The Russian Empire 1450–1801

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

A word here should be said about nomads, as they play an important role in
Russian history, whether as conquered subjects or rivals for control of the steppe.
Pastoralists or hunters, people who practiced a nomadic economy do not“wander”:
they have adapted to settings of limited resources (water, grass, game) by developing
practices of food preservation and transport in harmony with their environments. If
need be, such communities consciously kept the size of their populations and herds
limited to match available resources. Nomads understand whose grazing lands are
where and when, and they move in parallel circuits. Women do most of the
domestic work; children herd; men were free for raiding and warfare.
Yuriy Malikov has provided a robust description of Kazakh nomadic patterns.
The Kazakhs, whom Russia encountered in the eighteenth century, were organized
in tribes of about 100 communities (called auls) that farmed mixed herds of sheep
and goats; they kept horses for cartage and warfare, and took up cattle grazing in
areas of Russian influence and only where sufficient grass existed. Sheep and goats
were the quintessential steppe domesticates, as they ate any kind of grass, in smaller
quantities than cattle; their milk, meat, and hide supplied the Kazakhs with a self-
sufficient household economy. Kazakhs traversed grazing circuits with portable
iurts made of sturdy felt from animal fur; balls of dried mare’s milk calledkumys
provided lightweight protein; hides provided clothing, containers, and rope. A tribe
of Kazakhs lived sedentarily at their winter encampments for about four orfive
months of the year. As spring came, it gathered for a slow migration to summer
pastures, following grass as it emerged from under melting snow. During their
moves, runners scouted out water and grass and kept the group on track. The tribe
camped every few days and grazed, moving on until they reached summer pasture
by May or June. Then the auls separated into smaller areas for efficient grazing; the
whole tribe might slowly shift its site several times, tracking water and grass
supplies, until August or September. Then they reassembled for a more rapid
autumn migration back to their traditional winter site. The distances they traveled
varied depending upon resources (from 200 to 300 km in southern Kazakhstan to
as many as 1,000 km in western and central, averaging there about 700 km).
Migratory paths were notfixed, but geographical zones claimed by neighboring
tribes were known and respected.
Nomads in the Eurasian steppe depended upon trade and raiding to supplant what
pastoralism could not provide. Nomads raided caravans for goods and settled societies
for slaves. Slaves had historically been a major element of the interaction between the
Eurasian forests and steppe; slaving certainly was a founding element of the Kyiv Rus’
state in the 800s, as Rus’traders allied with local tribes to seize slaves and goods
for Black Sea and Middle East markets. After Christianization (988), as the Rus’
leadership, now claiming princely status, settled into territorial rule, they over time
changed from predators to victims in the slave market. Italians ran the slave market
from 1204 to around 1475, when the Crimean Tatars took it over, bringing slaves to
Caffa where Greek, Armenian, and Jewish merchants sold them.
Statistics tell a sad tale. Halil Inalcik reports that the Crimean Tatars and other
steppe nomads carried out annual slave raids into Poland-Lithuania, Circassia
(northern Caucasus), and Russia from the early sixteenth through the middle of


66 The Russian Empire 1450– 1801

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