204 CHAPTER 4
growing olives and vines.142 The southern slopes of the mountains are incised
by deep and fertile river valleys. The density of settlements was biggest in the
areas that had suitable conditions for the cultivation of various cereals and
vines. These included the coastal area of the plain and the mountain slopes.
The steppe zone is arid and infertile. It was used as a pasture land. The areas
most densely populated with Saltovo population included the river valleys in
the foothill regions of the central and eastern part of the Crimea, the Kerch
Peninsula, as well as parts of the northwestern and southwestern coastal
areas.143 The largest fortified settlement in the Khazar Khaganate (with the
exception of Dagestan), Mangup, was also situated in the Crimea.144 Its walls
were made of large hewn stone blocks, similar to the Maiaki and Tsimliansk
hillforts. According to I. Baranov, the large fortresses in the Crimea like Mangup,
Sugdea, Bosporus, etc. surrounded wastelands. Thus, significant troops could
be concentrated in them.145
There is a visible correlation between the economic interests of the moun-
tain population and those of the peoples of the lowlands, irrespective of
whether the mountain-dwellers were part of the Khazar Khaganate or not.
The high mountain pastures were important to the population that engaged
in stock-breeding and whose settlements were situated in the lowlands. In a
similar fashion, the mountain-dwellers needed the pastures in the lowlands.
This dependence is most clearly visible in Dagestan.146
142 Obolenski 2001, 42–43.
143 Baranov 1990, 7 and 9; see also Maiko 2007.
144 Baranov 1990, 58; its size is 90 hectares. The largest Khazar fortification in Dagestan is the
Verkhnii Chiriurt hillfort (most probably, the hillfort known as Balanjar in the sources)
that stretched over 120 hectares. The size of the other hillforts was significantly smaller
than 90 hectares (Magomedov 1983, 45).
145 Baranov 1990, 66–67. Marvakov 2007, 210 notes “a similarity in the organization of terri-
tories of the First Bulgarian Empire and Crimean Khazaria. Such fortresses can be found
throughout the whole territory of the Khazar Khaganate [.. .] Their main purpose was
identical: to keep under control large territories, the defense of which was organized by
the state”.
146 According to Magomedov 1983, 100–101, “the dominant role of the Khazar Khaganate in
the vast seaside and foothill areas of the Pre-Caucasus Region ensured great opportunities
for the most rational form of stock–breeding—the pastoral one. In winter the livestock
were kept in the large pasturelands of the Cis-Caspian Lowland, which are historically
evolved winter pastures even today, and in summer the herds were led to the Alpine pas-
tures in the Caucasus Mountains, the rulers of which were subjugated to the Khazars one
way or another. Another possibility is the existence of an economic cooperation between
them”.