150 CHAPTER 3
The trade route that ran from Iran towards Khazaria, passing through the
Caucasus, emerged around the middle of the ninth century. The coins that
prevailed along this route were struck in Rey (today’s Tehran). The most com-
fortable road from Baghdad (hoards with Baghdad coins date mainly from
the ninth century; during the tenth century the dirhams that were struck in
Iraq came mostly from Mosul) to Khazaria passed through the Caucasian pas-
sages on the western coast of the Caspian Sea, near Derbent. There was also a
second route that passed through Merv, Bukhara and the two chief centers of
Khwarezm along the lower reaches of the Amu Darya, Urgench (Gorganch)
and Kiat, before continuing on along the Ustyurt Plateau (on the eastern
Caspian coast) towards the Ural and Volga Rivers.9
From the late ninth century, but mostly from the early tenth, dirhams
(Samanid ones) can also be found along the middle reaches of the Dnieper. At
the time, the Rus’ settled in Kiev and Ismail Samani (892–907) established the
Samanid state, the center of which became Bukhara. The new state began to
mint large amounts of coins. The Samanids were regarded as descendants of
the Sassanids and they revived the Persian language and literature in Middle
Asia. They secured the trade routes, which stimulated the growth of cities and
trade. The Samanid coins were struck mostly in Bukhara, Nishapur, Samarkand
and Merv. The road from Middle Asia to Khazaria gained significance, as well as
the Khazar capital Itil, where the roads from Khwarezm to the lower reaches of
the Volga and from Transcaucasia to the north Caspian coast met. The growth
of Bolgar is also related to the Samanid coin minting.
During the first half of the tenth century, the Volga Bulgars began to mint
coins that were copies of the Samanid ones. The early coins of the Volga Bulgars
contained an inscription of the Samanid ruler’s name, along with the location
of the coin minting—Bolgar or Suwar. Subsequently, the coins retained their
Samanid look, but the inscribed name became that of the Volga Bulgars ruler.
The influence of the Samanids is of essential importance in view of the rise of
Volga Bulgaria as a major economic and political center. They are associated
with the spread of Islam in the steppes, adopted en masse by the Volga Bulgars
in the early tenth century. The earliest found coin of the Volga Bulgars dates
from 918/919, while the latest (of the Samanid type) is from 986/987. Hoards
with such coins are found mostly along the Oka and Volga Rivers, reaching as
far as the Scandinavian trade centers.10
9 Kalinina 1986, 81–82; Gumilev 1997, 214, Darkevich 1976, 150.
10 Shepard and Franklin 2000, 100–101; Kropotkin 1986, 38–40; Darkevich 1976 114; Noonan
1980, 297–306.