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(batum), port in Soviet Transcaucasia on the Black Sea, capital of the autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Ad̲j̲aristān, built on the site of an old Roman port, Bathys, constructed in the reign of Hadrian and later deserted for the Byzantine fortress of Petra, founded under Justinian on the site of the present Tzik̲h̲is-Tziri to the north of Batumi. A former possession of the Laz kingdom, the region of Batumi (the Ad̲j̲ar district) was occupied ¶ briefly by the Arabs who did not hold it; in the 9th century it formed part of the principality of Taoklard̲j̲eti, and …

(native name Mari), people of the eastern Finnish group, living principally in the basin of the Middle Volga to the north-east of Ḳazan in ¶ the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Maris as well as in the neighbouring territories: A.S.S.R. of Tātārstān and of Bas̲h̲kiria, regions ( oblast ’) of Gorki, of Kirov and of Sverdlovsk of the R.S.F.S.R. The total number of Čeremiss reached 481,300 in 1939; they are divided into three distinct groups by their dialects and their material culture. The Čeremiss of the plains ( lugovi̊e ) live on the left bank of the Volga, those of the highlands ( gor…

, chief town of the region of South Kazak̲h̲stān of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Kazak̲h̲stān, situated on the river Badām, which flows into the river Ari̊s, tributary of the Si̊r-Daryā. The town is mentioned in the Ẓafar-nāma of S̲h̲araf al-Dīn Yazdī as a "village" near the city of Sayrām. After its capture by the Kalmüks in 1864, Sayrām declined to the advantage of Čimkent; but at the time of the Russian conquest (1281/1864) Čimkent was still only a fortified market-town, surrounded by a clay wall and do…

name of a Muslim Ibero-Caucasian people in Dāg̲h̲istān formerly inhabiting the pre-Caspian plains and then, in the 12th century, driven back towards the mountains by the Ḳumi̊ḳs who had come from the North. The Soviet census of 1926 gives the number of 126,272 Darg̲h̲ins who, in 1954, had increased to 158,000. The Darg̲h̲ins are grouped in the sub-alpine and mid-alpine zones of central Dāg̲h̲istān, and they form the greater part of the population in the districts of Sergo-Ḳalʿa, Akūs̲h̲a and Dak…

The term ‘Tatars of Čuli̊m’ (in Russian ‘Čuli̊mtzi̊’, a word invented by Radloff, Aus Sibirien , i, 211) includes several small Turkish-speaking groups of Central Siberia whose ancestors would have been Selkups of the Ob’ and Ketes of the Yenisseī brought under Turkish influence by the Altaic tribes originating in the south and by the Tatars of Baraba [ q.v.] and of Tobol’ [ q.v.] originating in the west. The Tatars of Čuli̊m form three principal blocks: 1. On the river Kiya, tributary of the Čuli̊m, in the oblast ′ of Kemerovo who were fo…

(Čuvas̲h̲), (native name Čävas̲h̲), a Turkish-speaking people of the Middle Volga, numbering (in 1939), 1,369,000, who form the Soviet Socialist republic of the Čuvas̲h̲ (18,300 square kilometres, 1,095,000 inhabitants in 1956), situated on the southern bank of the Volga, to the west of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Tatars. The Čuvas̲h̲ also inhabit the neighbouring regions: the Autonomous Republics of Tataristān and Bas̲h̲kiria, the oblastʾ s of Ulianovsk, Kuybi̊s̲h̲ev, Saratov, and in Western Siberia. The name Čuvas̲h̲ only appears in its present for…

, a people comprising five small Ibero-Caucasian Muslim nationalities, whose total number reaches, according to a 1955 estimate, some 18,000. Ethnically close to the Andi [ q.v.] and the Avar [ q.v.], they inhabit the most elevated and inaccessible regions of Central Dāg̲h̲istān, near to the Georgian frontier. It is necessary to distinguish: 1. The Dido proper (T̲s̲ez T̲s̲unta), numbering about 7,200, distributed in 36 awls along the upper reaches of the Ori-T̲s̲kalis. 2. The Bežeta (Kapuči, Kapčui, Bes̲h̲ite, K̲h̲wanal), the most developed of the Dido peoples (2,500…

(1825-1902), born in the village of Yukari̊ S̲h̲i̊rdani̊ in the canton of Sviazsk in the government of Ḳāzān, was one of the first and greatest modernist reformers amongst the Tatars of the Volga. After studying at the madrasa of Ḳāzān, where he learnt Arabic, Persian and Russian, Nāṣirī founded at Ḳāzān his own school where, for the first time, such secular subjects as history, arithmetic, geography and Russian language were taught—these being at this time novelties and innovations which bordered on heresy. Ḳayyūm Nāṣirī wrote over 50 works in Tatar, Tu…

, or burdas (in al-Bakrī furdās ), pagan tribe of the Volga basin. For an account of the Burṭās and their neighbours the Ḵh̲azars and the Bulg̲h̲ārs, to the north and south, see bulg̲h̲ār . Al-Masʿūdī ( Murūd̲j̲ , ii, 14 & Tanbīh , 62) lists Burṭās also as a river flowing into the Itil (Volga); Marquart identifies this stream with Samara ( Streifzüge , 336). The sources do not mention any adherents to Islam among the Burṭās, which contrasts with their accounts of the Ḵh̲azars and Bulg̲h̲ārs. Yāḳūt’s report on the Burṭās (i, 567) is base…

, The name of Čerkes (in Turkish čerkas , perhaps from the earlier "kerkète", indigenous name: Adi̊g̲h̲e) is a general designation applied to a group of peoples who form, with the Abk̲h̲az [ q.v.], the Abaza (cf. Beskesek Abazā ) and the Ubək̲h̲, the north-west or Abasgo-Adi̊g̲h̲e branch of the Ibero-Caucasian peoples. The ancestors of the Čerkes peoples were known among the ancients under the names of Σινδοί, Κερχεταί, Ζιχγοί, Ζυγοί, etc., and lived on the shores of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea and in the plains of the Kuban to the south an…