250 CHAPTER 5
its essential features is the existence of a sacralized royal authority. During his
rounds the ruler collected taxes, calmed uprisings, exercised his direct judicial
powers, but also ensured fertility and order. His visits gave each region a place
in the universal order (cosmos), which was also seen as the order of the state.
This way, the regions received the grace that exuded from the ruler’s person.117
The ruler was accompanied on his rounds of the land by merchants, and
probably also by craftsmen, which helped in spreading various art objects, as
well as creating a common taste and style in the state. In the Caucasus, the poli-
udie connected trade and craft urban centers with the agricultural valleys, as
well as nomadic tribes with mountain communities This explains its longevity
in Georgia and Dagestan.118
The poliudie united the Khazar Khaganate with the mountain communi-
ties and state entities in the Caucasus. One of its typical features was the exis-
tence of more than one state center. The rulers of Sarir had at least three, with
different ideological functions. “In the Kaitag region were located the golden
throne, golden chalice and the other regalia of this dynasty, the treasury was
in Kumukh (the land of the Laks), and the winter residence of the king was
situated in Khunzah, in the land of the Avars. Especially significant was the
religious center Dibgashi”.119 The rulers of the Kaitag Utsmiyat, the heyday of
which occurred between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries, had three
residences. Of special interest are also some similarities between the struc-
ture of the Utsmiyat and that of Khazaria. The Utsmiyat consisted of semi-
autonomous domains, governed by beks. The authority of the utsmii was
weak and sacralized. The taxes were collected by his deputy, the gattin, who
was escorted by 300 warriors. With the poliudie, he visited the largest auls that
belonged to the utsmii.120
The poliudie system was also used in Middle Asia. In the tenth century,
the Samanid dynasty spend the winters in the capital Bukhara and the rest
of the year the rulers devoted to traveling through their lands together with
their troops and harem. This practice was preserved and became typical for
117 Kobishchanov 1995, 3–4, 29–31 (on Khazaria in particular, see 219–223), 227, 238, 241,
245–247, 253, and 264–265; The possibility of a system similar to the poliudie existing in
Khazaria is accepted by Pletneva 2002, 117, and by Flerov 2007, 66 and by Stepanov 2002b, 29.
118 Kobishchanov 1995, 234.
119 Kobishchanov 1995, 193.
120 Kobishchanov 1995, 197–198.