A country in southeastern Europe that existed from the 650s until the 960s.
The Khazar empire encompassed a vast land that served as a center for world trade and was regarded as a major political power by its contemporary neighbors. Its inhabitants consisted of diverse ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups. The ruling Khazar tribe, the members of which converted to Judaism in the ninth century, included semi-nomads, farmers, fishermen, crafters, and merchants. The empire had many workshops throughout the country that manufactured a wide range of products both for internal and external use.
The Khazar empire exercised control over major navigable rivers, including the Volga, Don, Dnieper, and Seversky Donets, and bordered the Caspian and Black Seas. Khazaria’s important trading cities included Sarkel on the Don, Khazaran on the Volga (next to the Khazar capital city, Atil), and Tamatarkha (modern-day Tmutorokan) on the Taman peninsula near the Black Sea. A number of caravanserais existed in the empire. Khazaria connected to the north-south Silver Road (which stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Arab caliphate) and to the east-west Silk Road trade routes, which both enjoyed significant commercial traffic. Overland trade routes connected Khazaria with other major Eurasian cities, including Kiev, Baghdad, Gurganj, and Kath in Khwarazm, and Bulgar in Volga Bulgaria. Sea routes linked Khazaria with Constantinople in the Byzantine empire and with port cities in the south Caucasus and Persia.
Those who came to Khazaria to trade included Arabs, Chinese, Ghuzz Turks, Alans, Scandinavian Rus’ (Vikings), and Jews called Radhanites. Importers paid a tariff of 10 percent of the value of traded goods to the Khazar king. According to the anonymous tenth-century Persian work Hudud al-Alam, maritime customs duties represented the largest source of revenue for the Khazar government. Secondary sources included taxes collected from land traders and tribute collected from subject kings and tribes. Goods imported into Khazaria included candle wax, honey, pottery, silver wares, pendants, weapons, scabbards, fur, and silk and cotton clothing. Notable foreign specialty imports included an ivory elephant chess piece from Asia, a Byzantine bone comb, a Siberian iron hook, Chinese mirrors, Central Asian bronze buckles, and paper from Samarkand in Central Asia. Coins came to Khazaria from the Byzantine empire, China, Persia, and the Abbasid and Umayyad caliphates.
Goods exported from Khazaria to other countries included isinglass (sturgeon glue), fish, pottery, silver and gold wares, jewelry, mirrors, spears, leather belts, and wine stored in amphoras. Khazaria also supplied slaves, cows, and sheep. Several types of furs from Khazaria were known as khazari in Arabic countries. Slavic and Finnic tribes in Russia employed Khazarian goods in common use.
Trading activity in Khazaria peaked during the eighth and ninth centuries, after which it declined and was largely superseded by trade through Volga Bulgaria and Kievan Rus’.
Kevin Alan Brook
See also: Goths; Volga Bulgaria.
Brook, Kevin. The Jews of Khazaria. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1999.
Noonan, Thomas. “The Khazar Economy.” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 9 (1995–1997): 253–318.