172 CHAPTER 4
Khazaria included numerous ethnic groups from the North Caucasus (that dif-
fered from the Bulgars, Khazars and the Alans living there), as well as Finno-
Ugrian and Slavic tribes from the forest-steppe and forest zones of Eastern
Europe. Thus, the question arises whether their material culture, which was
different from the Saltovo one, should also be considered as part of the cul-
ture of the Khazar Khaganate. Also, do these communities facilitate the under-
standing of Khazaria’s economy or did they have economies, independent
from the khaganate?
During the first half of the tenth century, the Khazar Khaganate stretched
over a vast territory that encompassed some major geographical and climatic
zones of Eastern Europe (parts of the steppe and forest-steppe zones, as well
as parts of the Black Sea and Caspian Sea coasts; the basins of two of the larg-
est rivers in Eastern Europe, the Don and the Volga, together with their trib-
utaries; mountainous and hilly areas north of the main Caucasus ridge and
in the Crimea). This predetermined a wide variety of economic activities in
the khaganate, as can be seen in the written sources and is evident from the
archaeological ones. This diversity is not due to ethnic differences and often
represents a trait of the economy of the same ethnic community (the Bulgars
for example).
A major problem in the assessment of the Khazar economy is the fact that
the vast territory of the khaganate has not been studied evenly by archaeolo-
gists. For some large areas there is a total lack of written sources. The area of
the Saltovo culture along the Don basin in the steppe and forest-steppe zones
alone encompassed some 500 000 sq. km.8 So far, more than 700 monuments
have been found there.9 Many of them have yet to be studied and the results of
most excavations have not been published.10 In the words of S. Pletneva: “the
data, obtained with such financial, physical, intellectual and spiritual efforts,
lies immobile on the shelves of archives and storehouses [.. .] even the per-
fectly well studied areas and groups of monuments in the Don Steppe remain
little known to specialists”.11 Large parts of the Don basin itself north of Sarkel
have not been studied at all, especially on the left side of the river, along its
major tributaries Khoper and Medveditsa. Thus, “tens of thousands of square
kilometers in the Volga-Don Interfluve remain “terra incognita” for all medi-
eval archaeologists [.. .], although it is quite possible that precisely that area
hides the answers to many questions we have about the history and culture
8 Pletneva 1999, 129 and 1989, 7.
9 Pletneva 1999, 25, 73, and 85.
10 Pletneva 1999, 14, 29, 75, and 115.
11 Pletneva 1999, 131.