The Khazar Economy: Economic Integration or Disintegration? 211
significant Khazar center in the lands of the Alans.175 The control and secu-
rity of the approaches to the Khazar (Saltovo) lands were also handled by the
population that at that time had settled in the lands of the Kasogs.176 To the
northeast, the Alanian lands bordered the Kalmyk Steppe, where the Khazar
pastures were located, although it is also possible that the area contained a
system of Khazar settlements.177
After describing how the Khazars left Itil at the beginning of spring and
each went to his field or vineyard, the Khazar ruler Joseph adds: “I and my
princes and serfs proceed for a distance of 20 farsakhs until we reach the great
river called B-d-shan and from thence we make the circuit of our country”.178
According to P. Golden, the Khazar ruler maintained the traditional Turkic
nomadic cycle. Together with his court he left the city that served as a win-
ter pasture in April and finished the cycle in December.179 M. Artamonov and
S. Pletneva express similar views. S. Pletneva assumes that the nobility of the
western part of Khazaria also upheld a similar cycle.180 T. Noonan also believes
that the Khazar nobles continued to maintain the traditional nomadic cycle,
which had an ideological rather than an economic significance and could thus
be called “ritualistic nomadic pastoralism”.181 Thus, “those who did not belong
to the ruling elite worked in the fields, a visible sign of their inferior political
and social status [.. .] The khagan and, no doubt, most members of his retinue
had their fields and vineyards in Itil [.. .] worked by tenant farmers or slaves
and the bulk of the income/produce from them went to the owners, i.e., to the
Khazar ruling elite”.182
175 Pletneva 1999, 188–190; see also Bidzhiev 1984. The strong commercial ties between the
Khumar hillfort and the Crimea are evidenced by pottery and amphorae, found in the
area (Bidzhiev 1984, 123).
176 Gadlo 1989, 11 and 14.
177 Pletneva 1999, 203–205.
178 Kokovtsov 1932.
179 Golden 1980, 105.
180 Artamonov 1962, 398; Pletneva 1967, 47 and 147; Pletneva 1989, 24; Pletneva 1999, 33
and 203.
181 Noonan 1995–1997, 259.
182 Noonan 1995–1997, 259. According to an observation, made by Al-Istakhri and Ibn
Hawqal, Itil’s population was burdened with various taxes, used to support the khagan.
And Ibn Rustah and Gardizi note that the vicegerent (bek) managed the collected haraj
himself (Zakhoder 1962, 142 and 220–221; Novosel’tsev 1990, 142; Noonan 1995–1997, 290).