16 chapter one
other territories of their vast empire, and turned both regions into a
reliable barrier and a bulwark against various enemies. Th is defen-
sive system must have been an impressive one as the Arabic written
sources pay a very serious attention to it. Th e name of one of those
fortresses, Semender/Samandar, which would later become one of the
early capitals of the Khazar khaganate, means “the last gate”^8 in Per-
sian and apparently implies the notion of a special semantic sequence
of gate—key (and thus, locking-unlocking, opening-closing towards
the Other)—Self (sedentary life, towns, etc.). In a similar way Derbend,
i.e., the defensive stone wall erected in the eastern part of the Caucasus
next to the Caspian coast in order to protect the approaches to North-
ern Iran, was named by the Arabs “Dar al-alam”, which means “the
gate of/to the world.”^9
In folklore, ‘gates’ consistently appear as points of breaking through
or penetration. Wedding rituals, especially those imitating royal mar-
riages, equate the nuptial event to the conquest of a town, i.e., of a
foreign space par excellence, and as such with the conquest and taming
of the Other, in this case of the woman. Th e semantic chain gates (or
door)—town—unlocking—conquest is also a Biblical motif (Revelation
21: 10–27).
Such notions appear also in a number of episodes that have been
oft en cited as examples of alterity. In one of them, the early ninth-
century Bulgar khan Krum is said to have been bent on planting his
spear into the Golden Gate of Constantinople while preparing for the
siege of the city. In another, the tenth-century Rus’ prince Oleg nailed
his shield on the same gate a century later, in a symbolic gesture of
appropriation of Constantinople, despite the fact that, like Krum, Oleg
did not in fact conquer the city. It is not diffi cult to interpret the inten-
tions of Krum and Oleg in relation to the Golden Gate: both wanted
to break through, to conquer and to appropriate the foreign space,
(^8) Ibn Hordadbeh 1986, 109 (paragraph 62) and n. 47; Pletneva 1976, 17–18, 29;
Magomedov 1994, 112. For diff erent etimologies of the name ‘Samandar’/’Semender’
see, Romashov 2004, 198, with the literature cited there. Especially for Derbend see,
Kudriavtsev 1993. Magomedov 1994, 73, stresses the fact that “the walls of Semender
were at the end with regard to the main walls of Derbend”; it is hardly a coincidence
that they had a similarity both in the plans and in direction with the latter.
(^9) Bol’shakov 1998, 174.