The Khazar Economy: Economic Integration or Disintegration? 209
these areas or peoples provided the Khazars with taxes, since their own terri-
tory was poor in natural resources.165 Thus, the Khazar “climates” were actually
located outside the territory of Khazaria.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus is however quite specific in his description,
noting that the “climates” were the richest Khazar lands, adjacent to Alania.
Even if the Khazar state was indeed divided into “climates”, ruled by tuduns,
and its ruler Joseph really does enumerate the names of peoples with a sim-
ilar status, this does not necessarily mean that the “climates” the Byzantine
emperor writes about refer to the entire territory of Khazaria. On the contrary,
the account refers only to the richest and most developed regions! This is why
S. Pletneva assumes that the “climates” were located on the Crimean and the
Taman Peninsulas.166 It is hardly coincidental that during the eleventh cen-
tury, Byzantine and Rus’ sources identify Khazaria with precisely this region.167
Examining this particular issue, A. Tortika concludes that the “Khazar cli-
mates” were situated along the lower and the middle reaches of the Don up to
Sarkel (including the Samkerts area and the region along the Manich and the
Sala rivers) and encompassed Northwestern Khazaria (the lands between the
Severski Donets, the Oskol and the Don). According to him, it is possible that
some of the climates also included the Khazar territories in Dagestan.168 This is,
indeed, quite possible not only because of the well-developed Khazar economy,
but also due to the fact that Dagestan borders Alania in the Caucasus. Further
on, however, A. Tortika unexplainably follows the logic of A. Novosel’tsev, which
he describes as “fruitful”. He concurs that the climates were administrative-
territorial units, governed by tuduns, and also expands them with the lands
of the Burtas, the Volga Bulgars, etc. According to A. Tortika, Constantine
Porphyrogenitus described regions, which were populated not by Khazars, but
by “some other sedentary and agricultural ethno-tribal groups”.169
165 Novosel’tsev 1990, 108.
166 Pletneva 1996, 155.
167 For example, John Skylitzes describes the joint Rus’-Byzantine expedition of 1016 against
Georgius Tzul in Khazaria that was located in the Crimea. (Sokolova 1971, 68). Even more
interesting is the title of the Tmutarakan prince Rostislav Vladimirovich (1064–1066):
“Archon of Matrakha (Tmutarakan), Zichia and the whole Khazaria” (Gadlo 1991, 5–7;
Artamonov 1962, 440–441).
168 Tortika 2006a, 165; see also Tortika 2003.
169 Tortika 2006a, 165–166. The words of the Byzantine emperor are the following: “[Let it be
known that] nine [climates] of Chazaria are adjacent to Alania, and the Alan can, if he
be so minded, plunder these and so cause great damage and dearth among the Chazars: for
from these nine [climates] come all the livelihood and plenty of Chazaria” (Constantine
Porphyrogenitus. De Administrando Imperio, ch. 10, in Litavrin and Novosel’tsev 1989,