the trunk. When he asked a Shambutian what was that, he shortly answered: “ Chelbir”...

And the feverish in trade Sadyk sent his son Paluan to the Sadum with a caravan, and he, reaching the Kara- Sadum, persuaded the local Emir Tap-Bulat to renew the navigation on the Chulman Sea to the city Ak-Artan at the Biysu. And during this trade both here and there were left hostages, who were changing with the arrival of the new ships. We went there for the Frangish tableware, weapons, silver and gold.

And that way was very severe and only the spirited daredevils, who were betting their heads for a fabulous profit, were heading there... The Sadimians also lodged in the court of Belebey in Hinuba. And Belebey was a Frangian priest taken prisoner during our attack of Khan Chishma. He was reiterating all the time that the world is threatened with unprecedented disasters from the East, and he had a reputation for being obsessed. The Kan, merciful to such people, allowed him his foibles, like building a house with a tower in the middle of the roof. Only in such houses, he said, the people will be saved from the future blow, for the Kan of the enemies lives in such a house and therefore would not touch them. Many simple people in the suburbs swallowed his sermons and began erecting such houses in their auls. The mullahs tried to destroy them, but that resulted that the primitive people believed Belebey even more...

Soon came a sad news about the overthrow of the Emir Lachyn from the Gurdjian throne, by his own wife Samar-khatyn. She was a very salacious woman. When Khisami tried to restrain her bad inclinations, she persuaded her lover Beks to overthrow her husband. Only the Bek Ablas, whose name Lachyn gave to his son, supported the Emir and helped him to flee first to Emir Khondjak, and then to Emir Uziya. There he and his son accepted Islam, though he kept his Bulgarian name, and named his son Badretdin. Then they left through the Shirvan to the Ases, where lived the relatives of his mother Baygül Uslan-bi. And Uslan-bi was from the most notable Saklanian clan, and just the name alone saved a person from fatality in any place of the Saklanian mountains. Not sustaining...

... Became a place of pilgrimage of the Saklans, not a few of whum lived in the Saksin, Bandja, Bolgar and Bulyar.
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The Saklans offered to the Emir to remain with them, but the restless life in the mountains did not suite him, and he returned to the State. The Bolgar, who esteemed his mother, invited him to them, but Lachyn asked the Kan for a small city, and received it at the Baradj-Chishma river. He named it Tabyl-Katau, as was called the Gurdja capital, abandoned by him. His son Bek Badri, also by his personal request, received the Khin and was nicknamed Ablas-Khin. He liked the danger, and he guarded the path of the caravans from the Saklan to the Saksin and Mardan-Bellak. He was surrounded by the Ases, Almanians, Rums, Gurgjians, run-away Ulchians and Kypchaks, the same fearless daredevils as himself. When when the deprived of the fear Gabdulla once visited the Khin to meet his wife, who was returning from a trip to her relatives in the Djalda, at a farewell he noted to the Bek: “I leave your city with two feelings: a feeling of a pleasure of that I was not slaughtered in it, and simultaneously with a feeling of confidence in its safety”. Lachyn and his son were notable for their giant strength, and Emir did not miss a chance to participate in noticed sabantuy maydan. The winner rights for the bride he was giving to the poor men who did not have an opportunity to win the hearts of the parents by their riches. He described the tricks of the Bulgarian fight in the book ”Instructions to wrestlers at maydan”. When my father noted once that it would be more useful to the youth to read his memoirs, the Emir said: “The histories of the Emirs do not give the mind anything but the corrupt ideas. A description about a capture of a thousand thrones is not worth a description of one fair victory at a sabantuy. The wrestling at the maydan is the only worthy occupation for all real men”.

He married my sister who, with her beauty, modesty and energy helped him forget about his shame. After his overthrow, to Gurgjans came the same that we had during Anbal’s time. The Beks, hungry as wolves, cracked down on the people, and on those few of them who called for honor and morals. Ablas was slaughtered at a feast of his villain relative, who coveted his possessions. His son Nurshad be-frated Elaur, after which Nurshad took the name of the Elaur’s grandfather Ryshtauly, and Elaur took the name Nurshad. Having restored Mukhsha, the commander named the city with the name of the be-frat Bek. Nurshad was also forced to flee to the Khondjak, and from there to the Uzes. When Elaur invited him, Nurshad responded:” I Know, at your place it will be plentiful and safe, but it is far from my native land. But even when I am now among the alien Türkmen, but I am close to my land”. And the Türkmen Sultan offered him to become, with his help, the Gurdja Emir, but the Bek refused...
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In 1203 the fire of the Ar’s revolt set ablaze the Kashan and Martüba... The crowd, led by the boyars, crushed into the Alabuga and tore down the Gali’s book about Üsuf. The kakhins called the mullah himself a main boyar of the enemies, tore him off from the chains, and began beating to death. A detachment of the Shambutes, sent by Mir-Gazi, pulled the mullah with an immense effort from the hands of the multi-thousand crowd. The Ulugbek immediately asked the Kan to forgive Gali in the name of his sufferings, for the State and the faith, and to endorse his friend for the post of the Kashan seid. Chelbir forgave the mullah and expressed a hope that having received heavy wounds from the people he was protecting, he would not henceforth support the wretched and would cease revolting against the rulers. Having received this message, Gali, who was barely breathing from the beatings, told Mir-Gazi with a weak chuckle: “The “kind” Khan first chained me in bondage, but the ”malicious heathens” tore it off. Now the Kan desires that I start hating those who ripped off me his chains. But how can I be angry for it?”

The Ar’s rebellion extended, and the father did not dare to suppress it with a brute force. Ilias Yaldau, the son of Gabdulla, the Suvar Ulugbek, took advantage of it to capture of the post of the Bolgar Ulugbek. His snitch about the favoritism of the Emir Azan toward the rebels drove the Kan to fury, and he immediately sent to the Uchel my father. In 1204 Azan restored the city fortifications at the Bogyltau and even decided to build a medresse similar to the “Mohammed-Bakir”. But he only had time to repair and build up to the Arbat gate, which he wanted to use as a minaret. And it did not yield to the Suleiman minaret, and the father was very proud of it...

Even earlier father went to Kashan and invited Gali to consecrate the construction. The seid did not proceed into the fortress, for he declared a complete abdication from the power, and at first he stopped in the house of Belebey, and then in a house my father specially built for him, behind the Bulyak, where stayed for thirty days. After his departure the house behind the Bulyak was transformed into the mosque “Otuz” (“Thirty”), and the Belebey’s house in the mosque ”Dervish Gali”, and since that time many mullahs began to transform similar houses into the mosques. My father took me to Gali, who became a saint during his lifetime, and asked him to bless me. The seid instructed me, and gave me the second name Baradj in memory of his mother, who descended from the Baradj clan. And I, Gazi-Baradj, the son of Azan, the grandson of Arbat, did not break any of his precepts: did not offend a neighbor, did not lie, did not kill and did not indulge into the temptations of wealth, power hunger, lust or selfishness, always empathized with the troubles of the needy, and was saving the people from the misfortunes. But I did not know of a pleasure and a rest in my life, for all my actions by his precepts were interpreted by the people as malicious acts, and my soul was constantly in confusion from it.
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Oh, a wise reader! Judge for yourself the value of my life and the correctness of my actions, I am telling you about them everything that I remember, concealing nothing...

The medresse was never built, for Yaldau presented this construction to the father as an attempt to raise Uchel above the capital, and himself above the Kan. Chelbir ordered to stop the construction and to fire up the fight against the rebels, who were joined by the run away Ulchians and the kurmyshes. The father, not wishing to mar himself by killing his own people, asked Syb-Bulat to help the Martübian Mishars of the Djun- Mishar district to bring the rebels around. The Balynian fleet, together with the Mishar Bulgars, attacked the rebels down to the aul Burat at the ferry across the Kara-Idel. The Emir Azan came there and accepted the captured Ars, and the captured run away Uruses he gave to the Balynians. In the rebellious districts for the ak-chirmyshes were erected the baliks Kukdjak, Chybyksar, Sunder, Alat, Urdjum, Alabuga, Archa, Nurshad. The Ars were broken, and kazanchis and kursybays caught in the forests and put to death the other instigators of the revolt.

In response, Azan in the 1207 AD, at the request of Syb-Bulat, suppressed a rebellion of the Djir Ars near the Ar-Aslap...

In 1208 the Galidjians found a part of the Sadyk’s people engaged in the supply of the provisions for the Sadumian vessels on the islands in the Chulman Sea. All of them were executed, and the embittered boyars raided the Kolyn. Sadyk, however, was warned by his people in the Galidj, and had time to summon the Shirdan’s fleet and to hide in the city. The Shirdanian salchis attacked the boyars from the rear, and Mer-Chura from the city, and the robbers were badly crushed. Two thousand Galidjians were killed and all 24 boyars were seized. To the envoys of the Galidj, who brought rich gifts and presented the robbers for the lost and mistakenly stumbled into the State bilemchis, the Kan said that he will release, for the ransom, three boyars a year in the case the Galidjians observe peace, and will execute the same number of the leaders a year in case of the enemy raids. After the captured were exhausted, the Kan allowed the Balynians to erect in the Urus part of the Shud a city of Djuketun at the merging of the rivers Djuk and Tun for containment of the brigands from the incursions into the State. As to trade on the Chulman sea, Sadyk hired new Galidjians for secret assistance.

The next year the Kan, indignant of the coerced taxation of the Bulgarian merchants on the Khorysdan road by the Kisans, sent Yakub Elaur against the Kisan. The children of Otyak from Bish-Ulbi jumped to join him. Urman, as usual, fled from the city, and the inhabitants, frightened by the clanking of the Bulgarian weapons, roped the culprit of the heists, boyar Kushpa, and threw him from the wall to the Mardanians. The Arbugains shot the villain with arrows and, taking a ransom from the Kisan, left...
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After the death of the loyal to the State Syb-Bulat, his kind and quiet son Kushtandin took the Balynian throne. His brother, a spiteful and power-hungry Djurgi, immediately started a revolt with the purpose of capturing the power. The Kan could not tolerate it, and Guza, together with his father, went to pacify the audacious lad. The Djurgi’s robbers were crushed, though in the beginning rendered a bitter resistance and wounded the Emir. For this, Guza ordered to not take any captives, and we ruthlessly put to death 10 thousand rebels. But right after the death of Kushtandin who, it was said, was poisoned, the Djurgi’s murderer seized the throne, and first of all annuhilated the Bulgarian merchants of the Djuketun. The ill-fated were coming back from the Artan, and only one of them, Bayram, the son of Umar, could escape and bring the sad news to the capital.

The Kan decided to punish the villains severely and himself went to the campaign together with me, the kursybai, Tukhchians and a thousand of Shambutes, whose 50 fellow tribesmen were guarding the caravan and were martyred, together with everybody, defending it,...

My senior brother Hakim for two years already was the Uchel Ulugbek, for in the 1217 my father left this frail world. Despite of the Kan’s offer to become the Bolgar Ulugbek, I refused, mindful of the Yaldau’s intrigues. To sooth my pain from this forced declination, the kind Dayr built in the Uchel, below the Bogyltau, a stone bath. It began to be called by his name. We set out from the Uchel in severe cold, and the lightly dressed Artanes stripped the Arian women and wrapped in their scarves and fur coats...

The Djuketun boyar Iliya, the murderer of the peaceful merchants, mistook them for women, and when my masters, under my guidance, knocked out the Djuketun's wall, hollered to his men: “Good guys! The Bulgars, apparently, absolutely squinched and took to us their hussies. Let us screw these women!” A thousand of the Balyns heedlessly rushed out from the fortress for a sortie. And the Shambues yelled instantly: “Look! Good fur coats are running to us themselves! Let us take them!” They threw off their female attire and in a flash chopped down the scared mum Uruses. We walked into the city and left only charcoals of it.

After that we passed by the Balukta, taking from it for a tribute the bear and other pelts, and approached the Ar-Aslap. On the way we lost Guza, who fell under the Moskha ice... The Djir Bek Vasyl, the son of Kushtandin, owned this city, and I, for the good memory of my father friend, not without an effort persuaded the Kan to turn to the Radjil. We bypassed this fortress where was the brother of Djurgi, the cowardly Ba-Aslan, and met the Shirdan’s fleet. Sadyk offered to Chelbir to allow his people, who were participating with him in the campaign, to pretend to be the Galidjian merchants and to quickly seize the gate. The Kan allowed it, and at night the ships with the Sadyk’s people, and with Tukhchis hidden under the pelts, sailed past the Radjil. In the morning they again, from the upstream, sailed to the city, and Sadyk asked the Bek for the permission to enter the fortress. Bat-Aslap, who was expecting with alarm for the arrival of the Bulgars, was delighted that the rumors turned out to be false, and hospitably flung open the gate. The Sadyk’s people immediately seized them, and then, on his signal, the Tukhchis jumped out of the ships and broke into the city. After them all army came into the City and took it. The Bek was seized in his house by one of the Bulgarian militiamen, but was released after Bat-Aslap gave him a bag of his jewelry. Findining it out, the Kan ordered to chop the traitor in parts on the spot. The Radjil was also burnt, after which we safely returned to Uchel on the Shirdan’s ships. The spoils were so great that for their transportation we had to tie additionally about 200 rafts...
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The Kan got accustomed that after his campaigns The Urus Beks immediately were sending envoys with apologies and a tribute. But Djurgi among all these Beks contrasted by his extraordinary recklessness, and therefore he was considered mad. Some internal malice constantly pushed him to bloody affairs, and I myself saw him smiling only during his atrocities. At the same time he was extraordinarily coward at the approach of a danger if he understood it. The feeling of being threatened betrayed him only once, after the Chelbir’s campaign. The culprit of it was Bat-Aslap, who for his own vindication brought him a fictitious message about the death of the Kan in the Radjil. Inspired Djurgi in the early spring by a sudden attack seized the Djun-Kala balik. The Ulchians managed to cut the palings of the dungeon in two places, and the commander Markas of the Djun-Mishar district abandoned the balik after setting it on fire. Djurgi immediately erected a wooden fortress on the ashes of the Djun-Kala. After that, while the Kan rested and was dismissing as improbable the message about it, Bat-Aslap sailed to Uchel with 15 thousand soldiers. Exactly the same as the Radjil Ars helped us to crush the Uruses, our Ars... met the Bek joyfully in the Burat, and joined him in 20 thousand quantity. They were embittered by a severe suppression of their revolt in the 1212. Then the revolt started when the Kashanian subashis demanded to equate them with the Echke Bulgar subashis in their rights. They were immediately joined by the Ars, who demanded to be transfered to subashis after their acceptance of the Islam, in accordance with the old law. Gali told the rebels about this law, and informed the Kan about their request, and was protecting in his letter those igenchis whom he converted to Islam. Chelbir came to a fury. It was said that it was heated up by the restored book about Üsuf, presented to him by the seid, in which the Kan beheld a verse about the transition of the power from the senior to the younger brother. Trampling the book, Gabdulla ordered to seize the seid again, as the instigator of the mutiny. Gali then declared in an answer that those who would try to cross Agidel for it, will sink in the river. Many, afraid to deal with the saint out of the superstitious fear, refused to execute the order of the Kan, and only Guza went to the Kashan. ”Look”, Elaur told him. “You may happen to sink”. The sardar, not knowing fear, only laughed in response. But, as it was already written, the Gali prediction came true...
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Mir-Gazi persuaded Gali to leave from the country, and he did it only after the Emir promised him to spare the fate of the rebels. The seid fled to the Bolgar and from there, with the help of Yaldau, who hated his father, left with a caravan to the Khoresm. There he was hospitably received by the Emir Djelaletdin and received a post of the secretary of his archive...

Mir-Gazi convinced Guza to not touch the subashes, promising that for that they would restore the Korym-Chally fortress and build a new one. Korym was built after the attack on the Chally-Kala, but then came to a full decline. The subashis came around and really did the promised, and the Kan, who loved the military affairs above all, pardoned the rebels. Guza again vented all his ire on the Ars, whose crowds surrounded the Kashan and Uchel, and they accepted the Islam. The kursybays without any pity hacked them along all the road from the Katan to Burat and, it is said, killed about 30 thousand of the kara-chirmyshes and kurmyshes who joined them. When Guza was passing with us from the Uchel to the Djuketun, Ars men, still in horror of him, fled to the woods, and the Artans had to undress their women.

However they did not loose their embitternment, and, as I already said, they joined Bat-Aslap. The Ars burnt Bish-Balta, and then began to set fire to the Akbikül also. I, thinking that against the city act the kara-chirmyshes, nonchalantly went with two hundreds djuras from the fortress to the suburb, to restore the order, and suddenly collided with Uruses who were breaking through the palings. Three thousand of them were in the armor received by Djurgi from the Galidj in response to his promise not to attack that city. The armors were poor, worse than the kursybays’, but this still complicated the actions of the djuras, who were used to fight the Balynian warriors not having even those. Therefore the djuras, taking all the inhabitants out to the Bogyltau, preferred to set a fire to the Akbikül. However we could not leave the suburb, as the Balynians broke into the suburb and cut us off us from the mountain. We had to leave through the Kan gates, which were not yet covered with flames. Hakim with his djuras made the way safely through the enemy lines. But me and the twelve djuras were suddenly cut off by a splash of a flame and, not to burn down, I had to step back towards the Uruses. We were fighting for some time until, at last, were brought down from the horses and taken into captivity. We were immediately taken to the Bat-Aslap camp, and it should be noted that nobody saw me. Our armors were rudely torn off us, we were tied with ropes and placed on the ships.

The fire was so strong that the palings of the Kalgan lit up, and its defenders hastened to set the fire to that part of city also, and to pass behind the Sain moat and to the Ügary Kerman. There were 100 more djuras there, and about 300 militiamen, who made a stand between the moat and this citadel of the Uchel.

The Uruses, many of whom burned up in the fire, also jumped out from the suburb and began to wait for the fire to end, so that together with the Ars try to take the Ügary Kerman.

Meanwhile the Kan sent nevertheless the kursybay of Gazan, the son of Guza, to the Uchel, to check on the rumors about Balyns’ intrusion. The sardar met my djuras near the city, learned about the situation, and attacked the enemies in the morning. Fortunately for the Balyns, in front of their camp, located by the river, was the camp of the Ars, because otherwise, undoubtedly, all of them would be smashed. The kursybays stomped the Ars and laid waste a few thousand of the Uruses, but nevertheless about 3 thousand of them had time to board the ships and to sail hastily to the Kuman dungeon near the mouth of the Deber-su. Alas! The balik was also besieged by the Ars, and the Kumanians could not help us in any way.

As it turned out, Bat-Aslap had to join near the mouth of the Kama-Bulak with another group of the Uruses, who were coming to the State from the Ar-Aslap through Tunay. These Ulchians besieged the Kolyn, seized berthed there ships and boats, and in them and also on the tied together rafts, sailed down the Nukrat-su. In the mouth of the river stood Nukrat, the son of Shirdan, who managed to crush the Araslapians. Only three Ulchian ships, out of the 50 ships and 170 boats and rafts, survived and rapidly sailed to the mouth of the Kama-Bulak. Nukrat sent in pursuit a few ships, but they could not catch up with the fugitives. Nukrat himself sailed to the Kolyn and freed the city from the siege. And the fugitives joined with Bat-Aslap, and he immediately sailed to the Balyn.

Gazan, having installed the order in the Uchel and catching those Uruses who dispersed in the forests, raced in pursuit. He by means of appeared in time With the help of the Nukrat’s salchis he crossed the river near the Burat, and near the Kuman managed to catch a few of the Balynian ships that holed up in the city. The kursybays dispersed the Ars, pelted clowds of arrows onto the holed-up, and wounded or killed almost everyone. The salchis tied those ships to ours, and sailed with them to the Bolgar, where arrived the Kan himself. Among the captured was found a Balynian priest Abraham, whom the Chelbir immediately released. But for some more years he has lived in the State, and served as the priest to the Bolgar’s Christians. I was meeting with him in the Rus, and he showed me his ”Story about Bat-Aslap raid to Uchel”. It was written truthfully and with a live language, but it did not gain favor of Bat-Aslap and Djurgi, and he was hiding it...
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Djurgi was struck with the loss of his best troops, but he believed that he inflicted a big loss to the Bulgars also, without understanding that Uchel, large by the Balynian scale, was a second grade city of the State. Therefore he did not hasten to confess to the Kan, and even sent his last soldiers to the Djun-Kala to conquer the Mishar.

As to Chelbir, he fairly listed the Merchant war in the category of his best wars. The capture of the Dluketun and Radjil cost us 53 killed soldiers, and to crush Bat-Aslap cost us 60 djuras and 112 kursybays, while only Bat-Aslap lost about 6 thousand killed and as many captured. The Djirians only lost a total of 500 soldiers killed, but lost another 3500 captured. The matter is that they besieged Kolyn without any desire for it, and when they met with Nukrat, they immediately disembarked ashore and surrendered to the old kind Tukhcha Balykbashi Akhtyam. Not without a reason that Djurgi suspected a treason and burnt the Djirian commanders with red hot irons, extorting from them about the secret connections of Vasyl with the State. However the commanders chose not to untie their tongues, and the Crazie let them alone.

In memory of the victory, Gabdulla gave to the Kolyn the name of Nukrat, gave the Tukhcha the name of Djuketun, and gave the Uchel the name of Gazan. As usual, we changed the Djuketun into Djuketau , and the Gazan into Kazan...

Only the failure to appear of the Djurgi envoys poisoned the pleasure of the Kan. After waiting till the winter, he sent the kursybay on the Balyn, and before that he sent a message to the Balynian Bek. In it there were such words: “You, a dog, thought that the war is flapping the oars on the Idel? I shall show you what is a real war. I shall burn out all that is now called Balyn so that the people will even forget this name. And you will take it as the greatest favor of the heavens if I appoint you, a lousy, and with a shaven head and chin, as a head of the latest kurmyshian aul”. The Gazan was not too lazy to take along the masters with sheredjirs, and they quickly kindled the Djun-Kala. The Balynians in horror fled from the fortress enveloped by the flames, and were all mercilessly hacked up to the last man, in the quantity of 5 thousand persons. Among them were also those who avoided the death at the Uchel. When the inhabitants of the other boundary cities learned about it, they burnt in fear their fortresses and fled to the Bulymer. Seeing the crowds of the refugees, Djurgi trembled and raced through the forests to the Amat, a small town near the boundary of the Galidj. Gazan went from the cinders of the Djun-Kala deep into the Balyn, but everywhere he was founding only the ashes. He was three days away from the Balynian capital when came a messenger from the Kan with an instruction to immediately turn back. The sardar did not believe it, but Chelbir, knowing Gazan, after the first messenger sent both the second and the third messengers. Finally, having received the third message, and one day away from the Bulymer, Gazan was convinced in the authenticity of the order and with a bitter regret turned back.

The reason for it was the report that the Menkhols’ or in the Chin language the “Tatars” leader, Chingiz, invaded the Khoresm. Still earlier, from the merchants and Oimeks, the Kan received the news about the rise of this tribe, which has crushed the Ak-Oimeks, Kyzyl-Kashans and the great state of the east the Menkhin or, in the Tatarian, Menkhol. Collating these news, Chelbir came to the conclusion that he is facing with a great, war-like and well armed people, and decided be ready to meet with all the might its possible pretences upon the State. And therefore he withdrew Gazan, whose kursybay was the military support of his throne. All this was kept secret, so that the Uruses did not learn anything.

After the departure of the sardar, Djurgi at once sent envoys to the Kan, but they were not allowed beyond the Kazan, and were told that Chelbir ordered the Urus Beks to communicate henceforth with him through the Kazan Ulugbeks. Djurgi obediently drunk the drink of this great humiliation and, feeling the joy with his escape from the death, immediately agreed with the heavy for him conditions of the peace. Uruses were forbidden to have, build or restore the fortresses on the border with the State and on the way to the Bulymer, and proscribed to pay the tribute in the amount of two Djirian tributes. In addition the Kan demanded a return of the captured Uchelians.

One of Ars identified me and notified Djurgi. Djurgi did not want to return me and ordered to hide in a dungeon and to inform about my death in the fire. But, being afraid that the captives could tell the truth, he ordered the Ars to kill the djuras at their delivery. He ordered to throw into a fire the three djuras about whose capture nobody knew. The released djuras were put on the ship and taken to the Djun-Kala. The trumpeters for the notification loudly blew the pipes and horns, as was customary at the exchange.

Unfortunately, my brother, the Kazan Ulugbek Hakim, thought it too excessive to be present during the exchange, and charged the Misharian üzbashi Elbay with the whole task. From the Djun-Kala Elbay went towards the exchange, but suddenly the Ars attacked the ship right in front of his eyes, and killed all that were in it. While Elbay was raising his hundred who were guarding the restored balik, the Ars disappeared. Was seized only one, without his tongue, left intentionally behind by the Ars. He was identified as a run-away kara-chirmysh. Djurgi executed the Ars on the spot as soon as they returned to him, and turned over to Hakim their corpses. They were also identified as the runaways. The Ulugbek was misled by it all, and informed the Kan about the death of the djuras from the hands of the run-away robbers. And the whole affair was finished with it, not including that Chelbir, upset with my imaginary death, ordered to turn over the captured Djuketun boyar Iliya into the Bayram’s hands. He wanted to give him to the Uruses for a ransom, but the Shambutians, learning about it, came to him and ransomed the boyar. Coming home, they tied the hated enemy to the Khud-Imen tree and finished him off him, setting up an axe throwing competition into Iliya...
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The envoy from Djurgi was Vasyl, whom he hated but could not remove for the lack of the strength and fear of the mutiny. Before the Bat-Aslap’s raid, Djurgi sent the Vasyl with his Djirians and a part of the Balyns to the Kolyn to distract the Nukrat’s fleet. And in fact, with the arrival of Vasyl, Mer-Chura immediately summoned the fleet, and the Balynians could land at the Uchel without any deterrence. The Bek, however, told his djuras: “Djurgi sent us for a slaughter. We need to contact Sadyk, he will help us to save”. Before, Vasyl informed me about the forthcoming attack, and I secretly asked Sadyk to take care of the saving the Kushtandin’s son. Sadyk contacted Nukrat, and he let through the ship of Vasyl marked with a special banner. The salchibashy was sinking only the Balynian ships, enabling the Djirians, who were sailing in the tail end, headed by the Vasyl’s two loyal djuras, to come out to the bank and surrender. Nobody knew, certainly, about our arrangement with Vasyl. The captured Djirians accepted Islam, and the Kan gave them the rights of the kara-moslems and settled them in the Kashan from the Nukrat-su to the Misha. And the Vasyl’s djuras were called Metka and Betka, and two Kashanian streams received their name. And the kara-moslems had the rights of ak-chirmyshes, and the Djirians were saying that in the State they found the kind country about which they’ve heard from the fairy tales about a happy life. They adopted from us all the best and in their religious devotion even surpassed some Kashan people. Without any directions, the kara-moslems built a good road from the Bet-su on the Agidel to the Met-su near the Mishi, where they erected a city with earthen rampart Met-Kala or Echke-Kashan. By this road, by which were tracked wood, furs, honey, wax and other goods, were set up many excellent taverns with store stands and baths. And Chelbir was so pleased with the kara-moslems that he said once: “I would easily exchange all my Ars for the one tenth quantity of the Djirian Ulchians”.

After concluding in the Kazan the treaty with the Balyn, the Kan turned entirely to the east. Through some merchants, he succeded in establishing a contact with the son of Chingiza Juchi, who was given the Kypchak part of the Tataria. Juchi was unhappy with it and pretended to the Khoresm, Persia and all Saklanian mountains. Chelbir promised to support him in that, and to help solidify his power in the Kypchak, and in exchange secured his consent to abstain from the direct support of the Tatarian claims against the State. After Chingiz enjoined to call Menkhol the whole Kaganate, Juchi retained for his Kypchaks the Chin’s name “Tatars”. In addition to them he had 10 thousand Menkhols, and they were the most brave of the Tatars, well tempered in the wars with the Kypchaks, Türkmens, and the white and black Kyrgyzes. He liked that the Bulgars called Kuk Jorty the former Sabanian lands in the Kypchak, and he also began to call this intrinsic part of the Kypchak. But the Tatars called so only the Great Khan’s land, and Chingiz started to suspect his son of an aspiration to become higher than him. The other son of the Great Khan, Ugyatay, acting to gain a recognition as his successor, quickly percieved the Juchi plans and, not telling about it to anybody, began to incline his father to an attack on the Saklan Mountain and the State, with the purpose of interrupting these plans. Chingiz agreed to send to the West his best commander Subyatay with three tumens, that is in the Hons’ language 30 thousand warriors. And in the Hons’ language the “tima” meant “10 thousand”.

One half of the Tatars was armed, as our kazanchis, and another as kursybays. And in the State were 6 thousand kazanchis and 5 thousand kursybays, and 14 thousand of the suvarchi militiamen, who had the arms equal with the kursybays. All the others, about 25 thousand ak-chirmyshes, had even worse armors.

But in addition to the armors the Tatars had brave hearts, which knew not a pity, and among them never were undisciplined or tired men. Each of them knew that if he would not harden, would not subordinate, or get tired, he would be killed on the spot. They were divided into tens, hundreds, thousands and tumens. For the cowardice in the battle of one were killed tens, for the cowardice of ten were killed a hundred and so on. And their executions were so cruel that I, having seen everything, could not watch through the end not even one, for in comparison with them even the worst death in a battle was a pleasure. The Tatars were forbidden to deflect their sights or somehow express their feelings, therefore the Tatars observed the seen by me executions in full silence and with passionless faces. And they held to such atrocity from the time as Chingiz uttered: “The cruelty is the only thing that keeps an order, which is the basis for the prosperity of the state. This means, more cruelty, more order, which entails more wellbeing”. And he also said: “Tangra himself enjoined our state to rise, and his will cannot be understood by a reason. The cruelty should exceed the limits of the reason, for only this will help the realization of the Almighty will”...
And the Tatars hated Islam, because they thought that Moslems, who joyfully parted with life during jihad, were dangerous to them. And, in contrast, they loved the Christianity and the faith of the Hins, which called to humility and compassion, for the believed that their followers were weak and ready for submission to them...
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For a murder of a noble they killed all the underlings, and for the murder of a leader they killed all people. Once the Menkholian tribe of Tatars, by which name the Chins called all the Menkhols in memory of their former domination above all of them, killed the father of Chingiz; and for it all Tatars were exterminated, including women and children. And from that time on they called Tatars all those non-Menkhols who served them and who they were sending in the battles to their death ahead of themselves. And these serving Tatars shouted in the battle ”Tatar! Tatar!”, which meant: “All those who would not subordinate to Menkhol will be exterminated, as were the Tatars”... We called the Menkhols “Tatars” in the Chinian, and they, in Kumanian, called us “Besermёns”.

In the wars they did not spare neither women, nor children, therefore they did not have enough women and the debauchery was considered normal and casual. Homosexuality and bestiality did not concern them. Their robberies and violence they did only with permission, and their whole division used in turns all the seized children, women and young men. The Tatars never washed, like Kypchaks, for it was prohibited by their laws. The habit to obedience made them restrained and stupid, even though some of their leaders preserved the hospitality, and thoughtfulness, and other qualities.
In the military questions, for them the main authority was Emir Subyatay, and the supreme military title of the bakhadir, which was given only to the natural Menkhols, in the military councils equaled him with Chingiz and his descendants. The Chingizids regarded themselves as the masters of the whole world, and resolved the questions of life and existence of the others only from their benefit point of view. Almost all of them were extremely superstitious and did not value anything foreign...

Having received the order to advance to the West, Subyatai passed to the Saklan Mountain with the loss of 2 thousand men, and only in the Gurgjans he met an attempt to put up a strong resistance. Then Subyatai divided the army into three parts. To one part, under the leadership of his eldest son Chambek, he ordered to attack Gurgjians, and by a faked flight to bring them to the second part positioned in a expansive valley, led by the second son Uran-Kytay Bek. It offered to The third part was directed to wait in a gorge between the hills ready for an ambush, and to enter the fight at a needed moment. The Emir, with 5 thousand soldiers, stood at a distance to direct the battle. Chambek managed to bring to the Uran-Kytay’s division the whole 40-thousand Gurdjian army. Uran-Kytay let through to his rear the soldiers of his brother, and began shooting down the Gurgjans lines in a cold blood. In the heat of the chase, they did not stop to rearrange their mingled units, and as a shapeless crowd threw themselves from the run straight on Uran-Kytay. When they reached the archers, the Bek moved forward the swordsmen with heavy arms, and from the rear struck the Gurgjians the ambush Tatars. The fresh and heavily armed warriors hacked down without an effort all surrounded Gurdjian army, and the Tatars only lost 3 thousand fighters. After that Subyatai broke through to the steppe, where near the Kumyk creek he met the Ases, Kumans and the Saksin Tarkhan Bachman, the grandson of As and son of Torekul, who supported them.
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The Kumans, who started the fight, were overturned and took to flight directly through the lines of the Saklans. Those also gave in to the panic, and a part of the Tatars came to the rear of Bachman. The Tarkhan, to escape the strike and to avoid to be surrounded, had to leave through the Djurash into the Gurgjans . Badri, who was delaying the Tatars, was taken prisoner in action.

The Kumans raced to the Bashtu and persuaded the Urusian Beks to go with them against the Tatars, promising them for it to help in the future capture the Khin from the State. To sway the Uruses for a joint raid on the State, Subyatai sent Chambek to the Bashtu, but those, incited by the Kumans, killed him. In a fight on the Kalga creek, 60 thousand Kumans broke the ranks and fled again with horses taken from the Ulchians, and the Kaubuys’s Bek Alish, trying to straighten out the situation, received a fatal wound, and his people disperced. After that 50 thousand Uruses, scared of the excellent fighting abilities of the Tatars, locked up in a fortified camp. Subyatai sent to them Ablas-Khin with the repeat offer for their Beks to come out to talk about a joint campaign on the State. At the same time the bakhadir promised that those who would not come to him will be killed. All the Beks came out, and were immediately tied up. The Emir brought the captives to the fortification and asked them whom to execute for the death of his son, the Beks or their troops? The Beks answered that their soldiers should be killed. After that the bakhadir said to the Uruses: “You’ve heard that your Beks betrayed you. Come out without a fear, for I will execute them for their betrayal of their soldiers, and I will release you”. The Uruses, who were left without their commanders, surrendered. Then Subyatai ordered to put the Beks under the boards of the disassembled camp and offered to the Ulchians: “Your Beks wanted you to go first into the ground: So trample them into the ground for it”. The Uruses marched on the boards and squeezed all the Beks down. After that Subyatai noted that the soldiers who have killed their Beks also do not deserve to live, and ordered to hack up the all the captured...

20 thousand Tatars still remained in the saddles, and the bakhadir with a light heart went against the State. He believed that at that time has Juchi also already invaded the Bulgar from the east, for such was the order of Chingiz. The bakhadir forced Ablas-Khin to lead him directly to the center of the State, but through his djura the Bek managed to notify the Kan that he is leading the Tatars to the Kermek. Chelbir, having received an assurance from Juchi that he would not invade the State, drew immediately near the Kermek with 5 thousand kursybays, 3 thousand Bulgarian militiamen of Tetesh, the son of Dayr, 6 thousand kazanchis and 10 thousand Bashkorts.
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In front of the city in the middle of the field were a few groves, in which posed the suvarchian archers with iron arrows and large bows. The shooters also took positions behind the wagons arranged into a circle. In front of the field was a deep gorge, the cavalry stationed behind it: first were the Bashkorts, behind them in front of the archers were kursybays, and behind the groves were the kazanchis...

Near the Idel, Subyatai questioned the correctness of the direction, and tried to turn to the north, but run into the Simbirsk rampart and was repelled. Then the Tatars tried to go south, but run into the Arbugian rampart and were also beaten off, losing at that one thousand men. Only after that the Menkholian bakhadir, cautious as a wolf, arranged with the Rus fishermen, who happen to be there, to ferry them, and sent his son forward to scout. Uran-Kytay with 3 thousand Tatars and 14 thousand Türkmen and Kumans, out of the 50 thousand who joined them, crossed the Idel and proceeded unworried to the vicinities of the Kermek. Finding nobody on the way, he informed his father that the way is open. Subyatai also crossed the river and followed his son. But as soon as Uran-Kytay began to accend from the gorge the field, the cavalry began to fire at him. Not baffled at all, he raced forward and broke through the Bashkorts’ lines into the field. Here he was already met by the kursybays and was unpleasantly struck that their arms were not any worse than the arms of the majority of the Tatars. Uran-Kytay had time to send a messenger to his father with a request for a reinforcement. The Menkholian bakhadir, surprised a little, sent another 2 thousand Tatars with heavy arms and 23 thousand Türkmen and Kumans, when he suddenly received a news from the Urus fishermen about an approach of the Nukrat’s fleet. A bad gut feeling had crept into the soul of Subyatai, but nevertheless he hung on for one more messenger from the son. He again asked for reinforcements, and the Menkholian yaubashi understood that he fell into a trap. Without sending a single man more, he rushed back and barely had time to cross the Idel under the nose of Nukrat.

Uran-Kytay, girded by the reinforcements, could break through lines of the kursybays and came under the bombardment from the groves and from the behing of the wagons. Noting that the suvarchian arrows punch even the armors of his best troops, the Bek obstinately was going ahead nevertheless, until he collided with the kazanchis of the Kan himself. Those drove him again back to the field, where were working away the archers. Though the way back was open, no Tatars leave the battlefield, knowing that for the return without the commander they will be immediately and terribly executed. At last, the Bashkorts and the kursybays closed the ring of encirclement around the enemy. At that moment one arrow killed the Uran-Kytay’s horse, and it fell and pinned him down. The Bek, seeing that it is all over, with a hoarsely shout ordered the soldiers to surrender. The Kan, having received a message from Nukrat about the Subyatay’s readiness to enter negotiations, ordered to stop the massacre... Of the Tatars on that field, 4 thousand were killed, and one thousand with Uran-Kytay himself was taken prisoner. We lost 3 thousand Bashkorts and kursybays, 350 Bulgarian archers and 150 kazanchis. In the turmoil of this battle Ablas-Khin could run to us, he was brought to the Kan and received immediately the title of Emir from him.
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Subyatay expected the worst, for beyond the Idel, in front of him, was the indestructible Kan, and behind him loomed the Arbugians, barely contained by the Mardanian Tarkhan Ünus, the son of Elaur. Nevertheless Chelbir, mindful of the damage to Juchi, allowed the Menkholian bakhadir to take the remains of his army through the Sarychin crossing, and even gave him the captives. To tell the truth, the Kan did not deny himself of a pleasure to mock the beaten Tatars, and ordered to take one ram for every captive, and for Uran-Kytay, as the especially dumb, ten rams. Immediately, on the bank, in front of the eyes of the humiliated Tatars, the Bulgars had a feast and ate all the rams, and that’s why this battle has received the name “Baranian” (“Ram battle”- Translator’s Note)…

Under the protection of Ablas-Khin the Tatars were pulled out from the State to beyond the Djaik. At the farewell, Subyatai silently handed over to him his sword and immediately whipped his horse...

Learning about the departure of the Tatars, Bachman returned to the Saksin from the Gurdjian Khondjak province, and that with the fight, for the Gurgjians did not want to let him pass with his arms...

Juchi gave his father as excuse that he was busy handling the Kypchak affairs. In 1225 he defeated the Ak-Oimek Khan Karabash. Before that the Khan in every possible way kowtowed to Juchi, and even trounced the embassy of the Khorezmian Emir, sent to the Kan for the help. Gali, who was in the ambassadorial caravan, was taken prisoner and for some years wandered in the steppes with the Kypchaks. The Oimeks, upon learning that he is a storyteller, did not let Karabash to turn him over to the Tatars. Because the Kypchaks thought as inadmissible to do evil to the chichens, who, as they believed, could talk with the sky and consequently were saints. Gali composed for Oimeks a few songs, which I have heard from them. And the seid, after the time of his incarceration in the Alabuga, began to call himself Kul-Gali, as a sign of his sympathy for the oppressed people and his position...
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