Khazaria And International Trade In Eastern Europe 169
became completely independent before the mid-tenth century (and possibly
not even until the 960s). Khazar trade centers in the Crimea and the Taman
Peninsula like Bosporus and Samkerts or Itil, and possibly also Samandar, did
not decline in the tenth century. On the contrary—or at least in the case of
Itil—perhaps they even gained further prominence. Therefore, no matter what
losses Khazaria suffered, they were not essential for its control over the routes
of Eastern trade.
T. Noonan associates the fall of Khazaria with its failure to deal with the
consequences of the crisis in the dirham flow, caused by the Samanid state
during the 950s. According to him, “when the Khazars could adapt to new con-
ditions and exploit the commercial relationships between Islam and Eastern
Europe, as they did following the crisis of 875–900, then they prospered. When
the Khazars could no longer do this, as seems to have been the case after 950
with the onset of the silver crisis in Islam, then the economic basis of the
Kaganate eroded and the Khazar state collapsed”.89 But why were the Khazars
unable to adapt? It is true that this time the influx of silver from the East
did not resume. The Rus’, for example, turned their attention to the West
European silver denarii, the access to which became possible after the 950s.
The earliest hoard in Eastern Europe to contain denarii dates from 980. At the
same time the influx of dirhams stopped completely only in the early eleventh
century. The last dirhams to be minted by Volga Bulgars were from the end of
the 980s.90 These dates are too distant from the campaigns of Sviatoslav (the
960s) to have a direct relation to the fall of Khazaria. Moreover, dirhams were
essential for the Rus’ state, but the same thing cannot be said about Khazaria.
Trade with the East continued to prosper,91 only the dirham influx decreased,
89 Noonan 1985, 204.
90 Noonan 2000a, 382 and 391; Noonan 1980, 306. The development of Rus’ cities poses an
interesting problem in relation to changes in the trade of the mid-tenth century. The old
trade centers that arose around the Eastern trade began to decline during this period
and in their place or in their vicinity new princely centers were built. This process can
be compared to the decline of some Scandinavian commercial centers, such as Birka.
On the development of the Rus’ cities, see Petrukhin and Pushkina 1979; Mel’nikova and
Petrukhin 1986a and 1986b; Darkevich 1994, 10 and 43–60; Tolochko 1989. According to
Nazarenko 2001, 75, “with the development of regional state structures and a local market
the significance of long-distance trade gradually decreased; the open trade and handi-
craft villages of the type of the Baltic viks—a resemblance of long-distance international
trade—fell into decline everywhere, making place for the “normal” early feudal cities
both in North Europe and in its eastern parts”.
91 Darkevich 1976, 149; Fekhner 1961 and 1982. The coins were only one of the commodi-
ties that were transported through Khazar territory. Furthermore, as will be seen in the