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Chapter 1. Relationship of Bulgar and Kypchak during strong Tatar Khans

And this I drew from “Bu-Yurgan kitaby”, also called “Kazan tarihy”. It was written by our outstanding sheikh Mohammedyar, and it said the following:

”... In 1262 Berkai (Berke), weighted down by a humiliating role of a great Tatar Khan's viceroy in the Kypchak Yorty (Kypchak Khanate), seceded his realm from the Chin (Ariq Böke Great Khan, 1260–1264, China, “Yuan Dynasty”, established by Kublai Khan, 1259–1368), the territory of the Great Khan. After that all Tatars left the Kypchak (Kypchak Khanate), and their place occupied Kypchaks in the service of the Djuchi Tatar dynasty, who started to be called “Tatars”. In fact, the word “Tatar” meant “hired person ready to die for the Khan”. Since then, in the Kypchak (of Kypchak Khanate) began dominating the Kuman speech, and the writing started to be in the “Turan Tele”, and the Kypchaks had achieved their dream, put Ruses into dependency through the Djuchids (Djuchid is an Oguric form, in the non-djoking Oguz dialect it is spelled “Juchi-Juchids”, used thereof).

After the separation of the Juchids, Emir Hisam (Khisam Anbal, 1135-1164) refused to recognize dependence from the Kypchak (Kypchak Khanate), unlike the Ruses, for in contrast with the Rus, the Bulgar was in a favorable alliance with the Chin (Great Khan Ariq Böke). An elite Tatar corps of Burildai stood between Idel and Djaik (Djaik is an Oguric form, in the non-djoking Oguz dialect it is spelled “Yaik”, used thereof. The Oguric form Djaik ~ Daix was the form used by Herodotus, testifying that the contemporary Scythians spoke the Oguric form of the Türkic) and did not allow Kypchaks to attack directly the Bulgarian state. Then Berkai (Berke) ordered the Rus Beks, who used to submit to Bulgar, to attack our merchants and viceroys. The Ruses plundered our merchants and viceroys in the cities of Balyn and Djir, and in Djir they tore apart into pieces our chief viceroy Gazi-Baba.

Emir Hisam decided to endure that with cringed teeth, but the Yaldau's son Tuhchi-Ismail, eager for power, loudly accused him of cowardice and advanced from Djuketau on Bolgar. But when Djiku, as the Tatars called Ismail, broke into Bolgar, he found that Hisam has already passed away (d. 1164). The scared Beks immediately raised him to the throne.

Boyan-Mohammed at once returned to Kazan, but only to die there.
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His son Laish inherited him. Naryk, the son of Bachman, remained as Ulugbek in the city Kamysh-Samar on the Kinel river of the Samar province, as the province Bellak began to be called. And the province Suvar was divided between the provinces Bolgar and Samar. Burildai concluded an agreement with our people that Kamysh-Samar would not be fortified, for his Tatars were mindful of nearby strong fortresses. And these Tatars were called “Bulgarian Tatars” by everybody, and they themselves were proud of that name...

A part of the Gülistan quarter of the Bolgar within the Echke Bulgar (Old Bulgar, the oldest part of the Bolgar city was called Old city or Old Bulgar), also called Sain’s Uram or Yard, and also the area with magnificent pastures between the rivers Honturcha (Kondurcha, with “-cha” being a form of “-chai” = “river”) and Sok, belonged to the Chin (Mongol rulers). There laid the ruins of the Turchy fortress, which Tatars called “Bolgar”. By yielding these areas, Gazi-Baradj at the time prevented a conversion of the Bulgarian state into the category of the countries dependent of Chin, with the accompanying tribute payment and rulers' voyages for the appointments. The Bulgar state remained an independent ally of the Chin (Mongol Great Khan), but for this the Bulgar state had no right to interfere with the life of the Tatar areas, and even had to pay the travel duty for crossing them, or for pasturing cattle in their lands. The Chin ambassador (Bashkak, commissioners and high commissioners sent to the conquered country, a viceroyal) to the Bulgar Burildai, and Bagrim (?) owned these areas and in the Sain’s Uram were minted coins for the Kypchak (Kypchak Khanate). When Ismail once asked him why he mints coins for the rebellious Kypchak (Kypchak Khanate), he answered: “What if we stop minting them? Kypchak (Kypchak Khanate) will organize its own mint. But now everyone sees that the Kypchak (Kypchak Khanate) coins are minted in Great Bogar in the Chin (Mongol Great Khann) mint, and feels respect for the Great Khan of the Tatars”.

And the coins minted our Bulgar masters, the Chin highly enumerated their work, for the Tatars and Kypchaks did not know this art at all. The same masters or their relatives minted the Bulgar coins in the Bulgarian quarter Men Bulyar, where stood a beautiful stone caravan-sarai “Men Bulyar”...

After Berkai (Berke) captured the Bulgarian dependencies Rus Bekliks, and posted there his Bashkaks (The early form of Pasha, before the palatalized reduction Bashkak > Pasha, title known from Horesm in pre-Mongol times, record of 1213AD), the Galidj received from the Khan (Berke) a sanction to a war with the Bulgarian state, and invaded the Biysu province. The war was very difficult for us, as both Bulymer (Vladimir) and Balyn helped the Galigians, and our forces were disjointed...

Bulgaria ca.1050

In 1267, after the death of Berkai (Berke), Galimbek captured the (Bulgarian) Emir’s throne, but in 1277 he was overturned by Ismail, who immediately sent ambassadors to the (Egypt) Sultan Bibarys (Baibars, 1260–1277). The Sultan, from the Bulgarian Badjanaks, was captured by the Kumans during their attack on the Bagcha-Bolgar (Bagchasarai/Bakhchisarai), and was initially sold to the Rumians (Byzantians), and then to the Mamil (Egypt) merchants...

This embassy extremely alarmed Tatars, but Sultan did not help his compatriots in time...

In a heat of the war, the Kypchak (Kypchak Khanate) commander Korym-Timur managed to incite Burildai to betray the Chin and come to the Kypchak service. Kalmak, a brother Burildaia, vainly tried to resist this madness: the Bashkak (Burildai) ordered to tie him down and threw him into zindan. And the name Kalmak came from the Tatar name for the river Kalga, where Subyatai (Subutai, Sübeedei) crushed the Ruses and Kumans. The Kalmak's father was proud in his participation in that battle, and named his son after the river.

Having learned about that, the new Kypchak Khan Mankai, a hater of the Islam, did not slack: he quickly assembled in the field 120 thousand of his Kypchak Tatars and 40 thousand Ruses, and through the possessions of the traitor Burildai invaded Bulgar (1278?). Our friends the “Bulgarian Tatars”, indignant of the their favorite Kalmak punishment, refused to fight against the Bulgarian state, but still the force was on the side of the enemies. Ismail, realizing that the Kypchaks would not dare to pass through the Chin's areas, went to the half completed new Bulyar fortress Tatyak to meet the enemy. There with him managed to gather 15 thousand cossacks (unarmored cavalry), mostly the Bashkortian hotshots, and the citadel was protected by 700 Nur-Suvarian infantrymen. The enemy surrounded the army of Emir, and for a whole week they valorously fought. No Bulgars abandoned the battlefield, all fighters laid their heads together with their Emir. The son of Tuhcha-Ismail hid in the Chally.

Enraged by the loss of 50 thousand Kypchak Tatars and 20 thousand Ruses, Korym-Timur streamed through the Agidel (r. White) with an intention to devastate the Kashan (presently a ghost city on Kama river, at the confluence of Kama and Vyatka rivers, 56°N 51°E, identical with the name Kashan for the Atil-Kuzu/Moldova area and the Inner Asia lying between the Aral Sea, Balkhash, and Pakistan) and Kazan. The Kypchaks already slaughtered one million Bulgars in the Cheremshan (province), and expected to hack the people beyond the Agidel. But there, while attempting to take the Chally, Korym-Timur received an iron arrow in the eye, and his soul went straight to hell. In memory of that, from that time the Chally was frequently called Korym-Chally. That malfeasant's Kypchaks, numbering up to 20 thousand, initially dispersed in the Kashan province, but about 2 thousand Kashan cossacks and 10 thousand armed subashes (farmers equal in status to nomadic warriors ~ knights) ruthlessly hacked the terrified to insanity enemies. At the Djuketau and Yar Chally Kypchaks did not know what to do, when suddenly to them arrived a messenger from the Bolgar with a news about acession to the Bulgarian throne of the Emir Galimbek, and the consent of the new Bulgarian state's ruler to render a tribute to Kypchak. As a shapeless crowd, the Kypchaks immediately retreated to their steppe, together with 5 thousand of mounted Rusian Beks and Boyars, abandoning the Rus infantrymen to the mercy of a fate. Headed by a certain Khalib (As-Khalib was a Bulgarian name for the Norman Askold, probably pointing to his princely descent and the Scandinavian princely As tribe), they intended to pass to the Rus through the Bolgar, but at the city Nukrat (modern Vyatka) on the border of the Bulgar and Cheremshan provinces they were surrounded by a detachment of Gazan’s son Kul-Burat and Yar Challynians, and here ended their earthly way...
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A significant part of the country was devastated. 40 cities and 600 settlements were completely destroyed.

The number of killed five times exceeded the death toll in Bulyar in 1236, and there the Tatars slaughtered 200 thousand people. Such losses the Bulgarian state suffered only during the Idegei invasions...

But the disasters did not end there. Soon after the Tatyak War, Galimbek's son Bulak ousted Laish from Kazan. He left to Agidel and there founded a city Laish. At that time Kazan was terribly devastated and from her remained only the suburb Akbikul, so she sometimes began to be called Akbikul. Bulak moved majority of the Kazanians to the Echke-Kazan (Old Kazan, kalga/citadel Ar-Kala/Archa-Balik), which became the center of the Gazi-Baradj “Azanids” (“Azanlylar”) descendants' possessions in the Western Bulgar. The descendants of Yaldau, “Ashrafids” (“Ashrafilar”), retained the Eastern Bulgar with Cheremshan and Bashkort, with the center in Djuketau (Rus. Jukotin < Tukhchin = Tukhchi, 55.5°N 50.6°E) (Bulgaria divided into Western Bulgar and Eastern Bulgar, ca. 1279?).

And the Khan Mankai, shocked by the death of his father-in-law Korym-Timur, wanted to repeat the attack on Bulgar and wipe our Bulgar state from the face of the earth. He was also prodded by Burildai, the only Tatar who participated in the Tatyak slaughter. The Bashkak wanted to take all Bulgar lands, but he met an opposition of the Khan Nogai, who was unhappy with the Mankai rule and was himself coveting the Burildai possessions. Since without a good third of the Kypchaks under the Nogai's command the campaign could not be started, at first it was postponed, and then abandoned completely. In ten years after the Tatyak War, at the turning point of the battle between Kypchak and Persia for Azerbaijan, Burildai and Nogai were thrown against the Persian Tatars. In a terrible fight, Nogai suddenly abandoned the battlefield, and the Persian Tatars got even with the Chin’s (Mongol Great Khan) traitor Burildai, crushing him under the hoofs of their horses. Nogai received the Burildai's possessions, for the “Bulgarian Tatars” that survived the Azerbaijan battle freed their beloved Kalmak from confinement, and departed back to the Chin (Mongol Great Khan). Our merchants very soon located their new possessions there, and tried to travel to the Chin through their lands, for Kypchaks did not forget their old homeland, and welcomed them as their close relatives. In memory of Kalmak, they were called Kalmaks, though sometimes they also with pride called themselves “Bulgarian Tatars”, and merchants were saying that they were dreaming of returning within the limits of Bulgar. These people are very cordial, and in battle with their extraordinary steadfastness and a complete contempt for the death they are like our people. And the Nogai’s Kypchaks, who replaced the “Bulgarian Tatars”, began to be called Kara-Kalpaks. And they are the very first braves out of the Kyrgyzes (Kyrgyzes were a dominant ethnicity in Kazakhstan until 1200s, when Khitans/Kidans took over, but Kyrgyzes retained their supremacy till the Oirat genocide in the 1680s, thus under the name Kyrgyzes are meant their Kazakh subjects), but in the fight they get carried away and consequently frequently suffer because of their lack of caution. They lived amicably with our people, but ten - twelve years later, the Nogai’s situation was shaken and Kara-Kalpaks fell on hard times...

In 1292 the aged Galimbek, with the consent of the ambassador Tadjun, was replaced by Ismail’s son Mohammed-Alam. Tadjun was Khan Tohta’s brother, who with Nogai’s assistance came to power in 1291. And we called him Tudjun, i.e. the “Ambassador” in Bulgarian, and he also called himself Dair, in honor of the Bulgarian bathhouse where he liked to spend his time. And Tadjun was kind to us, and after the beginning of Rus mutiny against Kypchak, at the request of Mohammed-Alam, obtained from the Khan (Tohta) consent for the Bulgar to again resume collecting the Djir tribute, and djizya from the Serbiys. And the Djir tribute for the Bulgarian state territories seized by the Ruses was tripled...

The Serbiys, as Mankai called the kara-chirmyshes (chirmysh - lightly armed warrior of the third line, aka guzar/gusar/hussar and aydar/aidar) and the Ars of the Mountain Side (high west bank of Itil), who were forsaking their right to tribute (their portion of the Djir tribute, or refusing to pay the tribute to ?), began paying again the mosque tax. In exchange for these concessions, Emir volunteered to help Tadjun forces led by Adam-Türyai to suppress the Rus mutiny.

In that campaign the our soldiers, headed by the Burat's son Kukchi, did not allow any Kyrgyz of the beloved Baskak (Tadjun) to draw the bow bowstrings, they have done it all themselves. Burning with a hatred to the infidels for the destruction of the Cheremshan and the loss of almost all the Biysu province except for the Kolyn (Russ. Khvalynsk, modern Vyatka/Kirov) district, Kukchi with his Cossacks, Ishtyaks, and Bashkorts first took the Bulymer (Vladimir), and then the Balyn (Galich?), Djurgi (Yurievsk), Mer-Sula, Amat (small town near border of Galidj-Novgorod), Ulak, Mosha (Moscow?), Gulyam, a total of 14 cities. As the infidel Kypchaks were forbidden to plunder the churches, we did it for them, with the same diligence as the Uruses plundered the mosques. All men with weapons were killed on the spot, except for merchants and artisans, and the women and children were captured.

The ambassador’s Kyrgyzes, and these were not the sleazy and treacherous Kumans, but the straight-forward and brave Kuk-Hordians (belonged to the Blue Horde, i.e. Kuk-Horde), whom our people always treated with great respect, could only be amazed by the military valor of the Bulgars. Adam-Türyai fled. In his honor, Kukchi named his son Adam, for Bek was not at all a coward, and dared to go against the hated by the Bulgars Kypchak. Uncounted booty has been taken. Just for the what was taken in Bulymer, Emir restored Bulyar under a name of Bulymer (renaming Bulyar to Bulymer/Vladimir ca 1293). A part of the booty went for the constructions in the Bolgar, Djuketau and Chally. In honor of the victory, Emir dubbed himself “Bulümar”, and Tadjun took a nickname “Undurt” (“Fourteen [cities]”). Later, he became a Bashkak in the Bolgar. We began collecting again the tribute from Djir and Kan. The Galidjites got scared, returned the east part of the Biysu to the Bulgar, and also started paying tribute to the Bulgar for the occupied areas of the Biysu. The Narykers (from Samara in the Bellak province) then forced the Kisanians (Ryazan) to pay to him a tribute for the Bellak’s lands taken by them, and were receiving this tribute until 1521, when Kisan (Ryazan) was captured by the Ruses...
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 And during Mohammed-Alam time the Bolgar city started expanding into a huge city, because many inhabitants of Nur-Suvar and other cities devastated during the wars moved there. The Ashrafids built there stone buildings, and the Azanids did not, because they thought that the capital should not be decorated while it is paying a tribute to Kypchak, and that the distressful state of the Bulgar will be judged by the poor state of Bolgar. But in their own possessions, they nevertheless built of stone and brick...

And even earlier, for the construction of the Kypchak capital Sarai, against the payment for the damage during the Gali war (?), we prepared many stones. But suddenly, they began building of brick there, and “El-Hum” began installing these stones not only the on the Seids' and governors' tombs, but also for anyone who wanted it...

In the Bolgar, of stone were built the Emirs' palace “Kazyi Yorty”, mosque “Ismaildan” with a tall minaret in honor of Ismail, five bathhouses, a caravan-sarai “Men Bulyar”, and many mausoleum tombs: “Gabdulla” on the northern side, “Mohammed” on the eastern side, “Ismaildan”, and others...

And during Tohta time was instituted free trade, and we began dominating the trade in the Rus and in the Kara-Kypchak (either Western Kypchak or Kypchak-dependent tribes). Besides, the growing need of the Kypchak and Rus in bread allowed the old agricultural areas to prosper again, and Uzbek (Khan, 1313–1341) finished with the infidel murzas (apparently, Tengrians) engaged in robberies. All that allowed a significant part of the country to be prosperous, although the weight of the unorderly Kypchak tribute began to show even during the Uzbek time.

In 1307 Mohammed-Alam drowned during sailing over his possessions, and Kasim-Bulak was raised to the Emir throne. The younger son of Mohammed-Alam, Ismail-Galim, wanted to ascend the throne, but Mohammed-Alam senior son Yusuf did not allow infighting, and supported Kasim. Therefore, Bulak (Kasim-Bulak) allowed Yusuf to remain in Bolgar and honored him as a Seid. However, Yusuf mostly lived in Urnash, which after the death of his favorite daughter Kühri was renamed to Kühri...

Then in the Sain Yorty a Bashkak was Akmal, who sympathized with the Bulgarian state, but with a gain for himself. Thus, he was closely watching for the timely payments of the Djir, Galidj and Kan tributes to the Bulgarian state (Djir, Novgorod, and Murom), but negotiated a part of it for himself. Once, when the tribute was late, Akmal allowed punishing the guilty, and Kukcha with a thousand Cossacks took Balukta (?) without a fight, demolished the Kush-Urma (Kostroma) and Djir, and by that forced the Rus Beks to renew the payment of the tribute to the Bulgar. However, Kasim once completely fell out with the Bashkak Akmal, because that attempted to increase a little his take from the Djir tribute. The Kypchak Khan Uzbek, by an invitation of Kasim, personally came to the Bolgar to resolve this dispute. Before his arrival, for the pleasure of the Khan, Ismail-Galim dismantled the surviving Bulyar Kuk-muncha (Blue bath house) and rebuilt it in Bolgar. Kasim was absent from the capital then, and when he arrived upon the call of the Khan (Uzbek), he learned that Uzbek recognized the son Mugallim Fazyl Bulüm-Orda of the crafty Ismail-Galim as an Emir. This decision was influenced by the complaint of the Cheremshanian (Ismail-Galim) that Bulak (Kasim-Bulak) does not care at all about betterment of Bolgar and the construction of new mosques...

Two Rus Beks also came there to be tried by the Khan...

Kasim initially was offended, but nevertheless went together with Bulüm-Orda to see the Khan off. When they came to Honturcha (Hondurcha/Kondurcha) and were already in the Kypchak area, Khan ordered to execute both Rus Beks. Then Akmal said to Bulak: “do you think that you were dealt with unfairly? But these Rus Beks were executed for arguing with Bashkaks”. However, to not deserve a bad fame as a Khan’s informer, Akmal attained from Uzbek a liquidation of the Bashkakship in Bolgar, and conversion of the Bashkakship to daruga (administrative subdivision headed by darughachi). The Bashkakship possessions, held as Kypchak possessions, remained under a direct control of the daruga in Bolgar ...

In 1340, after seventeen years of his rule, Bulüm-Orda died in his “Kazyi Yorty”, mourned by the strongly expanded during his reign “El-Hum”. After the death of Akmal, the daruga became the son of the Khan (Uzbek), Djanibek, a friend of the infidels. When Mugallim started a construction of the mosque “El-Hum”, after the erection of the minaret had already started, it turned out that a part of the mosque building was on the lot of Sain Yorty. Despite of all negotiations and gifts, Djanibek refused to reconvey that section to the mosque, and only the minaret “El-Hum” was built (apparently, No 8 “Lesser minaret” on the map). It was rumored that Emir did not endure such a humiliation, he fell ill and died.

After that Djanibek attained an approval for the Kasim's son Mir-Mahmud to be installed in Bolgar.

The (Khan) Uzbek ambassador Hyzyr, also the son of the Khan, who investigated this affair, indicted Djanibek, and for that he was later killed by Djanibek at Honturcha. (Khan) Uzbek by that time has died (1313–1341), and the crime not was discovered.

After that Djanibek, upon becoming a Khan, appointed his son Berdibek a head of the Kypchak Nogai Horde, and Berdibek managed to appoint Bek Tagyl as the Bulgarian daruga. Tagyl, a descendant of Mergen, has never forgotten about the Bulgarian roots of his clan, at that time he owned a part of Seber (aka Deber, connected with r. Deber-su, present r. Sviyaga, area of Murom and Nijni Novgorod, former names Kan and Djun-Kala). He sympathized with Mugallim son Chally-Mohammed, and Chally-Mohammed with his help hired a gang of Nogais as a cover, and sent them with his detachment against Bolgar-city.
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In the head of the group was appointed Türe Alai of the Bashkort-city. Bashkort is located west of Djuketau, at the mouth of Dyau-Shir (present river Yaushirma in the Chistopol region of Tatarstan, 55.4° N 50.6°E). In 1183 it was an aul Sarsazy, and Ruses disembarked near the aul and busted it. One part of the inhabitants, trying to escape, drowned in Agidel, and another tried to flee to the Tukhchi or Djuketau, but was hacked down by the infidels. After that, Chelbir erected there a fortress under command of Bek Altysh, who fell into disgrace, and who in 1172 defeated Myshdauly. A son of Altysh, the Chally Vali Vasyl, founded the fortress Yar Chally, which also began to be called Vasyl-Balik. A Vasyl son Ashan in 1236 set fire to (the aul) Sarsazy and went to Kashan (presently a ghost city on Kama river, at the confluence of Kama and Vyatka rivers, 56°N 51°E, identical with the name Kashan for the Atil-Kuzu/Moldova area and the Inner Asia lying between the Aral Sea, Balkhash, and Pakistan), but later he restored the fortress. In 1278 Sarsazy was furiously defended by the Bashkorts under a command of Türe Khalik, a son of Ashan. They never let the Korym-Timur's Tatars to cross there to the Kashan side of the Agidel. In memory of that, Mohammed-Alam had given the fortresses the name Bashkort...

A Khalik son Yakub took the Rus city Asyl during the Tudjun war and re-christened it with the name of his son. In 1346 Asyl and Adam defeated a detachment of 600 Galidjites-robbers, who were sailing under a pretense of guarding the Rus’ tribute to the Kypchak. In the action, Adam received a fatal wound. Asyl spared the captured and, upon receiving a ransom from the Galidj for them, released them. In memory of that, Asyl took the name of the leader of the robbers, Boyar’s son Ebrem, and Ebrem took the name of the Asyl’s ancestor Vasyl...

Mir-Mahmud defeated the detachment of Alai and, exploiting that Alai attacked him from the Honturcha side, accused in the attack the Naryk descendant Chura-Koch and went against him...

And Naryk died being the Ulugbek of the Samara il of the Bulgarian state. His son the Mir-Ibragim received his name in memory of his grandfather Bachman, who bore a Muslim name Ibragim. A son of Mir-Ibragim was Yusuf, a son of Yusuf was Ar-Hudja, the father of Chura-Koch. This Ar-Hudja as a head of the guards went with the Mugallim’s ambassador Mahmud ibn Gali to the Misr (Egypt) to the Misr Sultan, the protector of the devout. And this embassy was reciprocal, for first the ambassador of the Misr Sultan visited Bulgar. But he was not allowed to pass to the Bolgar, for Uzbek proclaimed: “I want Misr to exchange ambassadors only with me”. The Misr ambassador was only allowed to pray in the Turchy-Bolgar place (location?) in the Kypchak possession, under a supervision of the (Uzbek) Khan’s people. Although, he there met the richest Kamyshan merchant Salar, who was passing to Bolgar with a caravan, and with him sent the message of his Sultan to the Bulgar Emir. And Mahmud ibn Gali was the grandson of Khafiz (Guardian of Koran, who memorized Koran by heart) of Tetesh and Bolgar and... the head of the “El-Hum” brotherhood. And a Salar son Saif was the head of his father’s trading house in the Bolgar, where he studied in the founded by the Emir medrese (madrasah) “Mohammed-Alamia”. He also received lessons from the famous sheikh Masud, who was a munadjim (astrologist) in the Bolgar...

Sheikh Masud, at the request of the merchants, went to determine the day and night time in the Nukrat (modern Vyatka) and on the river Biy-su. And he once told his pupils that there, in the desert, he found one aul...

Near that aul was a large lake, and in the lake was an island with a single tree.The Kahin (كَهِنٌ‎‎ Arab. seer, prophet, foreteller, diviner) lead a naked girl with a fistful of earth in her hand a few times around the tree, and the men present there in turns copulated with her. After that, the girl was dipped into the water. When I asked Kahin what that meant, he explained to me: “The Tree is the Sun, and the girl going around it is the Earth. The Earth is impregnated by the Sun. We want the Earth to be fertile and should tell it to the Sun. The Sun does not understand the human language and consequently we have to show that we want it to impregnate the Earth, as the people impregnated the girl”. When I noted to him that the Sun rotates around the Earth at the will of the Allah, he burst out laughing and said that Urians (Finns, phonetic variation Ar <=> Ur) are the closest of all to the Sun and know better than all. And this story I found in a writing-book of one shakird (student of madrasah) in the archive of my father...

When Mir-Mahmud went against Chura-Koch, who was amicable with Ashrafids, Saif also got into the militia. But on the move Saif told the militiamen: “People! We are committing a crime, for the Bulgars are forbidden to shed the blood of Bulgars! Is not it enough that our blood is spilled by the infidels!” The militiamen thought it out and turned back, despite of the threats of the kazanchis (kazanchis or ulans = median and upper knights of standing army, made into feudal landed barons, called “Boyar children” in the Rus and Russian societies). The campaign was broken up. In a fury, Mir-Mahmud ordered to tie Saif up. However, Saif was warned beforehand, and escaped to the Sarai. His mother was a pagan, a Kyrgyz, and once a crowd of El-Humites demanded from the Saif's father Salar to deliver the infidel into their hands. Afraid for the life of his wife, the merchant took her to Sarai to her father, a noble Bek...

She remained there and was not abandoned, for Salar spent half of his live in Sarai attending to the trading affairs...

When Saif has grown up, his father sent him to study, and then also to work in Bolgar...

Then Berdibek came to power, and Saif was elevated, for the Khan's adviser Tagyl was a relative of the Saif’s mother. But when Berdibek was killed together with Tagyl, Saif had to leave to Misr (Egypt). And Salih, the other son of Salar, who took over into his hands his father's business, was visiting his brother there, and helped him to open a kabak (Türk. “tavern”) for pilgrims and merchants from Bulgar...

В правление Джанибека, когда субаши стали группами уходить в Башкорт и за Агидель (r. White), не желая разоряться, от все возраставшей кыпчакской дани, на земли Кыпчака обрушился невиданный мор. Он шел со стороны Бехташа, и испуганные его угрозой субаши стали сниматься и уходить уже целыми аулами. Вслед за ними стали уходить из городов Внутреннего (Великого) Булгара в Казань, Чаллы и Кашан купцы и мастера. Чтобы паника не охватила страну, Мир-Махмуд был вынужден разрешить всем желающим эчкебулгарцам общинами и цехами переселиться на отведенные для них земли в других областях Булгара во главе со своими шейхами и тюрэ. Половина селян и горожан покинула тогда Эчке Булгар.

During the rule of Djanibek (or Janibek, Jani Beg, 1342–1357), when the subashes (peasants), not wishing to be bankrupted by the ever growing Kypchak tribute, began leaving in droves to the Bashkort and beyond Agidel, on the Kypchak lands fell an unprecedented plague. It came from the Behtash side (apparently in the N.Caucasus between Azov Sea and N.Caspian), and the subashes (peasants), scared by the threat, began to pull their stakes and leave, now by the whole auls (Türk. “village”). After them, from the cities of the Inner (Great) Bulgar began leaving to the Kazan, Chally and Kashan (presently a ghost city on Kama river, at the confluence of Kama and Vyatka rivers, 56°N 51°E, identical with the name Kashan for the Atil-Kuzu/Moldova area and the Inner Asia lying between the Aral Sea, Balkhash, and Pakistan) the merchants and artisans. To prevent the panic from spreading all over the country, Mir-Mahmud had to allow all interested Echke-Bulgarians (from the Old Bolgar section of the Bolgar city, Echke = Old) to move, led by their sheikhs and Türes, by whole communities and guilds to the lands allocated for them in the other areas of Bulgar. Then half of the villagers and townspeople left the Echke Bulgar.
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Bulüm-Orda ca 1323-1340
Mir-Mahmud 1340-
Chapter 2. Time of Azan (1359-ca 1377)
Mountain War
Bi-Omar ca 1377-1422
Gali-bei (Galimbek) 1422-1445?

In 1359 Mir-Mahmud died, and his son Azan-Hasan became Emir. Chally-Mohammed, the Bek of the Cheremshan, refused to obey him. Murza-Timur was then a head of the Nogais, his sister was a beloved concubine of the Kypchak Khan (Berdibek 1357–1359 or Kulpa/Qulpa 1359–1360). Using his position, Murza-Timur demanded Chally-Mohammed to double the Nogai’s part of the Kypchak tribute from Cheremshan. When Bek refused, citing the flight of the people, the Biy treacherously broke into the Djuketau and offered Chally-Mohammed, who hid in the Chally, to ransom the captured city dwellers. The Tatar threatened to otherwise finish off everybody he had seized. The Ashrafid had nothing he could do except to agree, for among the captured also were one thousand of his soldiers, whom before personally fleeing beyond Agidel, the Bek ordered to surrender without a fight in case of the Kypchak attack. At the beginning of the ransom, the city was attacked by the Galidjites of Vasyl, who in the name of the Khan Hyzyr (Uzbek's son Hyzyr was killed ca 1341, who is this Hyzyr?) were called in to help by Murza-Timur himself, in expectation of the Djuketau defenders' resistance. The Tatars, who were in the citadel, immediately fled to the steppe, and Murza-Timur himself was wounded in a leg and became lame. Ttherefore, he began to be called Aksak-Timur. The infidels, without meeting any resistance, busted and plundered the city and hacked everybody who was there. It is said that 25 thousand Bulgars were killed, and that shameful surrender of Djuketau undermined authority and prestige of the Ashrafids for a long time. Angry with disgraceful destruction of the Djuketau soldiers, the Cheremshan Cossacks declared their switch to the service of the Azanids, and in the Cheremshan settled the viceroys of (the Emir) Azan...

Due to the immigrants, Kazan in those years quickly became a huge city. When a majority of the Bolgar inhabitants moved to Kazan, Emir ordered that the new capital was given an appropriate appearance. In two years the builders and 30 thousand kara-chirmyshes erected new walls on the Bogyltau (hill) and connected them with the older fortifications, turning it into a single fortress. The expanded Yugary Kerman began to be also called “Shahri-Gazan”...

At that time, to level off the hill, it was filled with a lot of earth...

Stone was brought from the Bolgar, where a large supply was not needed any more...

After that, Kalgan (suburb) was converted into a caravan-sarai (caravan-serai), which began to be called Buhar Yorty (Bukhara House), and only the Yugary Kerman retained its old name, even though it also received a new one...

As a result of that, the Kazan received an appearance of a fine and powerful city, especially on the Bulak (Spring Creek) side, from where were visible seven spans and eight towers of the fortification wall...

The people preserved about that event such a beit:

Medeh ideek Azanny,
Bin kyiyldy Gazanny...
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Although, when the migrants from the Great Bulgar became a majority of the Kazan inhabitants, they asked Emir to rename Kazan to Bolgar and make it a capital of the Bulgarian state. Azan complied with these appeals, and conferred to Kazan a name “Bolgar al-Djadid” (“New Bolgar”). At the same time, the Kazan was also called “Bolgar”, and the Bolgar was called “Ulug Bolgar” (“Great Bolgar”)...

After that Murza-Timur incited his wife's brother Tagai to attack Samar together. Still during the plaque, Chura-Koch resettled half of the Samar Bulgars to the Simbir side, but the territory was still prospering. When Tagai asked what would happen to him if this would reach the Khan (Nawruzbeg 1360–1361), Murza-Timur laughed and answered: “Our Khan is loony, and his advisers are my big friends. They too will get something from us. And we shall attack under a pretense that Samarans pasture on the Honturcha river and do not pay their duties for the passage. If Samarans will respond that it was not true, nobody would believe them, for the Khan Nauruz Bolgar daruga's Khan Gabdulla is our man”.

These two robbers at night sneaked into the Kamysh-Samar and at a dawn attacked the district. However, for such a case Chura-Koch had a number of hidden and extensive safe places, where tens of thousands dwellers from the city and vicinities fled under protection of his djurs(heavily armed knights) and cossacks (unarmored cavalry). Leaving their settlements, Bulgars were setting their houses on fire, out of a hatred to the Tatars, and small and mobile detachments of the Samara cossacks prevented Nogais from pulling booty from the surviving houses...

The Cheremshan field cossacks (unarmored cavalry), upon seeing the smoke, quickly gathered under the leadership of the Laish grandson and the Kashanian Yusuf's son Saban, and with two thousand men cut into the fifteen thousand Kypchak crowd. Due to this support, Chura-Koch could transport many Kinelians to the Simbir side, covered from the south by the old, but still quite impressive protective ramparts. After losing three thousand Tatars, the two robbers did not get anything, and growling, rushed to Bolgar (i.e. Kazan).

The Kermeks of the Adam's son Garaf, seeing the bandits, sent a messenger to the Great Bolgar, and without hesitation, like Cossacks, blocked the road for the Tatars. Volleys of arrows by the infantry archers from behind the carts tumbled down the hottest Kypchaks. Those from the rear began circumventing the obstacle, but they met the mounted cossacks, who esteemed death in battle for the highest blessing. Then Murza-Timur, having left Tagai with two thousand bandits to tie down the Kermek’s one thousand men, rushed on by another road. Near Kühri, he run into an Azan detachment sent towards him. The kazanchis (kazanchis or ulans = median and upper knights) with militiamen, “timer ukchylar” (Türk. “iron ?…….?”) numbering up to one and a half thousand, started the job as cold-bloodedly as did the Kermeks...
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Murza-Timur, screaming of a fury, retreated to Nukrat (modern Vyatka). There he also was joined by Tagai, who barely managed to flee from Kermekers with half of his troops. Two of them still had 10 thousand fighters remaining, but the confidence left them. Suddenly a Kypchak patrol captured Gabdulla (Bolgar daruga), who at the approach of the biys fled from the Bolgar. He refused to talk to the bandits, but those with him told them about the departure of the last inhabitants from the city. The encouraged Kypchaks rushed to the Bolgar and found there only 500 El-Humites, teachers in the medrese (madrasah) and volunteers from the townspeople and shakirds (pupils), who were burning with desire to send the damned Tatars to hell and to earn the Almighty pardon and favor for their death protecting a stronghold of Islam. The Kypchaks were taking the wall for half a day until finally its last defender had fallen. Breaking into the city, the robbers did not find anything there, and in a fury hacked down into pieces anybody who survived, including 36 instructors of the medrese (madrasah). The custom of including Hon (Hunnic) words in the tombstone inscriptions disappeared with them, for the surviving sheikhs even before that preferred the “Turki” (Türkic literary language active from 13th to 19th cc.). The last defender of the Great Bolgar, covered with wounds dervish Shila, spat in the Murza-Timur's beard with the words “Let all the Tatars sink in the dung”, after which his soul very quietly flew away into the world of eternity. Later, his body was interned in the Kazan near the Kave tower, and it also began to be called Shila’s tower. The frustrated Nogais decided to destroy the Great Bolgar. But at that time into the city broke in the Tagyl's son Bulat, hired with his Kyrgyzes, Oimeks, and Kara-Kalpaks into the Azan service and immediately sent against the Tatars. The new Nogais, maindful of the Kyrgyzes and the old Nogais, fled to the Kipchak steppe, and the Bek Bulat was appointed the Ulugbek of the Great Bolgarian province. To signify the victory over Murza-Timur, Bulat began calling himself Bulat-Timur. The Bek (Bulat) pulled out Gabdulla (Bolgar daruga) from the hands of the Tatars, and according to his wish, he was let with honors to go to Kypchak. After that, Azan openly proclaimed Bulgar free from the influence of the Kypchak (1361), which split from the Kuk (Blue)-Horde, and the ally of the Kuk-Horde Kyrgyz (Kazakh in modern lingo) Khans. The Kypchak tribute was revoked, and a quarter of it began to go for the payment of Bulat-Timur service and gifts to the Kyrgyz Khans...

Bek Chura-Koch soon settled accounts with Tagai. When Tagai captured Muhsha (aka Moksha, city in the Moksha land between rivers Seim and Sura, a Mordvinian people of the Volgaic branch of the Ugric Finnic group), the Kisanians (Ryazan) asked him to help them. Together, they slew the Tagai gang, after which Chura-Koch with hot Simbirites broke in the Muhsha and completely plundered her, rewarding himself in excess for the losses. After relocation from the Kamysh-Samar, his province began to be called Simbir, and Azan asserted himself as the Simbir Ulugbek...

Tagai soon gathered a new gang, and settled with it on the river Tursuk (Türk. tursuk = goatskin float). In 1367 Bulat-Timur began crossing those places on a way to Djun (Djun-kala, then Kan, and then Nijni Novgorod), for a raid for the refusal of the local Beks to pay the Emir their use tax for the Bulgarian lands. Tagai informed Djunians about Bulat-Timur, and after he dispersed his detachment for looting, they attacked the Ulugbek strucking him in the back. The poor Bulat-Timur fell to Tagai’s captivity, the bandit brought him to the Sarai, and he was executed there for his service to the Bulgar. By that time, the Ulugbek was executed not by the Kypchak Khan (Abdullah Khan 1367-1368), but only by the Sarai Khan (Aziz Sheikh 1365-1367), for by then the Kypchak also split into a number of hostile Hordes. The Sarai Khan was angry with Bulgars that they did not let his daruga to pass to the Great Bolgar, and declared from the lips of Adam about Bulgar’s refusal to pay tribute to the Kypchak...

A son of Bulat, the dare-devil Eneitek, gathered Kyrgyzes dispersed after the death of his father, and came again to the Azan service. The Emir, who already took the title of Kan (Bulgarian form of Kağan, with silent “ğ” and reduced “aa”, also Kan-Kerman, later Khan-Kermen, Kan-Mardan, also later Murom Princedom, present city of Murom), gave him a rank of a Khan and allotted as a fief the northern part of the Mountain Bulgaria (“Tauly Bulgar”, “Djebelstan”). For Eneitek not to take offence because he was not given the post of the Ulugbek in the Great Bolgar, Azan ordered to rename the Kara-Idelan (Western Idel, or upper western course of Itil/Volga) city Tashly (modern Tashly-Kavaly, 56°N 49.5°E) to Bolgar. In addition, the Khan (Eneitek) was assigned to protect Tau-Kerman, renamed to Kazan-Kerman after Kazan was renamed to New Bolgar (1361 to 1431). And the abandoned Bolgar began to be called by a new given name “Polistan”. However, people frequently also called all these cities with their former names....

In 1369 a head of the Shir (Don) Horde Ulubiy Mamai ordered his subordinates the Rus Beks to force Bulgar to restart the tribute payments the to the Kypchak, and to install his daruga Khan Mamed-Sultan there. Together with an ambassador of Mamai, the Djun (modern Nijni Novgorod) Beks set off to Kazan and besieged her, and the Moscow Bek, late in gathering an army, trailed them. At Kara-Idel (Western Itil/Volga) Eneitek suddenly attacked the Muscovites from the rear, and slew half of the infidels. The other half in full disarray reached Kazan and by their appearance caused an unimaginable panic in the Djunian camp. The Bek of the Djunians with all the Ruses began hastily retreating by the old Galidj road running through the Kukdjak (Mari land. also the modern river Kokshaga in Mari El, a left-bank tributary of Itil/Volga, 56.1°N 47.5°E), and on the way lost all his army. It was said that then against the New Bolgar (Kazan, 1361 to 1431) marched 80 thousand infidels, and only the Black Ars (Kara Ars) killed 60 thousand of them. When the first part of them came to the Emir with the heads of the Uruses impaled on their spears, Azan immediately transferred them into the category of Ak-chirmyshes (or just “chirmyshes”, general populace bound to military service) and exempted them from djiziya (aka jizya or jizyah). Hearing about that, the remaining Ars (Mari) divided the infidel heads one per man, with an idea of the majority of their people to receive privileges, and came with them to Kazan. Emir ranked them all as Ak-chirmyshes. And so the 60 thousand Ars (Mari) were made Ak-chirmyshes, and the whole (Mari) people also began to be called “chirmyshes” (in modern Russian lingo “Cheremis”, and their Mari language “Cheremis language”).
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In that venture, a brother (apparently, brother-in-law commander Bobrok of Volyn, Dmitry M. ?-1399) of the Moscow Bek (Dmitri I Donskoi, 1359–1389) and 10 thousand Djunians fell into captivity. The Moscovite and Djunian Beks, shocked by these events, agreed (ca 1370) in exchange for the captured to pay tribute to the Bulgar and accept a Bulgarian daruga. During the turmoil, Mamed-Sultan (Ulubiy Mamai's appoitee as daruga in Bulgar) fled to Kazan, and was gladly accepted into service by the Emir. The Khan’s (Mamed-Sultan) had peaceful temper, and he was pleased with the quiet life in the Kazan balik (distinct residential areas, settlements, defined by a topographical feature, like a wall, river, major road, etc.) Djuketau, removed from the frightening Mamai Horde...

In the 1374 the Djun (modern Nijni Novgorod) Bek, encouraged by Mamai, again refused to render his tribute to the Bulgar, and Azan sent Bek Mardjan against the traitors. Mardjan was a descendant of Yakub-Elaur. His great-grandfather Aü (Au) was a Cossack near the river Aü-su (?), and therefore was nicknamed Aü. In 1311, he received fatal wounds near his fortress Aksubai (Ak-Suba, Baryn, Bakhta, Djulut, and Tuk-Suba were Savir/Subar clans), beating off the attempts of the Kytai tribe Mongyt to capture the Cheremshan. Then the Kytais (Kytan/Kidan/Kytai/Ци-дань/Qìdan 契丹, tamga ), who came from the borders of the Chin (China), kicked out from the Djaik (Yaik) the Old Nogai Kara-Kalpaks (Black Klobuks = Чёрные клобуки of the Slavic annals), and many of them resettled in the Cheremshan and Bashkort, accepted Islam and became Bulgars. Therefore the Kyrgyzes (Kazakhs), remembering it, call Bulgars Nogais. The other part of the Karakalpaks fled to the Kyrgyz (Kazakh) lands and gradually settled there by the Turanian Sea (Aral Sea). The Kypchak Kytais, capturing a part of Djaik (Yaik), climbed on the necks of the remaining people, and started calling themselves Nogais, for they were afraid that they may be deprived of that land. Being ignorant and insatiable, Mongyts fancied to harm the Islamic Bulgarian state and capture her possessions, but were utterly defeated by Aü-bek. Unfortunately, the valorous (Aü-bek) Bek, the savior of the Kara-Kalpaks, died from his wounds in the Aksubai. His son Husain also perished during the time of Khan Uzbek, busting the Kytai’s biys who refused to accept Islam. The Mardjan's father, Husain's son Almysh, during the resettlement received the land on the river Ashyt (?) together with the people of his djien (district). Together with his senior son, a brother of Mardjan, he received heavy wounds in a battle of the kazanchis (kazanchis or ulans = median and upper knights) with the Ar’s subashes (peasants). Seeing that the kazanchis are overcoming and threaten the subashes with a slaughter, Almysh with his son rode to the battlefield and tried to stop the kazanchis. The furious kazanchis jumped on them and in a severe fight inflicted wounds on both of them. Due to their support, many subashes managed to save their lives, but the noble Almysh and his son parted with life...

Mardjan inherited from his ancestors an unbelievably powerful might, nobility and aversion to vainly spilled blood. Becoming a richest kazanchi (kazanchis or ulans = median and upper knights), he preserved the spirit of true brotherhood in his relations with the cossacks, and those were ready to recklessly execute any of his orders...

Breaking into the Djun-Kala from the run, Mardjan captured booty so large that the Emir’s fleet had to be sent for to carry it. And in 1376 on the Mamai’s order the Djunians moved against Kazan,, for some reasons in the winter. Muscovites also joined in, they took along the deposed Emir's daruga Gusman. Gusman was a son of the merchant and suvarbashy (Head of the Suvars) Salih, and in Moscow he easily coped with both the daruga duties and a trade the in beaver and fur clothing...

The Muscovites (Meskeule) attacked the Kazan walls from the run, but our people fired guns, theretofore unknown to the Ruses, and the infidels turned into a panic flight. Mardjan with his Cossacks staged a sortie from the city, and was hacking Muscovites all the way down to the Berry Forest. The stationed in the forest Djuns observed the events with full indifference and only after an order of their ardent Bek confronted the approaching Mardjan. Seeing that it would be impossible to lure the Djunians from the forest, the Bey returned to the city. Following him the Djunians and the remains of the Muscovites reluctantly come closer to the Kazan again. However, very soon behind the Ruses appeared the Eneitek's horsemen. The Ulugbek was going to the Aü-su to burn the winter quarters of the restless local Tatars, but he was returned in time to the capital from his way. We surrounded seven thousand Urus infantrymen who had covered behind the carts, but the infidel cavalry retreated to Bish-Balta and did not allow Eneitek to crush the besieged. The cavalry was half-Moscovite and showed fighting qualities not bad at all. The Moscow Bek created it on model of the Bulgarian cavalry right after the destruction of the Rus army in 1369...

Nevertheless, the Ruses could not remain in that position for a long time, and their commanders started bargaining with our commanders, also not inclined to bear unnecessary losses. We suggested that the Ruses should pay for every infantryman one ermak (1/3 of a coin, probably 1/3 of a silver dirhem/dirham), and the infidels, agreeing to the payment, deducted from the sum two thousand ermaks, one for every fallen man of theirs. At last, we accepted the Rus terms, and they brought the required sum from the Djun-Kala. Eneitek opened the way, and the infidels began retreating under a cover of their cavalry. Süümbika, a wife of Gusman, followed in a sledge her son, who was among Muscovites. And after the Mardjan's sortie, they wanted to kill Gusman, but the commander Djim-Türyai did not allow the murder. When the Ruses came to the fortress Lachyk-Uba, they released Gusman and Satylmysh, our daruga in Djun-Kala and simultaneously the Emir's main customs officer in the Rus. We released the Rus commanders Aslan and Udjik, captured by Mardjan. Süümbika was so pleased with the rescue of her son that she presented Djim-Turyai with a beaver fur coat. Because of that the Rus Boyars, envying the commander, nicknamed him “Bobrin” (Russ. “Bober” - “beaver”).
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But barely had we retreated beyond the Sura-su (modern r. Sura in Chuvashia), as the Rus cavalry fell on the Black Ars, retaliating for the death of their men in the 1369. They burned a few Ar’s auls, but also a few times they got stuck in the snow and fell into ambushes. Azan was offended by the Uruses' perfidy, and asked Kuk-Horde Khan Urus, the Emir's ally, to help Bulgar to teach a good lesson to the infidels. Urus sent a younger brother of the Arabshah Khan with 4 thousand Kyrgyzes, many of whom were Karakalpaks-Mins (apparently reference to the Min/Men, one of the unions of the Oguz clans) and were also eager to get even with the Kytai Nogais. On his arrival to the Great Bolgar, Arabshah prayed with Emir in the “Ismaildan” mosque for the success of the jihad, and only after that he turned his attention to the war with the infidels. First of all he burnt the interloping Mongyt encampments along Samara river, and then crossed to the Burtas (Mordva land, right bank of Itil/Volga) and cleared that area of the Bulgarian state of the Tatars. Chura-Koch was pleased to help the Khan (Arabshah Khan) to settle down, and when Emir ordered to form an allied army, he attached to the Kyrgyz corps a detachment of one and a half thousand of bully Simbir djigits led by the the Bek Ar's (“Mordvian”) son. Mardjan, who after the decimation of Djim-Turai began to be called Djim-Mardjan or “Shaimar-dan”, also could not hold back and with 500 cossacks and djurs (heavily armed knights) oined the Bulgaro-Kyrgyz army. Emir himself gave the allied army two thousand Cheremshanians, who ventured to wash away with the blood of jihad the shame of their parents that without a fight had given Djuketau to the Tatars, and by that to gain a right for a new transfer from the kara-chirmysh estate (bondsmen with military corvee) to the category of the Ak-chirmyshes (yeomen with military corvee). In addition, Azan attached to the army one thousand of Eneitek’s cossacks led by a son of the Khan Seberche, who restored under his name and headed the fortress on the left bank of the Sura-su (modern r. Sura in Chuvashia). People began to call that whole 9-thousand strong army the Army of Murids (disciple, a higher rank of talib = student), for many of its fighters called themselves Murids. The Murids, joining forces, expelled from the Bulgarian soil the Djunians who penetrated beyond Sura-su, and when the Djunian and Moscovite Beks set out with 70 thousand soldiers to the limits of the Bulgarian state, they crushed the infidels on the river Isrek-su. Out of ten Ruses only one managed to survive. After that, Murids smashed the Djunian fortresses between the rivers Sain-Idel (Oka) and Sura-su (apparently, the modern Sura, which had aliases Sura-su and Sura Idel), and forced the Djunian Beks to again resume paying tribute to the Bulgar.

The Kisan (Ryazan) Bek initially intended to support the Djunians (modern Nijni Novgorod), and after them he was also punished. The Murids ravaged Kisan (Ryazan) and forced Kisanians to resume paying tribute to Simbir. But soon after that, Arabshah met some merchants from Djalda, which also began to be called Crimea. Those told the Khan about their area propitious for pasture, and the advantages of service to Altynbashes (lit. Golden-headed), and he decided to leave to Djalda. Azaj in vain was dissuading him, suggesting instead a joint campaign on Sarai and Don. Arabshah has shown typical for Kypchaks conceit and went with his three thousand Kyrgyzes through the Mamai’s possessions to the Saklanian Sea (Black Sea). To pass across Shir (Don), the (Arabshah) Khan first contacted the Ulubiy (Mamai? Eneitek?), but that used negotiations to conspire with some Kyrgyz Biys...

When they began crossing the river, the conspirators (Kyrgyz Biys?) closely surrounded the (Arabshah) Khan, and killed him with a few dagger strikes. Only a Biy Shonkar, who did not want to join the plot, saw all this, but he restrained his indignation. But when the killers announced to the Kyrgyzes on the accidental death of the Khan in the Shir (Don) waters, and proposed to switch to the Mamai service, this Biy avowed against that. The people split: two thousand left with Shonkar, and only one thousand followed the conspirators.

At that time Mamai was preparing for a campaign against rebellious Moscow, which rose against his rule, and was glad to even this one thousand. He immediately sent some Kyrgyz biys to Azan, and they told him the following lie: “Arabshah joined Mamai with all his horde and advised you to send to the Kypchak Ulubiy (Mamai) the tribute and a detachment with tufangs (cannons) for the punishment of the Moscow rebels. Otherwise he promised to attack you with the whole Mamai’s horde”. This news struck the Emir (Azan) as a lightning. He immediately summoned Bek Saban (Sardar, the Commander in Chief) and ordered him to go to the Shir (Don) to join Mamai, bringing two thousand Chally-Mohammed’s Cheremshans, a thousand Bashkorts, Garaf's one thousand from Burtas (Mordva), and a thousand Kashans, and also with two tufangs of the cannon master Taufik's pupil As. Parting with the Sardar (Bek Saban), Emir frankly told him: “It would be better if you, rather than the whole state, to perish”. Azan’s fate was not to see the return of his army, because soon after the departure of (Sardar) Saban he died (ca 1377). His son Bi-Omar (Bey/Biy Omar, or Omar Bek) became an Emir (ca 1377-1422). And Saban went to Kypchak, and near the ruins of the old fortress Helek (Oka-Don interfluve watershed in modern Tula province, ca. 53.5°N 38.6°E, probably on r. Nepryadva between the right bank of Don and left bank of Nepryadva) he joined with the 80-thousand strong Mamai’s horde (army). Before the battle, in a field our people captured a Rus soldier dressed in a papaz (Catholic) cassock (soutane, a long cassock with buttons in front, worn by Roman Catholic priests). Saban wanted to interrogate and release him, because our people never touched any priests, but at that moment Murza-Timur rode up and killed the captured with a lance. Our people recognized the bandit, and Garaf immediately dispatched him to hell with the like strike of a spear. The Ulubi (Ulugbiy Mamai) took Chally-Mohammed as a hostage, and ordered to attack 60 thousand Ruses and 10 thousand Artanian (Baltic, apparent reference to the army of Lithuanian kingdom) horsemen who joined them in an inconvenient place…

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Our people, attacking in the right wing, by shooting from kara djei (crossbow?) quickly distressed, and then and crushed the 10 thousand Rus infantrymen positioned in front of a bog. The action was very hot. Under Garaf was killed his horse, and he, already dismounted, took from a killed man his kara djei and struck a Balyn Bek with an arrow. It turned out later that one of the Moscow Boyars put on the Bek's clothing and got in the head of the army, for the Bek not to be killed. And all that time Saban was wondering, why he does not see the good Rus cavalry. And it turned out that the Rus cavalry was hid in a poskyn (ambush) in a forest behind the bog, and the trees in there were deeply notched to quickly create blockage in case of the enemy's breakthrough. And when the Balyn Bek saw the destruction of his left wing, he in horror threw himself into gallop to break away with his closest Boyars. And those in the ambush mistook him for a Tatar and fell down on him a notched tree, but nevertheless the Bek survived.
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And our people, having finished with the Ruses' left wing, run against the bog and stopped. Mamai, who was observing the battle from a high hill behind the army, took that pause for a sigh of cowardice, and ordered his best Mongyt alai (garrison?) to nudge our people with a strike in the back. Saban barely had time to turn around and meet the Kytais with arrows, and then with swords, otherwise he would be stomped down by the stampede of the 20 thousand steppe men (kyragai).

At that time, the left wing of the Mamai army that consisted of 10 thousand Crimeans and 7 thousand Anchian (Türk. form for Ants, the South Slavic people, apparently a reference to the Pruth-S.Buh interfluvial in Ukraine) cossacks, divided the Ruses' right wing and with a lateral strike messed up the Balyn's center. The Biy Barmak, the only Nogai Biy with whom our people were getting along, was positioned with his men against the Moscow center, he pushed them over and drove them off at once. When in a hot pursuit of the infidels he came to the left of the forest, the Balyn commander Adam-Türyai led his 20 thousand-strong cavalry from the ambush and overturned him with a shattering lateral strike.

Seeing the instant and vain destruction of the majority of his force, Barmak turned the remaining units around and fled away past the Bulgars and Mongyts of the Djintel-Biy engaged in enraged battle. The Crimeans and Anchies started fleeing in the opposite direction... Passing over by the fighters, Barmak with all his strength shouted about a full defeat, and only that forced everybody to run for safety. Leaving Garaf with his Burtases to restrain the pressure of the Ruses, Saban speedily led the others home. However, during the retreat many of our people again engaged with the new Nogais of the Djintel-Biy, and spiritedly fenced each other on the move... Garaf withstood the pressure of Balyns for as long as was possible. Adam-Türyai, on seeing that he is fighting against Bulgars, moved against them the fresh Artan (Baltic, apparently Lithuanian) horsemen, and raced with Balyns to the hill. Mamai, having caught sight of him, has fled...

As with two cannons, without making a single shot, was was abandoned near the hill. The Ruses wanted to finish him off, but Adam-Türyai did not allow it, and took the master with his tufangs to the Moscow. As taught Balyns to make cannons, which they in the beginning called with our word “tufang”... And generally, in that battle the Balyns and Artans (Balts, apparently Lithuanian) fought extraordinarily severely and did not take any prisoners. When Garaf run out of all arrows, and already lost a sixth horse, the Artan Balyns of the Bek Astei surrounded him and hacked him up into pieces. Then the same Astei overtook Chally-Mohammed at Shir (Don) and when the Bek had accidentally fallen from the horse, he trampled him... The Bek Saban was saying that in that unfortunate slaughter he lost only a third of the soldiers, but most likely he spoke only about the djurs (heavily armed knights). The descendants of Garaf were telling that Saban have not lost, but brought back home a third of his troops. In favor of it testifies the oath of Saban: either him, or his children to wash off that insult. And one of Garaf soldiers told that before the battle the Bek in a dream saw the hily Gabdel-Halik, who was once killed in that place by the Kisanians (Ryazanians), and that told him: “Tomorrow a great misfortune awaits the Bulgar army, rise and withdraw the people”. To that Garaf answered that in his Amir clan nobody and never retreated, and he would not violate that custom. Then Gabdel-Halik said that in that case he will be killed, and that was what has happened. And that soldier saw, how Garaf was killed, he calmly stepped forward with a sword towards the deluge of the Artans (Balts, apparently Lithuanian). He was wounded, but at night he regained consciousness, and although stripped of his amour, nevertheless managed to escape...

Soon after the Mamai war spread the news about arrival from the Kuk-horde to Kypchak of the Khan Tahtamysh (aka Tokhtamysh, 1378–1406). Khan Gabdulla, whom the Ulubi (Ulugbiy Mamai, the head of the Right Wing or Blue Horde, which the Ruses dubbed Golden Horde) with threats forced to serve him and forcefully detained in the Sarai, fled to Bulgar and entered the service of (the Emir) Bi-Omar. Emir(Bi-Omar) appointed him an Ulugbek of the Great Bolgar. After that arrived Tahtamysh ambassadors with an offer to Emir to conclude an alliance with the Khan (Tahtamysh), which (the Emir) Bi-Omar accepted with pleasure. Tahtamysh began to be titled as Khan of Kypchak and Bulgar union (hanlyk), stopped interferance with the Bulgar affairs, and demand a tribute from the Bulgar state. Mamai tried to prevent Tahtamysh to cross Idel, but Barmak came over to the side of the Khan (Tahtamysh), and Ulubi (Ulugbiy Mamai) fled to Djalda (Crimea) with the biys-murderers. But in Crimea for the villains was waiting a trap of Shonkar, in which all of them lost their impious heads. For that Tahtamysh had given Crimea, the former just an ulus of the Kypchak, a status of a separate beilik, and appointed Shonkar a first Crimean Bek. Shonkar built himself a palace in the city of Bagcha-Bolgar, attracted to his service cossacks, and together with them stopped the advance of the Artans (Balts, apparently Lithuanian), and expanded the Djalda (Crimea) limits from the Sula (Arkhangelsk/Komi land) to the Shir (Don)...
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 In 1382, the Moscow beks (Dmitry Donskoi, 1359–1389) demanded from the Khan (Tahtamysh) to convert Balyn into an ally of Kypchak, and her equalization in rights with the Bulgar, which the Khan refused, for the Moscow was not Islamic possession. Then Balyns raised a mutiny, and the Khan went to suppress it. At his request, Emir provided to the Khan help of three thousand-strong division of the Garaf's son Bek Burtas, with three cannons of a master Rail. In the beginning, Tahtamysh wanted to take Moscow personally, but failed and began retreating. At that time Burtas, having learned from a captive about a flight the Balyn Bek's (Dmitry Donskoi, Grand Prince of Vladimir from 1363 to 1389) from the Moscow and about him leaving instead as a replacement of his relative Astei, with three hundreds cossacks approached on one of the city towers and began showering the Artanian (Astei) with insults. A largest part of his group at that time set up an ambush by the city. Astei, having seen the departure of the Khan (Tahtamysh), decided to finish personally with the impudent Bek (Burtas), and made a sortie from the Moscow with a thousand of his (Lithuanian) djurs (heavily armed knights) and cossacks (unarmored cavalry), and 4 thousand Balyns (subjects of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality, i.e. a kind of N. Ruses). He (Astei) left craftily, from two other gates, to cut off a retreat for Burtas. Burtas escaped by a miracle, and drove his horse to the ambush place. Astei and two thousand infidels rushed in pursuit, and in an ambush were shot at by the Rail's cannons and hit with sabers and arrows of the bahadirs. After that, our cossacks dashed to a gate, where two thousand others infidels fought with three hundred of our men, and drove the enemy inside the city. Rail, having dragged up the cannons directly to the moat, a couple of times shot them at the madly crowds fleeing to the Moscow, and at the tower above the gate. After that Burtas broke into the gate and seized them. A messenger sent by him caught up in one of suburban villages with the Khan (Tahtamysh) on his way to the Sarai, and the news about the capture of the gate forced him (Khan Tahtamysh) to turn back. However, Burtas for some hours was in hot water, for the Ruses from the whole city tried to retake the tower, and only the cannons of Rail saved him. Tahtamysh appeared at the moment when the infidels already broke to the tower, and were furiously striking the cannons with their sabers (not the swords?). The Kuk-Horde Kyrgyzes from the run, and with wild cries broke in into city through Burtas gate, killed anybody on the streets, and took the city. The Khan (Tahtamysh), however, did not allow to destroy Moscow for her resistance to Mamai, and after collecting from the Balyn Boyars only the tribute unpaid to the Kypchak and Bulgar, left the Rus.

Rail in vain searched in Moscow for his father, until he received a trustworthy news that As was taken out from the city together with the Bylyn Bek himself, so much that valued the master. And the Ruses could not get hold of the suitable metal, and in most cases As was forced to make wooden cannons for the Ruses. A few of such concoctions were taken in the (Moscow) city. Four of them fell to Burtas for the Emir, and the others were taken by the Khan (Tahtamysh). Rail was urging Tahtamysh in vain to replace the wooden cannons with the iron tufangs, the Khan (Tahtamysh) preferred the wooden variety.

All these cannons fell into the hands to the Timur-Shakh, the Emir of Khoresm, when in 1395 he defeated Tahtamysh. The power in Kypchak then passed to Idegei, who perfidiously killed Barmak and took his wife by force. It is said that his mother was a wife of a not noble biy, but she conceived Idegei from Murza-Timur, when he stayed with that biy, and received her for the night, according to the Kytai custom. And all Nogai biys knew about that, and did not interrupt Idegei when he was boasting ranking himself with the Murza-Timur's tribe Ak-Mongyt of the Kytai. And he, talking about what was remarkable in him, was of small height, had short curved legs, and a torn left ear, spoiled by a Bulgar arrow during the time of Mamai's war.

Tahtamysh ignored this evil deed, for he bathed in the rays of his might after pacification of Moscow. In gratitude for the help in that affair, he married to Bi-Omar his gorgeous daughter Gaisha, who was an example of piety. The Khan (Tahtamysh) in the beginning was very audacious and relied entirely on his own forces. Only later, when the Khan (Tahtamysh) lost the Nogai horde, he understood the futility of the human efforts not supported by the Almighty, and made a hadj to the Great Bolgar and circled the required number of times the minaret of the “El-Hum”; at the mausoleum of the Kan Shamgun he suddenly asked his son-in-law: “If I should be called up by the Allmighty, let in my memory be installed a stone here, with an inscription “Turkmen Mohammed”, so called me my father. And let that stone be held as my tomb, even if my body would not rest under the stone. What is the body, it only temporarily harbors the immortal soul, and it after my terrestrial death from here will go to the court of the Almighty. I have for that a posthumous right, since during my life I was the Khan of the Kypchak and Bulgar”. The Bi-Omar shuddered, and his armor rung out, and everyone wore armor because of the alarming situation. Tahtamysh noticed that and explained: “Last night to me appeared the killed Barmak, for whose death I did not punish the dog-Idegei in due time, and by that I alienated the loyal to me Black Nogais. And then he told me that I also will be killed perfidiously, and that I should devote the rest of my life to a jihad against the Tatars and all other infidels”...

 Having suffered a defeat from the Timur-Shakh, Tahtamysh fled with all his family to Kazan, but did not stay there for long, and in 1395 left to Crimea with the Kyrgyzes and a group of the Bulgarian cossacks. On the way he took a Kisan (Ryazan) city Ilyas, where during his passage to Bulgar stopped Djilki once at his father-in-law, the Bashkort Beka Ilyas... At that time, to Bi-Omar ran up the Djun's (modern Nijni Novgorod) Bek with a complaint against the Moscow, which seized from him his city. As the Djunian (Djun's Bek ~ Nijni Novgorod Bek) regularly paid tribute to Bulgar, and the Moscow with a fall of Tahtamysh stopped performing her obligations again, the Emir (Bi-Omar?) ordered Eneitek to help the offended side. The Khan (Eneitek), groaning, set out to retake Djun-Kala from the Balyns. He accomplished that without an effort, but after the capture of the Djun, cleansed the city to a bone per his custom...
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In 1396 Idegei ambassadors arrived to Moscow with an Ulubiy's (Idegei) order to invade together with Tatars the limits of the Bulgar state to kill the Tahtamysh relatives, destroy the capital of the independent Bulgar (“Bolgar al-Djadid” = Kazan), and help the Nogais with the Agidel ferries. The Balyn Bek (Vasiliy I, 1389–1425), angry with the Eneitek's attack, sent against “Bolgar” a fleet with 8 thousand soldiers, 30 thousand infantrymen, and a good 12 thousand-strong cavalry. The Ruses first went to their objective, Kazan, but with a sudden attack on the infidels at the Burat crossing, Eneitek forced them to change the direction. During the dawn attack the Khan (Eneitek), with only 60 horsemen loss, mowed down 6 thousand Balyn infantrymen taken by surprise during their sleep. The Balyn Bek (Vasiliy I), having learned about it, was enraged, and ordered to burn out the whole Mountain Side (lands along the high right bank of Itil/Volga, the Simbir province). The Rus cavalry, together with the escaped infantrymen, turned around and directly from the crossing, moved into the depth of the Mountain Bulgaria. In the beginning the infidels pushed aside the horsemen of the Khan's (Eneitek) cavalry, took and ruined the fortress Chirmysh-Kerman (hapax; i.e. Cheremis-Kerman, i.e. Mari fortress), where Eneitek had a mint granted to him by (the Emir) Azan (1359-ca 1377). Then the Ruses destroyed the glorious Deber-Kazan (hapax; Deber is synonymous with Seber/Suvar/Subar, Deber-su is the modern r. Sviyaga, probably, on the place of the present village Deushevo on the modern r. Sviyaga), and the second court Tashly-Bolgar (hapax) of the Khan (Eneitek). Simultaneously, the Balyn fleet attacked Kazan and, not daring to storm the city, ruined her suburb Djuketau. In that balik (distinct residential areas, settlements, defined by a topographical feature, like a wall, river, major road, etc.) the Ruses, who lost at its rampart and palings two thousand men, hacked down into pieces the kind and gentle Khan Mohammed-Sultan with all his wives and children. Emir then has not given a sanction for a sortie: he expected a strike on Kazan by the main Rus army and the Nogai Horde. That, however, did not follow.

In the blindness from their fury, the Rus commanders have not noticed that their forces quickly melted away. At the Chirmysh-Kerman conked out 2 thousand horsemen and 3 thousand infantrymen of the infidels, at Deber conked out 4 thousand horsemen and 7 thousand infantrymen, at Tashly-Bolgar, where the Simbir Ulugbek Ar-Hudja, the son of Chura-Koch, already began helping Eneitek, were lain a thousand horsemen and 10 thousand infantrymen. After the Tashly-Bulgar slaughter, the Rus commanders discovered that their best cavalry ceased to exist, and in horror they hastened to the vessels waiting for them on the Idel. When the ships transported to the Great Bolgar the remaining 10 thousand of the infantry, the Moscow Bek (Vasiliy I), who stayed on one of vessels, inquired why the cavalry is not being transported. In response the commanders, with downcast eyes, told him about the total loss of the cavalry. The Balyn Bek (Vasiliy I) could not believe his ears, for this cavalry was considered to be the foundation of the Ruses' power, and when he ascertained the validity of the lamentable news, he howled with terror, and ordered to hang the surviving cavalry commanders...

Idegei with his Tatars already broke in from the Djaik (Yaik) side into the Bulgar. A few hundred of our cossacks laid their lives, protecting baliks (distinct residential areas, settlements, defined by a topographical feature, like a wall, river, major road, etc.) Aksubai, Bahta, Bulümar, Nukrat with small customs buildings and caravan-saraies (caravansaries). Having spent their arrows, the surviving cossacks were retreating to Djuketau and Great Bolgar. This time, the target of the damned Ulubiy was the Great Bolgar. He besieged the old capital, but could only take her a month later with a help of the of Rus infantrymen and salchis (sailors)... At the points of the attacks, the corpses of the enemies laid level with the walls... It is said that when Idegei offered the captured in the city Khan Gabdulla to keep his life by recognizing his authority, the Khan proudly answered: “By birth I am a Chingizid, and I serve as a Bulgarian Ulugbek. Neither the first, nor the second ever recognized any authority above them. I saw as two thousand Bulgars coolly sent to hell five times as many Balyns and six times as many of your chabans (shepherds), and died with pleasure for the faith. This is a great people. Whoever stands in its way, Allah turns into a Stone Head. And now I wish to die together with the last defenders of this sacred city, to obtain a real glory of remaining in its memory”. In a fury, Idegei ordered to encircle with logs the wounded Bulgar soldiers, together with the Khan Gabdulla, and to burn them all. The place of the fire among the people received a name “Grove of Muslim martyrs”. After that, the Ulubiy thoroughly destroyed the Great Bolgar, where still remained the caravan-sarai “Men Bulyar”, the mosque “Ismail-dan” and thirty five other mosques, the Altyn-munchu, the Emirs' palace “Kazyi Yorty”, and tens of kabaks (taverns). Really, for everyone who comes to Bolgar, it is difficult to muffle a stream of tears ...

The Balyn Bek still had a fleet with 6 thousand salchis (sailors) and 2 thousand infantrymen, and out of 100 thousand Tatars which he led to Bolgar, Idegei still had 80 thousand. Therefore Ulubiy still thought about a campaign on Kazan, but then come a message about a capture of the Crimea by the allied armies of Tahtamysh and Artans (Balts, apparently Lithuanian), and Idegei rushed there. Our fleet, guarding the crossings at the Chulman-Idel (Upper Kama, fr. Chulman = Arctic; Idel = Itil = river), immediately blocked the return path to the Rus fleet. Only two thousand infidels managed to break through our vessels, which with the loss of the excellent cavalry and the best fleet lost their might for a long time. So ended that Mountain War...

However, Idegei defeated Tahtamysh, and the Khan (Tahtamysh) fled to Artan (Balts, apparently Lithuanian). After staying there for some time, he went again to Kypchak, where he was killed by the Ulubiy's people. And the accompanying him our cossacks went into the service for the Artan (Lithuanian) beks, and remained there. Having learned about the sad outcome of the Tahtamysh campaign, (the Emir) Bi-Omar was forced to renew the payment of tribute to the Kypchak. As a punishment for resistance, Ulubiy (Idegei) has taken away from Bulgar a significant part of the Cheremshan (rivers Cheremshan and Kichi-Cheremshan = Small Cheremshan, left tributary of the river Itil/Volga, from “cherem - djerem” = meadow; Cheremshan = meadow side) and settled it with all kinds of the steppe mob. So, on the Askul tributary of the Dyau-Shir he loocated Djintelbiy, on the Dyau-Shir, which in memory of the military valor and wipeout of the checkpoint Vahta began to be called Vahta he settled one khanzade (khanzade = Khan's son? with Persian zade = son?) Kulkhan (= Kul Khan?)... And after all, all that rubbish during their invasion was killing our pilgrims, cossacks and merchants.
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In truth, the Khan Shadibek, who in the beginning was a weak-willed toy in the Idegei hands, has tried to limit excesses of the New Nogais. So, with his sanction the Bulgar state restored again the some baliks with sentries, customs houses and caravan-sarais between Idel and Agidel (r. White). Have risen again the palings at Kermek, Kuhri, Nukrat, Bulümar, Vahta, Nur-Suvar, and Bulyar. In 1401 the Khan (Shadibek) did not allow Idegei to attack the Ulug Bolgar after Bolgars have beaten off an attack on the city by the biy (apparently, Ulubiy Idegei) and killed his brother Khan-Timur. But in 1407 Idegei killed Shadibek, having killed him sleeping in the Khan court Sarykui (apparently Saray-Jük/Saraychyq 47.5°N 51.7°E, the “Saraichik” of Rus annals) on the Djaik (Yaik) river. Then Emir (Bi-Omar), hoping for the aid of the Kuk-Horde people, again broke off any communication with the Kypchak state. The Kuk-Horde people failed to help, but Ulubiy (Idegei) was not slow to come from the Sarykui with 70 thousand Kypchaks and 50 thousand Shir Kumans. He forced Kumans to climb the fencing of the Bulgarian baliks and when their corpses piled up to the level of the palings on both sides, he was letting loose to the baliks his Mongyt bandits. Our cossacks fought in baliks to the death, and perished together with their sentries in the number of 6 thousand. But they sent to hell 30 thousand Kumans and 10 thousand Tatars, and Idegei did not dare to storm Djuketau and turned to the Mountain Side (Simbir province). On the way he mocked Bolgar, which under an order of the Emir (Bi-Omar) was abandoned by the cossacks in order to avoid ravaging. Having cut down the sacred grove, he encircled the restored Kazyi Yorty with wood and burnt in it all Elhumians for their refusal to let him in inside the palace. All captured Bulgarian merchants lost their heads, and the pilgrims lost their tonques for their refusal to glorify Idegei. The alai (garrison) of the Great Bolgar, headed by Hamid-Batyr, a son of the Simbir Ulugbek Galikai, was taken to the Mountain Bulgaria by our fleet under the nose of the Tatars. Having noticed the ships, Idegei crossed downstream, at the estuary of the Cheremshan, and tried to break in into the depth of the Simbir, but at the Simbir Ur only vainly lost 5 thousand more Kumans. Then Ulubiy (Idegei) bypassed Simbir from the west and attacked the district of Eneitek. For the old Khan (Eneitek) it was a total suprise, and the poor creature was seized in one of his auls (village) by a loyal Ulubiy (Idegei) dog Kulhan. On the Idegei order Kulhan hacked down Eneitek as a false Khan, first chopping off both hands and legs of the loyal subject of the Bulgarian Emirs, and then finally chopping off his head. Having crushed a few mountain baliks, Idegei began moving ahead to (the balik) Burat. Then (the Emir) Bi-Oмар braced himself and sent towards Ulubiy (Idegei) an ambassador with confirmation of his consent to renew the payment of the tribute to the Kypchak, telling the beks: “We can't throw into the jaws of these dogs the whole country!”

Balyns then also had shown their spiteful mores, they unexpectedly took and destroyed the fortress Seberche (on modern r. Sura in Chuvashia). Türe of the city, the Eneitek's son bek Talkysh, barely thrust his way through a ring of the Moscow soldiers, and swore to remember this perfidy to the Balynians. In 1409 he, with a sanction of the Emir (Bi-Omar), joined the Idegei attack against the Moscow and tried to catch the Urus bek... A new chance for revenge was presented after the second invasion of Idegei, when Moscow again stopped rendering tribute to Bulgar, and Emir (Bi-Omar) ordered to begin a war with Balyn for Djun-Kala. In 1411 Beks Mardjan, Talkysh, and a Chally-Mohammed son Husain Ashraf jointly crushed the Moscow army at Lachyk-Uba, and in the battle, together with 20 thousand soldiers, has also fallen the Balyn Bek Danil (?). Talkysh named his son Danil after the killed Bek Danil. Unfortunately, in the battle also was accidentally lost Rail: after his cannons during the most intense moment of the slaughter turned the dense Rus crowd into a panic flight, from the nearest forest jumped out hiding in ambush Balyns, and cut down the master. The infidels were immediately slaughtered, but that could not return Rail. From that time was prohibited to take the cannon masters to the campaigns...

After that battle, which among people received a name “Cannon”, Mardjan sent Talkysh further on, in the early morning straight off the run was taken and plundered Bulymer (Vladimir). However, all our troops were immediately withdrawn by the Emir (Bi-Omar), for the Cheremshan Kypchaks suddenly attacked our outposts and besieged Djuketau. An attempt to save the city was unsuccessful. Despite of the defenders' courage, 30 thousand Tatars broke into the Djuketau and subjected it to a complete decimation. There were lost our 700 cossacks and 4 thousand townspeople... That crime exhausted all patience of the people, and Emir (Bi-Omar) ordered Sardars (army heads) to prepare and at the appointed time to finish with the grown completely impudent Tatar dogs. Talkysh went to his steppe allodial and headed in Yar Chally 8 thousand of his own, Cheremshan, and Bashkort cossacks and djurs. A grandson of Saban, a SAlman's son Mumin and Mardjan's son Malmysh were ready in the Laish with 7 thousand Bulgarian Ak-Chirmyshes and djurs, and Hamid-Batyr was ready in Simbir with 10 thousand cossacks. On the agreed day, before the dawn, the Bulgarian bahadirs simultaneously have set out. Hamid-Batyr and Talkysh cut off for the New Nogais a passage to retreat to the steppe, and the Beks Mumin and Malmysh cut into the thick of the taken by panic Tatars. The Sardars thought that Mumin and Malmysh will have the least of the work, because in case of a danger Mongyts always flee to the steppe, but there the horror dimmed up the Kypchaks' minds, and they fled in the opposite direction. In a terribly tight crowd went on so severe battle that Mumin not was killed by only a miracle. When he came to, he saw that he is all covered in blood, and around him are piled up whole hills of only lifeless bodies of the Bulgars and Tatars. The Bek could barely rise and move toward the home, having pledged to the Almighty that in case of his salvation he would name son Musafir. He managed to safely pass to the Chulman (Arctic Kama = Upper Kama) through the filled with corpses desert and he really named his son Musafir.
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The other bahadirs coolly put down 20 thousand of the taken by surprise New Nogais, so that never again the damned Tatars would think of settling on the Bulgarian soil. The Kulhan, who slaughtered at the first invasion the detachment of Vahta defenders, had his arms and legs chopped off and left so on the ground to die. From that time the aul nearby the battlefield began to be called Kulhan. The Djintel-Biy, who bragged that he was the first who broke into the Great Bolgar and personally killed 50 wounded cossacks of Galikai and Burtas, was caught by Hamid-Batyr with an arkan (lasso) and the dog was dragged at full gallop to his last breath. Now nobody was there to support the bandits, the rule of Idegei in the Kypchak had fallen...

Chapter 3. War of four bahadirs (1366-1409)

And now I shall tell about the terminating robberies of another gang - Galidjians (city Ladoga, later also Novgorod) or ushkuis... In 1278 Khan Mankai (of Kypchak Khanate) ordered Galidjians to capture the northern lands of Bulgar in exchange for trebling their Kypchak tribute. Then the Galidjians, using the heavy misfortunes that fell on our Bulgar state, and also migration to Galidj from other Rus lands of 500 thousand Ulchians (Russ. Ulichi/Уличи, Turk. Ulchilar, from the name Ugol/Onglos/Oglos/Ulich, a name for Bessarabia, aka Budjak, aka Atilkuzu, modern Moldova, see box below), captured the western part of the Biysu province and erected there their forts. Basing on these bandit nests, the Galidjians also began to raid into other areas of the Bulgar north. For best counteraction to the enemy encroaching seizures, the Emir Galimbek (1422-1445?) had to form a new province in the Biysu southern lands, the Nukrat province with a center in Kolyn-Kala (Russ. Khvalynsk, modern Vyatka/Kirov). Emir (Galimbek) assigned the control of the province western part with the Kolyn-city into the hands of the Sadyk descendants as Ulugbeks and his Bulgarian Ulchians, otherwise (Kypchak Khan) Mankai would force Bulgar state to transfer the Nukrat to the Ruses. The Galidjians complained to the (Kypchak) Khan about it, claiming that Emir (Galimbek) cheated him. However, when the Khan's ambassador, a Christian, visited Kolyn, the city met him with bell jingle and bread and salt of the Sadyk son Ar-Buga, a respectable white-bearded elder with a cross on his neck, who bravely lied directly into Tatar face about his full independence from the Bulgar. The Galidjian delators were accused of lying and executed to the pleasure of Ar-Buga, for they were his personal enemies, and in 1278 seized from him Djuketun (Djuketau), joined to the Bulgar state in 1237. In truth, the ambassador imposed on Kolyn a tribute, as to a separate possession, but it was not too large and burdensome for Nukrats, for the Emir reduced the Kolyn tribute to the Bulgar by the same amount. Actually, the Kolyn Türe continued to subordinate to the Bulgarian Ulugbek of the Nukrat province, located in Ar-Balik, and appointed by the Emirs...
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The offended Galidjians were not stopping their robberies, but in case of capture of their people always denied their involvement. And after the (Kypchak Khan) Uzbek death they began organizing in large vatagas (bands) for robberies, because their booty of furs was valued by the Frants (Francs ~ Germans) and Almans (Alemans ~ Germans), and after a series of disasters many folks were ruined and ready for anything. These vatagas (bands) were called ushkuis. Some said that that word was formed from the (Türkic) words “uch kaek” (“three kayaks”), for they used for attacks the ships with space for people from three Bulgarian boats (Fasmer's etymology fr. Finnic wiskо = boat and Est. huisk - ferry is obvious nonsense, which makes plausible the “triple kayak” = “uch kaek”). The Nukrat Ulchies, who also called themselves “Budishlar” (Vyatkans/Вятчане, with stem Budish- and Türkic pl. affix -lar), transformed the “uch kaek” to a more convenient for them “ushkui”, and eventually we all began to call the robbers in Nukratian. The others asserted that this word came from the name of the first booty by the Galidjians, three sheep (uch koilar), or from the name of the district “Uch Kui” on Upper Chulman (Arctic Kama = Upper Kama), near the point of its turn to the south. The Galidjians captured that district in 1359, then they fortified it with ten forts, and transformed into the main banditry nest. They were building there their ships, from which they then engaged in the robbery attacks. It was said that there invariably lived about 50 thousand Galidjians, and the number was not falling, because from the Galidj new people were continuously fleeing there. They had leaders whom they were electing at the assemblies, and these leaders did not subordinate to the Galidj, and contacted with it only to exchange their booty for bread, salt, clothes, iron, weapons and an ornaments... It turned out to be futile to purge the robbers out from that district. At best, our forces could reach there with excessive difficulties, burn the forts left by the ushkuis and then came back, for the Bulgar state could not station and supply so remote district a large alai (garrison). And the small alais were easily destroyed by the robbers coming out from the dense thickets after departure of the large army.

The ushkuis were headed by that Abram Vasyl that in his youth had sworn with a Koran to Asyl not to engage in banditry any more. But Asyl soon died together with his senior son while repulsing an attack by the New Nogais of the Murza-Timur on Djuketau, and the robber felt freed from his oath. Then the business was headed by his son, also Vasyl, who in his raids had a weakness of not attacking his namesake city Vasyl-Balik. A Vasyl's son Anbal was the last well-known leader of the ushkuis...
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The attacks of the robbers were so sensitive that Emirs (which and how many?) charged with fight against them the cossacks of the Beks Garaf and his son Burtas, and also the salchis (sailors) of the Kudash and his son Subash's fleet. Therefore the war received a name “War of four bahadirs”. The Great Bolgar, simply called by the cossacks “Yort”, became a center of this war. After her inhabitants vacated her, there remained, under protection of the city alai (garrison), only members of several trading houses, members of the “El-Hum” brotherhood, the owners of the local taverns and caravan-sarais, and in the Sain Court stayed the Kypchak (Khanate) tamgachis (customs officials who were issuing license certificates and payment certificates carrying the state tamga, hence Türk. tamgachi = one who grants tamgas). But the city remained populous, for the Bulgars stopped there over on the way to Cheremshan or from the Cheremshan to Simbir, the horse traders stopped there on the way to Kazan and Chally via Laish, and the slave trader merchants stopped there. The war allowed the last a plentiful supply of the goods. Djabrail and the descendents of the bahadirs told to me some stories about some events of the war, and I shall relay their story. As to the truth, only one Allah knows it for certain...

After the memorable destruction of the Djuketau by the Abram, the Bek Alyp, a son of Asyl, raided Uch Kui in the winter, and burnt out the bandit forts, but when he left the district, the ushkuis returned to the ashes and rebuilt their dwellings. In truth, about 15 thousand of them perished from cold and famine during forced sitting out in the woods, but by the summer their number increased even more than before...

In 1366 the ushkuis in 200 ships passed to Agidel (r. White), but the Kudashes (Kudash's salchis/sailors) blocked the river at Kashan (at the confluence of Kama and Vyatka rivers, 56°N 51°E) and forced the robbers to sail to the Tash-Kerman (“Hill Fortress”, at the confluence of modern Kama and White, 56°N 54°E). From Tash-Kerman, Kudash attacked them. A part of the ushkuis, pressed against the riverbank, debarked and was clobbered by Garaf. Having lost 500 ships, the ushkuis sailed away upstream the Kara-Idel (Kama)...

In 1369 the robbers sailed to the Great Bolgar in 10 ships. Kudash sunk three ships, and the ushkuis of the the other ships disembarked ashore with an intention to wait out the danger. However, Garaf again was on the alert, and dispatched them to hell together with their leader Abram.

Next year (1370) the angry Galidjians sailed twice to the Great Bolgar, with 20 and 30 ships, but both times they were beaten off and lost 25 ships and one thousand people...

In 1374 one unit of Galidjians with 70 ships plundered some Rus cities and sold captured in the Kazan, and another unit plundered Kolyn (Russ. Khvalynsk, modern Vyatka/Kirov) and with 20 taken there ships proceeded to trhe Great Bolgar. Kudash was then near Kazan, concerned of an attack on the city, but after completion of the peaceful trade he received an order of the Emir (Azan, 1359-ca 1377) to let robbers pass at their request to the Sarai. Garaf also was not in Great Bolgar, on receiving a news about Galidjians' movement from Nukrat, he stationed in Kashan for the protection of the city, but the robbers slipped by him unnoted at night to the Yort (Great Bolgar). There, both robber groups rejoined and decided to storm the sacred city. The alai (garrison) of 300 cossacks prepared to defend, but the daunted Tatar, Turkmen, and Persian merchants preferred to collect money and to pay the Galidjians off.

Meanwhile Kudash, not trusting the robbers and following then just in case, also sailed to the Great Bolgar. Having learned about the affair, he decided to attack Galidjians, though he had only 35 ships with 700 crew Chirmysh (Mari) salchis (sailors)... The leader of the robbers was one nicknamed Djilki (Türk. Horse), who in 1360 with a half of the ushkuis went from Djuketau to try a new luck in Kolyn (Russ. Khvalynsk, modern Vyatka/Kirov), and there was defeated and captured by the Ar-Buga descendant Türe Djilki. Djilki (Türe) pardoned the robber, and that in gratitude took a Türe's name and took Alyp to the Uch Kui. After that, the way to the robbers' den on the Chulman (Arctic Kama = Upper Kama) to the ushkui Djilki was precluded, of on ordered, and he went to the Galidj and enlisted there his own gang...

Djilki figured out the Kudash's intention, left 40 ships to cover his withdrawal, and with the others sailed to the Sarai. On a way he plundered, killed and captured many our merchants, and in the Sarai began exchanging the seized goods for wine and jewelry. After a favorable trade, the Galidjians as usual got drunk and fell asleep on one of the Idel's islands, and the Black Nogai quietly crept up to them and easily slaughtered every single one...

The robbers who remained at the Great Bolgar started a desperate fight with Kudash, and 20 their ships managed to break through and sail upstream by the Kara-Idel (Kama). The other ships were either sunk, or pulled to the shore, where the local alai (garrison), with a help of the appeared in time Garaf, without a big fight captured them. Our peple exchanged the captives for the merchants the Galidjians sold to the Tatars...

In 1378 ushkuis attacked Kolyn (Russ. Khvalynsk, modern Vyatka/Kirov), but were completely defeated by the Djilki's son Anbal. Taken prisoner the Abram's son Vasyl promised to pay through Kolyn a tribute to the Bulgar state in case of saving his life, and to name his son with the Türe's name. Anbal pitied the robber and let him off, but when in 1379 he came to Uch Kui or the a tribute, he was perfidiously killed by the ushkuis. At the same time the Galidjians with Djuketuns altogether numbering 10 thousand men attacked the weakened by the absence of best defenders Kolyn. They managed to capture there 120 ships prepared for the attack of the Kudash's fleet on the Sarai, and using them and newly built rafts to break through to the Agidel (r. White). Here, they split into two parties, one of them attacked Djuketau, and another attacked Kashan. The majority of the Cheremshan cossacks were then with Garaf, sent to punish the ushkuis, and 220 of the Djuketun and 180 of the Kashan cossacks could resist the bandits. The Galidjians broke into both cities and ravaged them. In the heat of the actions the robbers set urams (city quarter) on fire to smoke out the hampering alais (garrison) from the echke-kalga (central part of the city, i.e. citadel, fortress; echke = old). Not to get burned down, the cossacks were forced to leave Djuketau and Kashan. During that moment, from the Tash-Kerman sailed up Kudash with 30 ships and, having split the ships into two groups, bravely attacked the robbers. In that fight the salchis (sailors) lost Kudash and 22 ships, but crushed the Galidjian ships. Only 500 robbers managed to escape, while the others, left without their ships, were clobbered by the timely arrived to Djuketau Bashkorts and Yar-Challians of the Chally-Mohammed's son Husain and the Kashan's Ak-chirmyshes and subashes. Garaf had burnt out ushkui forts and returned. This victory quite deservedly brought glory to Husain. Having finished with robbers in Djuketau, the Bek (Husain?) rushed to Kashan and helped to quickly finish the job there. From then on, the sun of the Ashrafids' fate was rising high...
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The best forces of robbers were demolished, but a large remaining crowd was still craving for easy money. In 1391, Galidjians and ushkuis led by Vasyl again attacked Kolyn (Russ. Khvalynsk, modern Vyatka/Kirov). An Anbal's son Türe Ardjan desperately fought for the balik and slew the murderer of the Vasyl's father, but eventually was forced to retreat. The Mahmud-Sultan's son Khan Bek-Daud who together with the father received the city and district Djuri, with 3 thousand Arian Ak-Chirmyshes and cossacks went to Nukrat and threw the robbers out. In the action have fallen up to 5 thousand of the Galidjians and ushkuis. He remained there as an Ulugbek supported by a thousand cossacks, but in two years Vasyl's son Anbal again attacked Kolyn with the Galidjians, and captured Bek-Daud with 200 cossacks. The Mahmud-sultan went out to rescue his son, and after a fierce encounter near the city, where our men slaughtered 1200 infidels, he forced Anbal to negotiations. They ended up with the kind Khan allowing the robbers a free leave in exchange for his son and his cossacks...

In 1409 Anbal with 8 thousand ushkuis sailed into Agidel from the east, and allied with him 5 thousand Galidjians sailed from the Djun-Kala side. When Anbal caught sight of Kudash's son Subash 80 ships, he ordered his men to debark at Yar Chally, and then, under a guise of sortie, he got out from the bandit camp and surrendered to the Alai's grandson, the Gali-Djura's son Enikei, and Subash. The ushkuis came to a strongest confusion, and when Subash pulled out cannons from the ships and made few volleys at the bandit camp, there will be some , they surrendered in horror. Turrning the captives over to the just appearing in time Burtas, Subash promptly sailed towards Galidjians. Those had time to burn down Seberche (on modern r. Sura in Chuvashia), but at the Chybyk-sar (Cheboksary? 56°N 47.2°E) and Bish-Balta (Kazan's suburb) did not get anything, and reached the confluence of the Kara-Idel and Agidel simultaneously with Subash. Salchibashy (Head sailor, here: Subash) sent to the bottom about a third of the Galidjians, and the others in a panic sailed to the Rus. At Seberche (on modern r. Sura in Chuvashia) they got in an ambush of Mardjan's son Malmysh, and the whole crowd wernt straight to hell.

Anbal accepted Islam and enlisted into the service of the Bulgar state. In the winter, Burtas went with him to the Uch Kui and burnt down all their forts. About thirty thousand people had remained there, and all of them fled from their houses and froze down in the wooded thickets. The next year Sardar again went to Uch Kui, but saw only the lifeless ashes. With the bandit nest was all finished, and the Galidjians, who lost their best soldiers, also have grown quiet...

Chapter 4. The Fall of the Azanid rule

In 1422 Emir Bi-Omar died, and on the Bulgarian throne as raised his son from Gaisha-hatyn Gali-bei, with a nickname Kazanchy. The new Emir did not notice that the majority of the influential beks began leaning toward escaping from under the influence of the hated by the people Kypchak (Khanate), but the Ashrafids understood that well. Having had suffered from the Kypchaks, they coveted to relieve Bulgar from (the Kypchak) Horde tribute. The Bek Husain's son Yabyk-Mohammed in his presence did not even allow to mouth a word “Tatar”... On a wave of such discontent, the old Husain in 1427 mounted a horse and on the Cheremshan river destroyed a group of New Nogais, who were trying to pass to the Kichi-Cheremshan pastures without payment of the duty to the tamgachi (customs officer) of the Varma balik. The White Nogais complained to the Kypchak (Khanate), and the Sarai's Khan (Barak/Baraq, 1421-1428) enjoined the Emir (Gali-bei) to punish the Chally Bek (Husain). (The Bulgar Emir) Gali-bei complied and drew upon his head infamy and great misfortunes. When he enjoined his viceroys to arrest the already fatally sick (Chally Bek) Husain, they in turn were booted out from the Cheremshan. Mumin, the owner of the Kashan () district, which began to be called Laish's, supported Husain and his son Yabyk-Mohammed. When the Emir sent against Chally a squadron of the Bek-Daud's son Sultan, at the aul Tahta Mumin blocked his way. In a fierce fight Mumin was killed, but Sultan also received a wound, turned back for the better. He swore that if he would survive, he would name his son Tahta, and when he recovered he fulfilled his promise. And the aul Tahta began to be called Sultan, for its inhabitants were proud of the defeat of the Khan (Sultan)...

Having learned about the Sultan's battle, the Bek Malmysh came to a fury, and wanted to attack Gali-bey. But the Mumin's son Musafir has written to him that that would only aggravate split of the Bulgar state and advised to vent his anger on the infidels, who again ceased to render their tribute. Malmysh have marveled of the youth's smarts, and sent against the Djir (Rostov the Great) the son of the Hadji Baba-bek. Hadji Baba-bek forced the Mir-Galidj district to pay tribute and brought it to the Emir (Gali-bei). Gali-bei came to a fury and screamed at him: “We cannot collect tribute from Rus, he (Kypchak) Khan's possession, and you trespassed the limits of the Kypchak (Khanate)! For that I shall send you in fetters to the Sarai!” The Emir djurs barely managed to seize the Bek and to chain him in irons. Sultan set out to carry Hadji Baba-bek to the Sarai. The old Malmysh still found energy to mount a horse and, after offerings prayers in Bolgar, set out to intercept the Khan. At the river Bairash he attacked Sultan, and in fierce skirmish snatched out his young son from the Sultan's hands of. In memory of that, the Hadji Baba-bek's son received a name Bairash. And that (the son, Musafir-Bairash) named his son Urak, with a name of the Nogai biy whom his great-grandfather slew in 1411...
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When Sultan informed Emir about the crime of Malmysh, Gali-bei called in the kazanchis and settled with them to finish off with the interference from Ismaildan's clan that lasted for a long time. Ominously smiling in anticipation of dividing the Ismaildans' rich possessions, Arslan, Kaban and other beks-kazanchis jumped into their saddles and straight from the Emir palace set out to Ashyt. They did not find Malmysh unawares, but turned out stronger in numbers. In a bloody fight, Malmysh was brought down from a horse, and was strongly hurt in the fall. His son took him to the Kukmor district, where the old man managed to establish a city (ca 1428), and he died soon. That city on the Nukrat-su Hadji Baba-bek named Malmysh after his father. Then he expanded his possessions to Urdjum, and also founded the city of Shem-Mardan, named so in honor of his grandfather Mardjan. Then, when a new Shem-Mardan has been built, the old city began to be called Iske Yort. And these were the state lands, and the local Ars were paying taxes to the Emir. The old men were telling me that Hadji Baba-bek gathered their great-grandfathers in the Shem-Mardan, and declared to them: “I am your new master. Those who would accept Islam, I will declare as the cossacks, and impose taxes for the non-in-service hours not higher than the Ak-chirmysh tax, and those who would persist in paganism I would turn into kurmyshes (tenement peasants)”. Certainly, the majority, accepted Islam, and a quarter of igencheis (state peasants) refused and became kurmyshes (tenement peasants). Certainly, they were outraged in hope for the Emir's (Gali-bei) aid, but Ismaildans were severe kazanchis and quickly bottled up the revolt. Emir (Gali-bei) also tried to reach the bek that has gone too far, and the kazanchis managed to burn down the Shem-Mardan and pursuit the rebels retreating to the Malmysh. But that staged for the whole pack a forest ambush at the aul Bailyangar, and clobbered many men. Those who escaped panicly rode without rest to Archa (Archa-Kala) and refused to go again against the Ismaildans... And the old men also were adding, that all Ars that accepted Islam already in the second generation have forgotten their language and became Bulgars, for for the Bek had given money, and in each aul were constructed two or three mosques with schools for teaching the faith and the Bulgar language. And then the pagans also, living among the faithful, have forgotten the Ar (Komi, Mari, Udmurt Finno-Ugran) vernaculars...
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In 1430 the Bek of the Uruses (Vasily IV, 1425-1434) undertook a raid on Kazan, but got lost in the Kukdjak (river Kokshaga) district and together with few Boyars fled from the exhausted army using the last horses. The infidels numbering 27 thousand grew totally exhausted during their wandering in the woods. The Ar chirmyshes (yeomen with military corvee), on encountering them, killed the enemies by hundreds and without any pity, for those to cease passing through their thickets. And really, from that time the Balyns were panic-stricken to pass through these territories. Only three thousand infidels avoided death and wandered to the Bulgarian auls, where they were spared and forwarded to Kazan. Emir (Gali-bei) sold them to the Dan (Danes?), and instead of gratitude sent to the subash auls in the Alat (river Alat, town Alat, 56.2°N 49.2°E) officials to locate the other infidels. Those (officials) by force and whips forced subashes to turn over the hidden Uruses who wanted to accept Islam, and Emir sold them also. (The Emir) Gali-bei enjoined to transfer the subash auls that were involved in that affair into the category of kurmysh (tenement peasants) and to distribute them to the kazanchis. The subashes took to the weapons, and in fights with kazanchis one half of them upheld their freedom and the lands, and another had to abandon their auls and went upstream of the river...

Excessively rewarding the kazanchis, Emir overlooked that only the force, instead of servility, induces to serve. The ulans, seeing that Emir is not so clever and became entirely dependent from them, ceased appreciating and heed him. The Ashrafids, feeling their strength, decided to take the power in the Bulgar state under a banner of struggle with the infidels Kypchak (Khanate) and Balyn in the name of restoration of the united and free of any influences Bulgar. In 1431 Yabyk-Mohammed proclaimed himself a gazi and Emir of Bolgar, and then (the Emir) Gali-bei ordered to return officially to Kazan her former name Gazan...

In 1436, having taken advantage of the Kypchak (Khanate) and Nogais split on the sides of Khan Ulug-Mohammed, Kichi-Ahmed, and Said-Ahmed, the Emir Yabyk-Mohammed sent his ambassadors to Ulug-Mohammed and received from him a certificate with a recognition of the Bulgar independence in exchange for payment of a tribute to the Nogai and Türkic Khans and the maintenance of the Türkic Khans with them murzas during the period of their service to Bulgar for the high communication of the Bulgar Emirs with the kind Turkic lands. The total sum of the tribute did not exceed the former regular payments to the Tatars, of rather tolerable extent, and Yabyk-Mohammed with pleasure agreed to those conditions of the Bulgar exit from under influence of Kypchak. And this docment was very precious. In fact, the Tatar custom was that what one Khan decreed, another Khan could not cancel, and that means that the Ulug-Mohammed's decree remained valid for all times and for all other Tatar Khans, even if he was a Khan for only half a day. Owing to its importance it was stored in Korym-Chally (apparently, Yar Chally, )... It is also said that in honor of the ambassadors who brought the Khan's document, Yabyk-Mohammed arranged such magnificent feast that he received a nickname “Bairam Gazi”. And my father told me “Ulug-Mohammed agreed to give this letter because he needed the help of Bulgar”... Then, the same letter also gave to the Bulgar the Khan Said-Ahmed, and he received our help...
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The Nogai beks and Khans were hostile to the Bulgar state, but could not do anything: Bulgar was rising, and Kypchak (Khanate) split into hordes and weakened. Ulug-Mohammed tried to recover the Sarai throne from the Kichi-Ahmed and was hostile to him, in 1437 suddenly came from the steppes to the Djun-Kala. (The Seid-Emir) Yabyk-Mohammed immediately recognized him as a head (Khan) of the Kypchak-Echke-Bulgarian union (Khanlyk), wishing with his help to finish with Gali-bei and to subordinate Kypchak to the Bulgar. But the Kirgiz Bek Kuraish, a descendant of the Shonkar-Biy who enjoyed unlimited trust of the Ulug-Mohammed, persuaded Seid-Emir (Yabyk-Mohammed) not to start a war with the faithful, and to finish with the Gali-bei with other means.

In 1437 Ulug-Mohammed, at a request of Kuraish, demanded from Gali-bei soldiers for a campaign to the rebelling against him Moscow. (The Emir) Gali-bei could not have sent anybody, for his kazanchis refused to go to a war, while (the Seid-Emir) Yabyk-Mohammed sent his son Gabdel-Mumin with the cossacks of the Burtas' son Shali... The poor Burtas together with Hamid-Batyr dared to object to reprisals of Malmysh, and when Emir (Gali-bei) invited both of them, he (poor Burtas) incautiously came to him, was seized, and executed. After that Shali drove off from Hamid-Batyr to (the Seid-Emir) Yabyk-Mohammed, and from that time members of his Amir clan served the Ashrafid. Emir (Yabyk-Mohammed) appointed him a Sardar of the cossack district located between the rivers Misha and Agidel, and was named Shali Ashnyak, because the founder Subash of his Amir clan was a leader of the Saban (Saban - the colloquial form of the major Türkic tribe Suvar/Savar/Savir/Sibir) tribe Ashnyak or Aznak (the subtribe As of the Suvar tribe, their link with the As-guzai Scythians). And the main balik in the district was named Ashnyak. Soon the old Shali yielded the Sardar post to his son Kichi-Amir, and he himself retired and built for himself within the district a balik Shali.. . And the kurmyshes (tenement peasants) at the Shali's grandfather Garaf were 500 captives he took in the main fort of the ushkuis (that makes the main peasant populace of the Shali Ashnyak district the Novgorod Slavs and Danes). During the Shali time, their children accepted Islam and began to hold themselves Bulgars. The Sardar (Kichi-Amir) ntransferred them to the subash estate, and they settled on the land allocated for them in the district, at the balik Balykly...

When the Emir Yabyk-Mohammed had to communicate with Ulug-Mohammed, he decided to adopt a title of the Seid-Emir..., which is higher than any other terrestrial titles... And the title “Seid” in Bolgar had the descendants of the saint Mohammed-Gali bine Mirhudja: his son Mir-Gali who expired in Kazan, the Mir-Gali's son Yadkar who run out during ravaging of Kazan fled from city to his aul and as a symbol of its (ravaging) condemnation never drove back there, the Yadkar son Radjap who was preserving the ruins of the Nur-Suvar and expired near them, the Radjap son Isbel-Hudja who went with the Mahmud ibn Gali embassy to the Misr (Egypt) and also expired in Kazan, the Isbel-Hudja and his sons Hammad and Husain. Hammad barely managed to escape from the Great Bolgar to Cheremshan from the attack of the Idegei's infidels, and his sons perished there as gazis with swords in their hands. And Husain, after adeath of his wife Cheker-bi, a daughters of a merchant Salih, left to Bashkort and died there childless in a solitude... Hammad erected a mausoleum above his tomb, which people began erroneously call “Kul Gali Türbe”. My uncle told to me that he had no sons, and his daughter, pious Emryach-bi, a mother of Husain Ashraf, was married to Chally-Mohammed. Therefore, when Seid Hammad felt the approaching end of the term given to him by the Almighty, decided to bless Husain to the acceptance of a title Seid. But Husain refused in favor of his newborn son Yabyk-Mohammed, and the saint Hammad named the baby a Seid of Bulgar...

For some time Yabyk-Mohammed did not dare to openly call himself Seid, but the time has come, and he styled himself with that title in the letter to the (Kypchak Khanate pretender Khan) Ulug-Mohammed...

For that support (the Kypchak Khanate pretender Khan) Ulug-Mohammed sent Yabyk-Mohammed a letter where he recognized Seid as the governor of all the Echke Bulgar (Old Bulgar, apparently the central provinces of Bulgar) under condition of feeding (billeting) the Khan (Ulug-Mohammed) and his descendants in the Kazan. The letter was kept in Echke-Kazan (Old Kazan, kalga/citadel Ar-Kala/Archa-Balik)... Kuraish informed Kazan about the Khan's decision, and the kazanchis chose to overthrow Gali-bey with their hands, and to recognize the authority of the Seid-Emir (Yabyk-Mohammed)...

The Yabyk-Mohammed young son Gabdel-Mumin, named so in memory of the Salman's son Mumin, lived up to the duties assigned to him. When in a battle with the Balyns at the Nerle-su ("Beautiful River” - left tributary of the river Klyazma, Russian form “Nerl") even Kyrgyzes trembled and fled, he remained in the ranks of Shali's cossacks and by that motivated them for the battle with the infidels. The cossacks held on until Kuraish returned the Kyrgyzes to the battlefield, and then together with them they crushed Muscovites and captured their Bek. My uncle told to me that Gabdel-Mumin was the first to grab the infidels' Bek's horse reins, but then passed them to Kuraish when he rode up to him, with the words: “Bek! You deserved this victory!” [...]
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But then greedy for the money the Khan's brother Kara-Yakub together with his sons Yakub and Kasim raised a revolt against (the Seid-Emir) Ulug-Mohammed. The rebel took Kazan and killed Ulug-Mohammed, who arrived there under an order of the Seid-Emir (Ulug-Mohammed). Then Kara-Yakub released the incarcerated there captive Urus Ulubiy,and went with him to Kurmysh. Kuraish and the Ulug-Mohammed third son Mahmudtek were shocked by this perfidy and treason. In the Kurmysh took place a fight between them. In the heat of the battle Kara-Yakub jumped on Mahmudtek with a knife, but he was faster than the uncle, inflicted mortal blows with his own dagger, and rode away to Simbir to Hamid-Batyr, Kuraish, and a thousand of loyal Kyrgyzes. At once there arrived Gabdel-Mumin, and all of them agreed about Khan Mahmudtek with his people enlisting into the Seid-Emir (Ulug-Mohammed) service ... In the beginning, Yabyk-Mohammed charged Khan (Mahmudtek) to take Kazan, because Gali-bei was freed by Kara-Yakub, and again pretended for the power. The Hamid-Batyr's son Yusuf and Danil's son Auli immediately set out, together with Mahmudtek and Kuraish, to the Kazan. The cannon master in the city then was the Rail's son of Urum-Mohammed, and the gunners were headed by the Urum-Mohammed son Mamli. When Yusuf approached the city, they locked up the cannons and poured water into gunpowder, so that by their fault the Bulgar blood would not be shed. This I was told by Biktimer's son Baigara, a Mamli grandson. He also told me that for a long time Biktimer did not have sons, and in desparation he took in wives a budishka (?) Maryam, and adopted her two sons Budish and Pan. For that good deed the Almighty rewarded him, and his first wife bore him in a year a son Baigara. Biktimer trained Baigara, Budish and Pan in his craft, and three of them together made three huge cannons with cannonballs reaching a waist level. When they were starting shooting, the infidels in horror were fleeing away from the walls of Kazan...

And from the Chally to the possessions of Gali-bey marched Seid-Emir Yabyk-Mohammed himself, with the Shali's cossacks. They reached the possession of the Hadji Baba-bek neighbor, a kazanchi Timershah, who was the only one tolerated by the Ismaildans near them because he did not participate in the civil strives. Held in respect by all kazanchis, Timershah ordered them to gather in the New Archa, a center kazanchi district. There, Seid declared his intention to unite Bulgar under his authority, and to free the Bulgar state from the Kypchak influence. On that, Hadji Baba-bek, Musafir, and Timershah responded that they will allow that if the Seid-Emir would guarantee the inalienability of their rights. Yabyk-Mohammed immediately has written a document that he would respect the rights of the kazanchis, and they set out to Kazan together with Shali through the Echke-Kazan, the kalga (citadel) of which was called Ar-Kala (Archa-Balik). At the fortress Biektau they were already expected by Gabdel-Mumin with Mahmudtek, who came there from the Mountain Side through Bolgar and Laish. They together approached Kazan, and Gabdel-Mumin urged the citizens of the Kazan to hand the city over in the morning of the next day, and otherwise threatened them with a frightening attack. In Kazan then were Yakub with 500 Kyrgyzes and the Nogai biy Kildibek with 2500 horsemen. But the tazikbashes (apparently, City Hall leaders), having seen that in the Bulgarian state nobody supports Gali-bey, contacted Gabdel-Mumin and let his people into the city. Yakub with Gali-bei in the Yugary Kerman, and Kildibek locked up in the Bukhara Court. But when the cowardly Yakub surrendered to Gabdel-Mumin, and turned over Gali-bey to him in exchange for a free exit from the city, Kildibek fled in horror. Our forces went on a pursuit, ruthlessly clobbering Tatars and throwing them from the cliff. Only about 300 of them escaped with their biy, due to the interjection of Yusuf, who just approached the Nogai gate. When our men were distracted with the event, Gali-bei thought up of escaping in the turmoil, but Shali overtook him and led his horse by the reigns. Suddenly, the Emir (Gali-bei) struck him with a dagger, and the Sardar, already profusely bleeding, responded with the same and killed him. The Shali's son Amir took the father to the Shali fortress. When on a return trip Seid-Emir (Yabyk-Mohammed) stopped over to inquire about the health of the Sardar, he received from Amir the following answer: “The father, be glory to Allah, quietly parted with the mortal life, for he revenged for his father”...
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Chapter 5. Bulgar during Yabyk-Mohammed's and Gabdel-Mumin rule

Having seized the city, Gabdel-Mumin let Yakub with the Gali-bei's son Aydar go to Serkach (hapax) to Kasim, and invited his father to come to him. Yabyk-Mohammed entered Kazan and appointed Khan Mahmudtek the Ulugbek of the Kazan il (Kazan land, Kazan state). The secular authorities of all countries were notified about restoration of the unity of the Bulgar state under the high authority of Seid-Emirs Ashrafids and were advised to communicate officially with the Seids through the Seids' secular servants, the Kazan and Cheremshan Ulugbeks. Seid courts were set up in Kazan, Echke-Kazan, Korym-Chally and Ufa, and Kazan received a right to be governed by her own City council Magistrate. This Magistrate received a name “Tümen” (10,000), for in the Kazan baliks then were10 thousand households. The state was divided into eight provinces (ils, vilaets), of which only Kazan was ruled by hired Khans serving as Ulugbeks, and the others were ruled by Ulugbeks from local Beks. But the Kazan Ulugbek-Khans had less rights than the other Ulugbeks. In the Kazan he was allotted for the duration of his services only a small court in Yugary Kerman, which later was expanded a little, and in the il he had some auls in the Khan's part of the Kazan vilaet. The Khan could judge only in the Khan's part of the Kazan il.

The other part of the Kazan il was called Tarhan's and ruled by district Inals from Tarhan ranks, in Kazan, Djur, Alat, Laish and Subash or Djebelstan districts. In the head of the Djur district with center in the beginning in the balik Old Djuri, and then the New Djuri, served the descendants of the Tarhan Sultan-Mamet, in the head of the Kazan district served the descendants of the Tarhan Kuraish-biy, in the head of the Alat district served the descendants of the Tarhan Arslan, in the head of the Djebelstan district served the descendants of Talkysh starting with his son, Tarhan Danil, in the head of the Laish district served the descendants of Altynbek...
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In addition to the Kazan il, in the Bulgarian state were seven more provinces: Ar il, Nukrat il, Chally-Cheremshan or Chulman il, Simbir il, Ishtyak il, Agidel il, and Bashkort il.

The Ulugbeks of the Ar il were descendants of Abdallah ibn Bashtu. In the beginning their possessions were in the upper course of the Honturcha and Big Cheremshan rivers, and the son of Abdallah Bulyar and his son SAlman already possessed this district with the center in Kul-Balik... A descendant of Bulyar, Mahdum's son SAlman, participated in attack on the boats of Syb-Bulat, and then he sheltered the Bek Yakub-Elaur, who surrendered to him. From that time both clans were always amicable... SAlman's son Nur-Daulet married a daughter of the Shemah merchant Samed who fled from the Tatars, that's how his son received the name Samed. Mohammed ibn Gali was a grandson of that Samed... The son of Mohammed ibn Gali Bek Saman supervised over counting and resettlement of Echke Bulgar population during Emir Azan, and then received a possession in the Ar district. Thus he, like the others, retained his former possessions, used them for cattle husbandry, and protected them with his cossacks.. .. A grandson of Saman, the son of Husain, Bek Nur-Daulet guarded Nur-Suvar also, and setting off in the summer to the Kul-Balik, always also visited Ulug Bolgar and Nur-Suvar. In 1471 he left to see off his son Bahadir to the Sarai war, and expired there. Starting with him, the descendants Bashtu became Ar's Ulugbeks. Their power was so great that even the kazanchis of the Arslan clan sought friendship with them, and the son of Arslan Urazmet named his son with the name of the Bahadir's son Sadir, and wrote to him: “I do this out of respect for you”...

The Ulugbeks of the Ishtyak il with center in Kungur were appointed from the descendants of Bilemshah, the son of the Ishtyak Biy Muldan from the sister of the Bek Masgut, the father of Tarhan Ishtyak... First of them to the post of Ulugbek was appointed Abalak, who was incarcerated from 1430 to 1445 in the zindan (jail) of the Emir Gali-Bey on suspicion of sympathy with Yabyk-Mohammed. After Abalak, the Ulugbek of Ishtyak il was his son Dauli, who repelled an attempt of Balyns to capture the center of the Nukrat il the Nukrat-Tuba. In memory of that he named his son Tuba. A grandson of Gali, the son of Amir Hamid helped him in that, and married his son Gali to the daughter of Tuba. A grandson of Gali, son of Al-Ahmed Tuba was named in honor of Ulugbek Tuba. A son of Tuba Aman-Bak went with Al-Ahmed against Djun-Kala, but he in vain climbed over the fence of the fort Lachyk-Uba, and was seized by the infidels... A A son of of Aman-Bak Said in grief renamed himself Djun-Said, to not forget the place where his father disappeared. And he then already had a the Ermak...

 The descendants of Tarhan Ishtyak were appointed Ulugbeks of the Agidel il. Ishtyak's son Altyn-bi (i.e. Altyn-bey) was distinguished by valor at crushing Batu's Tatars in a fight at the balik which in honor of the battle received a name Bugulma. A son of Altyn-bi Almat had fallen in 1278 defending the ferry at the balik Bashkort... A son of Almat Sheger perished repulsing attack of the Nogai Biys (Mangyt Biys), who rebelled against the Kypchak Khan Uzbek... A son of Sheger Gali moved his court from Ufa to balik Safar, built by Altyn-bi, then it began to be called Safarly Gali. And that balik received its name from the mosque Safar, built still by Belebey. In 1346 Safarly Gali had beaten off from the balik in Bulyar new Nogais (Mangyts), and his son Kadyr was killed by Kytais, who returned from the Mamai's wars... A grandson of Kadyr, son of Masgut Nadir participated in crushing the White Nogais, and in 1428 he was perfidiously turned over by Emir Gali-bey to the Khan Kichi-Mohammed, and there slaughtered by Tatars.. .. A son of Nadir Berket with the help of the Black Nogais, the descendants of Barmak, expelled the White Nogais from Bashkort and became a first Ulugbek of the Agidel province. Berket was killed by the Ruses, when in 1468 they burn the Safar-Balik. Then the Ulugbeks of the Agidel province were the son of Berket Mustafa, who crushed infidels at Kungur in the same 1468, and the son of Mustafa Safarly Almat, the son of Safarly Almat... A son of Enei-Bek Ilche-Berket now serves as a guide for caravans and messengers on the Subash road from the Kazan to the Korym-Chally, and on the Nogai road from the Korym-Chally to the Nogai Horde...

The descendants of the Biy Barmak served as Ulugbeks of the Bashkort il, which is located between Dim and the upper course of Djaik (Yaik), with the center at the balik Mamli-Tüba... And that balik was founded on the Dim by the banished there for his participation in “Rook's revolt” craftsman Mamli. And the son of the cannon master Urum-Mohammed Bulat came there for the iron, and in memory of it adopted a name Mamli... The first of the Barmak descendants to the Ulugbek post in the Bashkort province was appointed the Biy of the Black Nogais Kusum-Birde, who assisted Berket to expel White Nogais from the Bashkortstan. Kusum-Birde fell into the Ruses' hands in 1468, when he tried to revenge the death of Berket. He staged an ambush on the Uruses' way on Agidel (Ak-Idel, modern Oka river), but his guards had fallen asleep, and the infidels unexpectedly attacked and captured him while he was asleep... A son of Kusum-Birde, Mal-Birde was killed in 1480 by the White Mongyts who were trying to capture the Bashkort il. A son of Mal-Birde was Said-Ahmed, killed in Kazan in 1521 while trying to suppress a mutiny of kazanchis. The name Said-Ahmed was given to him in honor of the Khan Said-Ahmed, a horror of the White Nogais, and he really incited horror in the Tatars... After Said-Ahmed, the Ulugbek of the Bashkort il was his son Begish, and now is the son of Benin, Alzyam-Birde was...
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Carrying out the Governor's duties in the Simbir (present Simbirsk) il with the center in the Simbir city was entrusted to clan of Naryk. Yusuf Paryk, a son of Hamid-Batyr and a grandson of Galikai became a first Simbir Ulugbek... Chura-Koch intentionally located Simbir at a day of travel from the Simbir city pier Kabak on the Idel river, and that always confused all kinds of robbers, who were mistaking Kabak for the city. While they were sorting out the situation, on the rampatrs near Simbir were preparing the guards, then the city became simply unapproachable... And the possessions of the province spread in the space from Bula and Bure Pochmagy to the checkpoint Saratau (present Saratov) and Sarychin (Tzaritsyn after Russian conquest, Soviet Stalingrad, present Volgograd), where were sent Burtas cossacks of Bek Azak, a descendant of the Ablas-Hin's son Bek Aradysh. And a descendant of another Badri's son, Burtas-Kamal, who fell prisoner to the Tatars and was ransomed by the Kashan merchants, I have met in Tabriz... To the number of Naryks' pious acts should be attributed the protection by their cossacks of the Ulug Bolgar, that allowed the sacred city to be able to keep receiving the merchant caravans and pilgrims ...

In Nukrat, it was necessary to install as Ulugbeks the descendants of Sultan-Mamet and his son Bek-Daud, for the local Tarhans, the descendants of Sadyk, Anbal and Mer-Chura, did not want to subordinate one to another. And the first Ulugbek was the son of Bek-Daud Daish-Sultan, then was his son Tahta, and the last was the son of Tahta Kul-Mamet... The Nogai horde had to confer with Seid-Emirs through the Vali of Yar Chally, which made Vali very proud of, and they oftentimes called themselves Ulugbeks, and called Cheremshan Yar il...
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The whole order of the Ashrafids' Bulgar was established by Gabdel-Mumin, inspired by the Almighty. In the beginning, like all children of the Seids, he took a title of Emir, but to him, as to the real ruler of the Bulgarian state since the time of the Kazan's capture, the pious Kypchak Khan Said-Ahmed sent his friendly congratulations. The Khan was trying to restore the Kypchak Horde, and recognized the independence of Bulgar only. Both rulers were quite amicable, and in the beginning together squeezed the willfulness of the White Nogais, and then turned their sights to the west, where Moscow submitted to Crimea, and began sending its tribute there, while stopping paying the Djir tribute. Our forces besieged a few of the Rus cities, and the scared Balyn Bek was forced to renew the payment of the Djir tribute. Then Gabdel-Mumin, whom his father nicknamed Saf-Teke in his childhood, ordered the master Mamli-Bulat and the Nadir son Berket to help Khan and set out to Moscow together with his Sardar Muzaffar-Shakh. Berkete, like the others Ulugbeks of the Agidel, had a duty to deliver iron to Kazan. For extreme eagerness in that, he received a nickname Timer-Berket, and his brother was given a nickname Bakyr-Kushtan. During campaign, both of them were tirelessly collecting iron into specially brought arbas. And they departed from Safar-Balik and in Kul-Balik joined Mamli-Bulat, who took along one cannon...

 Having crossed Idel at the mouth of Cheremshan, Timer-Berket stopped at Sura-su (modern r. Sura in Chuvashia) river in Burel Pochmagy, near Burtas, and sent Kushtan for reconnaissance. At the river Kuper-su he was suddenly attacked by Kumanian Tatars and killed. Berket went out to punish the bandits, but did not find them, but joined there with Muzaffar-Shakh and set out with him against Balyn. When they crossed the river Sterle, the Moscow Bek himself set out towards them. But then Ulugbek Yusuf Naruk personally passed through the AlaTüre-Balik and streamed to the Djun-Kala. The Emir did not ask him to do it, but Yusuf did it to retribute for the death of Kushtan. His movement caused a real panic in Balyn, because the Moscow Bek thought that if Naryk was thrown from the south to the mouth of Sain-Idel (lower course of the modern Oka river), that means that Emir prepares to strike on Djir. In a haste, he sent to Djun-Kala the cavalry of the Kasim Bek, who had switched to his service, and himself set out to Djir. On the path of the Sardar Said-Ahmed he left a half of his 80 thousand-strong army, but his commander, at news the Khan's army has Bulgars with cannons, retreated to horror. The Kyrgyzes and our forces came to the Moscow, and there Mamli-Bulat set a fire to the city with several shots. From that, the whole city burned down, and it it was only left to take the stone citadel of the Rus capital, where taken by surprise and awed by the fire the Moscow commanders locked up without any supplies. But suddenly, Muzaf-far-Shakh received a message about a plot against Said-Ahmed, and he immediately raced to his horde to save the Khan... Our troops, left alone, also had to leave in haste, for after the departure of Kyrgyzes. The Muscovites recovered from their fright and wanted to capture our cannon. Then, Timer-Berket with tears in his eyes abandoned his supply train filled gathered iron, because it was risky for the 800 Agidel cossacks to protect it against 20 thousand intrepid Balyns...

20 thousand best Balynian soldiers were incinerated in the Moscow fire, for a decade after that the infidels were recovering, and behaved quietly. They renewed the payment of the Djir tribute, and the detachments of Said-Ahmed, who was fighting the Crimean Khan, only menaced the Ruses with noisy raids near the Balyn boundaries. But in 1461 the Bulgar ally Said-Ahmed has died, and Moscow Bek began conceiving of a revenge against Bulgar. The situation in the Turkistan favored that. The new Kirgiz Khan Ahmad intended to restore Kypchak, and the Ruses, mindful of the Tatar invasion against Moscow, agreed to pay to him tribute and appear for the appointments.
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 Mahmudtek, bypassing Emir, was also ready to recognize his dependence on Ahmad, which Gabdel-Mumin regarded as a mutiny, and dismissed the Khan from the post of the Kazan Ulugbek. The new Ulugbek of the Kazan il became a Mahmudtek son Hal il, and Mahmudtek, called by the people Mamadysh, was exiled to the balik Nukrat-Kama or Kermenchuk-Kabak, where he died. After that the pier was renamed Mamadysh in his memory. Halil, under an order of Emir, not only responded to Ahmad with a resolute refusal, but also in front of the eyes of the dumbfounded emissary tore up and stomped the Khan's memorandum. At the scene was present the envoy of the Crimean Khan, who was always avoiding conflicts with Bulgar and now decided to conclude a union with the Bulgar state against Tatars. When all Kazan Ulugbeks, starting with Halil, as a sign of despisal toward Ahmad in turns spat on the scraps of the Ahmad's letter, the Crimean envoy also joined them.

Ahmad-Khan, upon learning about that, come to a bombastic fury and sent Ulakchin's Nogais against Bulgar. They besieged the Simbir balik Shirdag, named so in memory of Shirdag who was killed there by the Kermeks of the Sardar Batu, but were totally crushed by the Shirdagians, Simbirites, and Külbaliksans, who came to the aid. In the fight and subsequent pursuit, in the space in 300 vertas (500 km) our troops destroyed five Tatar Biys and three thousand New Nogais. At that time the Balyn Bek, encouraged by Ahmad, conceived to attack Kazan, but after receiving the news from the Crimean ambassador upon his arrival from the Kazan to the Djun-Kala, about the Ak-Mongyts' defeat and the benevolence of the Crimean Khan to the Bulgar, he turned back cowardly.

The Crimean ambassador then was Murza Daulitek. His son, Türe of Azak Murza Azan, with a group in 400 horsemen fled to Bulgar during Ahmad's invasion into Crimea, and was hired in Yusuf's service. The Ulugbek gave them in possession a land parcel near Saratau, where they founded a fort Daulitek. One half of them carried a cossack service protecting the border and guarding ambassadors and caravans from the Daulitek to Crimea, and another part was honored with the protection of the Ulug Bolgar in the balik they built in a vacant part of the city, naming it Azak balik, and also had to guard the caravans from the Ulug Bolgar to Daulitek... This I was told by the (Emir) Azan descendant Murza Kuchak, whose father moved off to Crimea, while he returned to Bulgar...
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In 1466 broke out a scandal because of the Rus merchant ships were allowed to pass through Kazan to Iran. Emir accused Halil of willful violation of the Talib's interdiction law on foreign merchant's travel through the Bulgarian state, and incarcerated him in zindan. Halil saved his head only due to Yabyk-Mohammed's intercession. Emir have not announced a new Ulugbek, but invited Kasim to that service. He has done it a second time. The Balyn Bek learned about the first invitation of the Emir, who wanted to attract the Khan by to his service in order to return the Mishar district to the Bulgarian state, and with rich gifts convinced him to refuse to depart for the service. A second time, Emir wanted to lure Kasim into ambush and to finish with him, for the Ahmad-Khan wanted to install him in Kazan as a ruler, and even called the Bulgarian state a “Kazan Horde”... Kasim mistook the Emir's offer as a sign of the Bulgarian state's weakness, and advanced to Kazan with a 40 thousand-strong Rus army and a Gali-Bey son Aydar, whom he wanted to make Seid after the capture of Bulgaria.

At Burat, an ambush was waiting for the Khan, but our troops untimely jumped out from it. Kasim have not crossed the Kara-Idel yet, and escaped in horror to Kan (Bulgarian form of Kağan, with silent “ğ” and reduced “aa”, also Kan-Kerman, later Khan-Kermen, Kan-Mardan, also later Murom Princedom, present city of Murom), but a half of the Balynians crossed to the left bank, were encircled, and surrendered after an appeal by Aydar. Gabdel-Mumin treated the son of Emir mercifully, gave him an estate near Kazan and a title of Emir. And Emir installed the Mahmudtek son Ibragim a Kazan Ulugbek...

The Moscow Bek (Ivan or John III, 1456-1505) was wounded by that and with approval of Ahmad-Khan began a war with Bulgar. One of his commanders got lost in Kukdjak (river Kokshaga) and fled from his army, which perished after that. Another Moscow commander, Iban, at night like a burlak (vagrant) has crept to Kazan, set her suburbs on fire, and cowardly sailed to the Agidel. In the fire, Seid Yabyk-Mohammed choked with smoke to death. Gabdel-Mumin (1467-1479), who out of a pity to his father was refraining from taking the title Seid, now assumed the titles of Seid-Emir, and Kan (Kağan)... In response to the treacherous attack, the Sardar of the salchis (sailors) Ike-Imen sunk the Rus ships that were sailing on Agidel (Oka) to join the forces of Iban, and the Nur-Daulet's son Bahadir burnt out the city of Gusmankatau and at Kolym crushed a Balyn group. When our fleet departed to Kolym, Iban suddenly broke through and burnt Safar-Balik, then sailed to Chulman (Arctic Kama = Upper Kama). Gali's (Shali?) son Amir with the Ike-Imen vessels pursued Iban. That commander, seeing that he can't escape with the army, left it at night during a night-stop, and with two servants fled to Djuketun (modern Djuketau). In the morning, Ike-Imen overtook the Rus ships, and forced the infidels to disembark and march through the woods toward the same Djuketun. On the way from Chulman (Arctic Kama = Upper Kama) to Djuketun, Amir blocked the road for three thousand Iban's soldiers. He had only 500 cossacks, but he held on until Bahadir came to his aid. Together they finished with the robbers, of which only 200 managed to escape to the forest thickets. In memory of the battle, Amir changed his name to Bahadir.
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 In 1469 a 70 thousand-strong Moscow army invaded Bulgar. The fortifications of the burned down suburb Akbikul were not completely restored yet, and the Ruses managed to break into it and to besiege Yugary Kerman and the Bukhara Court on the Bogyltau hill. Fortunately, both fortifications were then connected by walls, and due to the valor of a thousand-strong Chally alai (garrison) have stood up till the coming of Amir-Bahadir. Two hundred fifty cossacks of the Bek distracted Uruses from Shakhri Gazan, and when infidels saw a small group of Kashans, they attacked them with all their force and surrounded them in the balik Urman-Elga. To defend for any extended time this weakly fortified balik behind “Archa kyry” was impossible, but there appeared in time about five thousand of the Bahadir and Hadji-Baba;s son Bek Bairash soldiers, one thousand cossacks of the Kuraish's son Kadysh, and the fleet of Ike-Imen. The Rus ships, having caught a sight of the Bulgarian fleet, left their army to the mercy of the fate, and in panic sailed to Djun-Kala, and the whole Balynian army was driven away from the balik and surrounded in the twice destroyed by them suburb Akbikul. However, in view of the small number our forces could not suppress completely the surrounded enemy, and only wanted to hold them in a ring to the approach of the Chally and Simbir armies. Meanwhile, the Challyans and Simbirns fought Tatars in Cheremshan...

Ahmad-Khan, burning for revenge, ordered Nogais to attack the Cheremshan baliks, but this time Nogais asked for help and preferred to stay behind the Khan's Tatars of Sundyk-Biy. The Biy besieged Kul-Balik with 10 thousand Uzbeks and 35 thousand White Nogais, and expected to quickly open the road to Kazan. However after the first attack, when the Uzbeks lost 300 men but achieved nothing because the Nogais did not lend their support, started a contention between the Biys, and the affair became prolonged. Due to that, the Timur-Berket's son Mustafa could come in time to the aid of the balik's alai (garrison) with two thousand Agidelans, a Kusum-Birde's son Mal-Birde with three thousand Bashkortians, a Yusuf Bak's son Arslan with two thousand Simbirites, and a Danil's son Auli with two thousand cossacks from the Subash district. It came out so that they were approaching balik in turns, and when the first wave joined the fight with the Tatars and started to get tired, the next wave reached the fight and replaced them...

In these continuous skirmishes Uzbeks lost 5 thousand men, Nogais lost 15 thousand men, and our troops lost 3 thousand fighters. At last the Nogais, seeing that the things have soured, took to a flight. After Nogais, the Uzbeks also had to flee. The Bulgarian Beks were satisfied with the outcome and began departing. Auli hastened to the Kazan, Mal-Birde and Mustafa returned to their provinces, and only Bak-Arslan with 1500 soldiers pursued Uzbeks and was continuously shooting at them from behind. At the Kinel, Sundyk got annoyed by that, stopped his troops, and attacked the Bek. In a furious skirmish, our troops lost 500 cossacks, finished with the Tatars, and tied up Sundyk, but Bak-Arslan received a fatal wound...

A son of Bak-Arslan, the Ulugbek Alish, in a temper wanted to finish off Sundyk, but when Sundyk said that for him the death will be a relief because he lost all his brothers and sons in the fight, Ulugbek reneged and threw him in zindan...
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Auli with a thousand horsemen approached Kazan simultaneously with the kazanchi Arslan's son, the Alat Türe Urazmet, and the kazanchi Kaban's son Bek Yakush, who also had a thousand of temerarious kazanchi's djurs each, and besides Urazmet also had 4 thousand of the Ar's (Fennic) Chirmyshes. It should be mentioned that the clan of Arslan descended from Balus, and the clan of Kaban descended from Djakyn, and the Beks of these noble clans yielded to nobody and never, except for the Seids... The kazanchi's djurs were recruited from the kurmysh (peasantry) boys, They were made completely ruthless, loyal to their owners and most of all war-loving servants. They were perfectly prepared for war, had the best amour, and were receiving anything that they wished, but their lives depended entirely on the will of their kazanchis...

The kazanchis were not obligated to go to the war personally, and could instead pay off with slaves numbering the same as the number of soldiers they had to furnish. Usually, the kazanchis had to provide from 10 to 100 soldiers; the Inals, Türe or Tarhans, whe served as Sardars during the war, had to provide from 500 to 1000 fighters, but if the kazanchis could pay off, from the Türe were required real warriors, and nobody was interested where he would get them. Therefore, Inals used to set up in their districts a few cossack settlements and enlisted fighters from them...

The sight of the kazanchi cavalry instilled horror in the Rus commander, but he was still hoping that the fleet would help him... Our artillery did not bother him, because Mamli-Bulat was saving the cannonballs and gunpowder for the storm by the Ruses. But when to the Kazan vicinities came Musafir's son Gali-Gazi with 500 horsemen and right from the march attacked the infidels, the master ordered half of all cannons to shoot at the infidels' camp. Then in the clash also joined all the others.... The battle continued all day long, and cost infidels 10 thousand soldiers, and 600 horsemen to our forces. The Rus commander still had 55 thousand more soldiers, but they mostly were kurmyshes (peasants) of the Balyn Boyars, brave, but badly armed and trained. Therefore, when in the morning to the Balyn to camp has sailed up Ike-Imen and has shown the infidels the head of the defeated Sardar of the Rus fleet Halib (Gleb?), the Moscow commander in full despair entered negotiations with the Bek Gali-Gazi. The Bulgar Sardar allowed the Rus commander and four other Rus Beks to sail off to Djun-Kala in exchange for the surrender by them of the Rus whole army...
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When from the Djun-Kala to their camp arrived Boyars with that news, the whole army surrendered. And such a huge quantity of captives the Bulgar state never captured before... The Kan (Kağan Gabdel-Mumin) bestowed on Gali-Gazi a title of Emir, but the bestowed titles could not be inherited by the descendants... The Ruses ransomed five thousand of the captured, and the other 50 thousand were either sold to the Tatars and Crimeans, or bought by the kazanchis and the Ar's chirmyshes (bondsmen). Especially many has got Gali-Gazi, three thousand! Of them he sent 150 captives as a gift to his father-in-law, The Seber (Serbian? Savir/Suvar? Sibir?) Khan Tuba, and the rest he settled in the Laish district and gave them the rights of the kurmyshes. But then, when they began accepting Islam, he transferred them to the class of subashes and married them to the Ar's slave-girls that he bought. And the Ar's chirmyshes (bondsmen) used captives for the heaviest communal works, for the agriculture, logging and handling of the lumber, house and fortification construction, repair of roads and bridges, and building of ships and boats were a burden for them. Naturally, from such life chirmyshes (bondsmen) died quickly, without leaving offsprings, but the Ruses handled their tasks easily; sometimes chirmyshes (bondsmen) exchanged captives for captive girls or slave-girls, because the Ar men were short on their own women. We accustomed them to an easy life by selling something, and they willingly traded off their girls, maidens, and women. And supplying visitors for the duration of their stay with their wives in exchange for the money they counted for nothing...

 In 1470 the Kan (Kağan Gabdel-Mumin) decided to retaliate Ahmad-Khan for his attacks on Bulgar by destroying Sarai. Drawing advantage from the Nogais' anger against Uzbeks because of their heighten domination over them, Gabdel-Mumin sent Auli and Alish against the Kypchak capital with 3 thousand Yar-Chally cossacks right across the Nogai pastures. In exchange for gaining freedom and a small allodial in Simbir, Sundyk-biy volunteered to be their guide. Besides, the Kan (Kağan Gabdel-Mumin) ordered the Nukrat Ulugbek Tahta to send by water to Sarai the Kolyn (Russ. Khvalynsk, modern Vyatka/Kirov) fleet with good Nukrat archers, the fleet with one thousand lancers and two thousand archers was headed by a Sadyk's descendant Bitka and an Anbal's descendant Ganikei, and the archers were headed by a Mer-Chura descendant Bak-Daish... They set out to the Sarai side by side, to the Bel-Imen the cavalry rode by the right bank of Idel, and then crossed to the left bank. The salchis (sailors) were the first to break into Sarai, distracting the Tatar main forces, that allowed the cavalry to enter the city on the opposite side and to occupy it. The Tatars did not expecting anything like that, and they fled to the steppe in a terrible panic. Thus, our forces lost 200 salchis (sailors), 500 archers, and 300 horsemen, but downed 5 thousand enemies and captured unprecedented quantity of goodies. All the goodies were loaded to the ships, and because the ships were in short supply, people were moved from the ships to the seized from the the Tatars horses...

Together, Uzbeks and Nogais tried to cut off the Bulgars' return, but out forces broke through. At that, were lost another 500 of our horsemen, 100 salchis (sailors), and 400 archers, but not a single ship with captured goods fell to the Tatars... When the Kan (Kağan Gabdel-Mumin) was informed on the size of thebooty, he did not believe it, and came to see the ships in Bish-Balta himself... It mostlt went for the restoration of the Kazan baliks, construction of the mosques, and a new wall in Kazan. Earlier, it was coming to the bank of the Kazan-su, which enabled Ruses in 1468 to set it on fire. It was now moved away from the bank, and people began calling the ruins of the river part of the wall and the tower Iske-Shahar... After that event, the Sarai did not recover. Its fair was attempted to be recreated in the Ahmad-Khan new capital, but the attempt was not successful, and all merchants now had to go to the Kazan...

The Moscow's position was quite precarious, for in the Mountain war it lost its good cavalry and fleet. When Kan (Kağan Gabdel-Mumin) was reported on the defeat of the Djunians (1469), he immediately ordered to prepare for a next year campaign on Balyn, to join that restless for Bulgarian state area to Bulgar. Having learned about it, the Moscow Bek (Ivan or John III, 1456-1505) in fear recognized the suzerainty of the Ahmad-Khan (1460-1481), and for that Ahmad-Khan ordered to protect Balyn and to give him excellent horses, and experts on cavalry battles, and equipment to organize good new Rus cavalry. In 1473, a 40 thousand-strong crowd of Ak-Mongyts (White Nogais) attacked Bulgar on an order of Ahmad-Khan. They managed to take the balik Bak-Arslan, but at Bugulma they met an army of three Bulgarian Ulubeks, Mal-Birde, Mustafa, and Mamli, and were crushed. We lost 2 thousand horsemen, and the Kytais lost 13 thousand. The captives said that distraught Ahmad-Khan by force ceased form Kyrgyzes the best artisans and 120 thousand of fine horses, and sent them to the Balyn Bek. Then the Kan (Kağan Gabdel-Mumin) ordered Kolynians and Ike-Nmen to crush the court of Ahmad-Khan, and they did it. He, with his Uzbeks, were preparing for a campaign against Bulgar, but after Ike-Imen's attack he did not dare to leave his possessions...

Due to the help of the Khan (Ahmad-Khan), the Moscow Bek in few years revived his 60 thousand-strong cavalry and the fleet, attacked Kolyn (Russ. Khvalynsk, modern Vyatka/Kirov), and besieged the city. In case of the Nukrat War success, the Balynian hoped to free from the Djir tribute.

The news about the attack was delivered very quickly, the messengers rode day and night, and Kan (Kağan Gabdel-Mumin) managed to send to Nukrat in time Khan Ibragim with the Bek Hadji-Baba's son Bairash. The Sardars appeared at Kolyn (Russ. Khvalynsk, modern Vyatka/Kirov) unexpectedly for the besiegers, who were assembling for dinner. Having seen the half moons on the staffs of the green and red Bulgar banners, the Balyns rushed to flee in horror. Their cauldrons with prepared food remained in place, and our tired of almost continuous gallop troops had a bite with pleasure... But this attack could not be left unpunished, and Bairash went to Djuketun and ravaged its vicinities...
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The Balyns, having learned about the Khan Ibragim's departure to Nukrat, organized an attack of the Djunians on Kazan, but they was beaten off. The salchis (sailors) of Ike-Imen surrounded the Rus ships and forced 8 thousand Djunians to disembark, to the bank where the Batlik (river Vetluga, 56.3°N 46.5°E) Ars finished them off.

Having suffered a failure in Bulgar, the Balynian (Ivan or John III, 1456-1505) decided to overthrow the Uzbek yoke, and chose the recognize the Bulgar suzerainty, and renew the payment of the Djir tribute... When the Uzbek Khan went to Moscow, Gabdel-Mumin personally went to the border and stationed near it to prevent Ahmad or Nogais from disturbing the Bulgarian state. The Kan (Kağan Gabdel-Mumin) allowed Auli to march to the Kypchak steppe, and there, having met with the Ruses, together with them ravaged few of the Khan's (Ahmad-Khan) transport trains... When Auli returned to the Kan's (Kağan Gabdel-Mumin) camp, he learned that in his absence Gabdel-Mumin fell sick and keeled in the saddle. By the time the cossacks galloped to him and picked him up, he was already dead (1467-1479)...