1.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
2.
Kazakhstan
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Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in northern Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Kazakhstan is the worlds largest landlocked country, and the ninth largest in the world, Kazakhstan is the dominant nation of Central Asia economically, generating 60% of the regions GDP, primarily through its oil/gas industry. It also has vast mineral resources, Kazakhstan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Kazakhstan shares borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the terrain of Kazakhstan includes flatlands, steppe, taiga, rock canyons, hills, deltas, snow-capped mountains, and deserts. Kazakhstan has an estimated 18 million people as of 2014, Given its large area, its population density is among the lowest. The capital is Astana, where it was moved in 1997 from Almaty, the territory of Kazakhstan has historically been inhabited by nomadic tribes. This changed in the 13th century, when Genghis Khan occupied the country as part of the Mongolian Empire, following internal struggles among the conquerors, power eventually reverted to the nomads. By the 16th century, the Kazakh emerged as a distinct group, the Russians began advancing into the Kazakh steppe in the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century, they nominally ruled all of Kazakhstan as part of the Russian Empire. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, and subsequent civil war, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganised several times, in 1936, it was made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan has worked to develop its economy, especially its dominant hydrocarbon industry. Kazakhstans 131 ethnicities include Kazakhs, Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars, the Kazakh language is the state language, and Russian has equal official status for all levels of administrative and institutional purposes. The name Kazakh comes from the ancient Turkic word qaz, to wander, the name Cossack is of the same origin. The Persian suffix -stan means land or place of, so Kazakhstan can be translated as land of the wanderers. Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, the regions climate, archaeologists believe that humans first domesticated the horse in the regions vast steppes. Central Asia was originally inhabited by the Scythians, the Cuman entered the steppes of modern-day Kazakhstan around the early 11th century, where they later joined with the Kipchak and established the vast Cuman-Kipchak confederation. Under the Mongol Empire, the largest in history, administrative districts were established. These eventually came under the rule of the emergent Kazakh Khanate, throughout this period, traditional nomadic life and a livestock-based economy continued to dominate the steppe. Nevertheless, the region was the focus of ever-increasing disputes between the native Kazakh emirs and the neighbouring Persian-speaking peoples to the south, at its height the Khanate would rule parts of Central Asia and control Cumania
3.
Russian Orthodox Church
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The Russian Orthodox Church, alternatively legally known as the Moscow Patriarchate, is one of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches, in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox patriarchates. The Primate of the ROC is the Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus and it also exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the autonomous Church of Japan and the Orthodox Christians resident in the Peoples Republic of China. The ROC branches in Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Moldova and Ukraine since the 1990s enjoy various degrees of self-government, in Ukraine, ROC has tensions with schismatic groups supported by the current government, while it enjoys the position of numerically dominant religious organisation. The ROC should also not be confused with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, headquartered in New York, New York, the two Churches reconciled on May 17,2007, the ROCOR is now a self-governing part of the Russian Orthodox Church. According to one of the legends, Andrew reached the location of Kiev. The spot where he erected a cross is now marked by St. Andrews Cathedral. By the end of the first millennium AD, eastern Slavic lands started to come under the influence of the Eastern Roman Empire. There is evidence that the first Christian bishop was sent to Novgorod from Constantinople either by Patriarch Photius or Patriarch Ignatios, by the mid-10th century, there was already a Christian community among Kievan nobility, under the leadership of Byzantine Greek priests, although paganism remained the dominant religion. Princess Olga of Kiev was the first ruler of Kievan Rus′ to convert to Christianity and her grandson, Vladimir of Kiev, made Rus officially a Christian state. The Kievan church was a metropolitanate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Ecumenical patriarch appointed the metropolitan, who usually was a Greek. The Metropolitans residence was located in Kiev itself, the capital of the medieval Rus state. Following the tribulations of the Mongol invasion, the Russian Church was pivotal in the survival, despite the politically motivated murders of Mikhail of Chernigov and Mikhail of Tver, the Mongols were generally tolerant and even granted tax exemption to the Church. Such holy figures as Sergius of Radonezh and Metropolitan Alexis helped the country to withstand years of Tatar oppression, the Trinity monastery founded by Sergius of Radonezh became the setting for the flourishing of spiritual art, exemplified by the work of Andrey Rublev, among others. The followers of Sergius founded four hundred monasteries, thus extending the geographical extent of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. However, the Moscow Prince Vasili II rejected the act of the Council of Florence brought to Moscow by Isidore in March 1441, Isidore was in the same year removed from his position as an apostate and expelled from Moscow. The Russian metropolitanate remained effectively vacant for the few years due largely to the dominance of Uniates in Constantinople then. In December 1448, Jonas, a Russian bishop, was installed by the Council of Russian bishops in Moscow as Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia without the consent from Constantinople. Subsequently, there developed a theory in Moscow that saw Moscow as the Third Rome, the successor to Constantinople
4.
Volga Tatars
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The Volga Tatars are a Turkic ethnic group, native to the Volga-Ural region, Russia. They are in turn subdivided into various subgroups and they compose 53% of the population of Tatarstan. Volga Tatars are Russias second-largest ethnicity, Tatars inhabiting the Republic of Tatarstan, a federal subject of Russia, constitute one third of all Tatars, while the other two thirds reside outside Tatarstan. The formation of some of the communities residing outside Tatarstan took place before the Russian Revolution of 1917 due to Tatars being specialized in trading, the emergence of ethnonym Tatar is disputed, with two theses trying to explain its origins. Mongol thesis, according to which etymology can be traced back to the Chinese Ta-Tan or Da-Dan, is widely accepted than Turkic one. Ethnonym Tatar first emerged in the fifth century CE/AD, the 14th century saw the spread of Sunni Islam among the Tatars. Tatars became subjects of Russia after the Siege of Kazan in 1552, since Russians linked Tatars with the Mongol Golden Horde, they began to negatively stereotype the Tatar people. Up to the end of the 19th century, Volga Tatars mainly identified themselves as Muslims until the rehabilitation of the ethnonym Tatar occurred, Russian officials used literary Tatar language to interact with the Turkic peoples of the Russian Empire before the end of the 19th century. Volga Tatar role in the Muslim national and cultural movements of the Russian Empire before the 1917 Revolution is significant, Tatar authorities attempted in the 1990s to reverse the Russification of Tatarstan that took place during the Soviet period. Bulgarism is a term for the position that the Volga Tatars are significantly descended from the Volga Bulgars. A more accepted position, however, is that the Volga Tatar ethnogenesis was completed upon the arrival of the Kipchaks, Cumans, the majority of Volga Tatars are Kazan Tatars. They form the bulk of the Tatar population of Tatarstan, traditionally, they inhabit the left bank of Volga river. Khazar invasions forced Bulgars, Turkic people, to migrate from the Azov steppes to the Middle Volga, in the period of 10th–13th centuries, Turkic peoples, including Kipchaks, migrated from southern Siberia to Europe. They played a significant role in the Mongol invasion of Rus in the 13th century, Tatar ethnogenesis took place after Turkic peoples, who were mixed with the Bulgars and other local inhabitants of the Volga River area, kept Kipchak dialect and became Muslims. Several new Tatar states had emerged by the 1500s after the Golden Horde fell and these states were Khanate of Kazan, Astrakhan Khanate, Khanate of Sibir and Crimean Khanate. Controversy surrounds the origin of the Tatar people, whether they are descended either from Bulgars or Golden Horde, mishars are an ethnographic group of Volga Tatars speaking Mishar dialect of the Tatar language. They comprise approximately one third of the Volga Tatar population and they are descendants of Cuman-Kipchak tribes who mixed with the Burtas in the Middle Oka River area and Meschiora. Nowadays, they live in Chelyabinsk, Ulyanovsk, Penza, Ryazan, Nizhegorodskaya oblasts of Russia and in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, the Qasím Tatars have their capital in the town of Qasím in Ryazan Oblast
5.
Bashkirs
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The Bashkirs are a Turkic people indigenous to Bashkortostan, extending on both sides of the Ural Mountains, in the area where Eastern Europe meets North Asia. Most Bashkirs speak the Bashkir language, which belongs to the Kypchak branch of the Turkic languages, in religion the Bashkirs are mainly Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab. On the most popular and early hypothesis widespread in the Bashkir legends and according to the theory of 18th-century ethnographers V. N. Tatishchev, richkov, and Johann Gottlieb Georgi, the word Bashqort means main wolf, wolf leader. Also there are theories regarding the etymology of the name Bashqort. In 1847, historian V. S. Yumatov suggested the meaning as beekeeper, beemaster, in 1885, another Russian historian and ethnologist, A. E. Alektorov, suggested that Bashqort means distinct nation. Ethnologist R. G. Kuzeev defines the ethnonym as bash — main, head and qort — clan, according to Douglas Morton Dunlop the ethnonym Bashqort comes from beshgur, bashgur which means five tribes. Since SH in the modern language complies with L in Bulgar, the anthropologist and the ethnologist R. M. Other option of etymology of an ethnonym bashqort according to R. M. Yusupov is connected also with the Iranian phrase Bachagurd, and is translated as the descendant, in this case the bacha is translated just as the child, the descendant, and gurd — the hero. After an era of Huns the ethnonym could change to a current state as follows, the Bashkirs are also mentioned in Ashkharatsuyts. Starting in the 9th century, the first written information about Bashkirs appears from Arab, the first message of Arab written sources on Bashkirs belongs to the traveler Sallam an at-Tardzhuman. About 840 he visited the country the Bashkir and specified its approximate borders, abu Zayd al-Balkhi described Bashkirs as a people divided into two groups, one inhabiting the Southern Urals, the second group living on the Danube plain near the boundaries of Byzantium. The first ethnographic description the Bashkir is provided at Ahmad ibn Fadlan — the ambassador of the Baghdad Caliph Al-Muqtadir to the governor of Volga Bulgaria and he visited among the Bashkirs in 922. The Bashkirs, according to Ibn Fadlan, were a warlike and powerful and they were engaged in cattle breeding. Apparently, Islam had begun spreading among the Bashkirs as one of the members of the embassy was a Bashkir of the Muslim religion. According to the testimony of Ibn Fadlan, the Bashkirs are Turks, live on the slopes of the Urals. Their neighbours in the southeast were Pechenegs, in the west Bulgars, the first European sources to mention the Bashkirs are the works of Joannes de Plano Carpini and William of Rubruquis. By 1236, lands of Bashkortostan were incorporated into the empire of Genghis Khan, during the 13th and 14th centuries, all of Bashkortostan was part of the Golden Horde. The brother of Batu-Khan, Sheibani, received the Bashkir lands to the east of the Ural Mountains, after the breakup of the Mongol Empire, the Bashkirs were divided among the Nogai Horde, the Khanate of Kazan and the Khanate of Sibir, founded in the 15th century
6.
Tatarstan
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Tatarstan, officially the Republic of Tatarstan is a federal subject of the Russian Federation, located in the Volga Federal District. Its capital is the city of Kazan, the republic borders Kirov, Ulyanovsk, Samara, and Orenburg Oblasts, the Mari El, Udmurt, and Chuvash Republics, and the Republic of Bashkortostan. The area of the republic is 68,000 square kilometres, the unofficial Tatarstan motto is, Bez Buldırabız. As of the 2010 Census the population of Tatarstan was 3,786,488, the state has strong ties with its eastern neighbor the Republic of Bashkortostan. Tatarstan derives from the name of the ethnic group—the Tatars—and the Persian suffix -stan, another version of the Russian name is Тата́рия, which was official along with Tatar ASSR during the Soviet rule. The republic is located in the center of the East European Plain and it lies between the Volga River and the Kama River, and extends east to the Ural mountains. Borders, internal, Kirov Oblast, Udmurt Republic, Republic of Bashkortostan, Orenburg Oblast, Samara Oblast, Ulyanovsk Oblast, Chuvash Republic, bugulma-Belebey Upland Volga Upland Vyatskie Uvaly Major natural resources of Tatarstan include oil, natural gas, gypsum, and more. It is estimated that the Republic has over one billion tons of oil deposits, Islam was introduced by missionaries from Baghdad around the time of ibn Fadlans journey in 922. Volga Bulgaria finally fell to the armies of the Mongol prince Batu Khan in the late 1230s The inhabitants, mixing with the Golden Hordes Kipchak-speaking people, another theory postulates that there were no ethnic changes in that period, and Bulgars simply switched to the Kipchak-based Tatar language. In the 1430s, the region became independent as the base of the Khanate of Kazan. The Khanate of Kazan was conquered by the troops of Tsar Ivan the Terrible in the 1550s, a large number of Tatars were killed and forcibly converted to Christianity and were culturally Russified. Cathedrals were built in Kazan, by 1593 all mosques in the area were destroyed, the Russian government forbade the construction of mosques, a prohibition that was not lifted until the 18th century by Catherine the Great. The first mosque to be rebuilt under Catherines auspices was constructed in 1766-1770, in the 19th century Tatarstan became a center of Jadidism, an Islamic movement that preached tolerance of other religions. Under the influence of local Jadidist theologians, the Tatars were renowned for their relations with other peoples of the Russian Empire. However, after the October Revolution religion was largely outlawed and all theologians were repressed, during the Civil War of 1918–1920 Tatar nationalists attempted to establish an independent republic. They were, however, put down by the Bolsheviks and the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was established on May 27,1920, the boundaries of the republic did not include a majority of the Volga Tatars. The Tatar Union of the Godless were persecuted in Stalins 1928 purges, there was a famine in the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1921 to 1922 as a result of war communist policy. The famine deaths of 2 million Tatars in Tatar ASSR and in Volga-Ural region in 1921-1922 was catastrophic as half of Volga Tatar population in USSR died and this famine is also known as terror-famine and famine-genocide in Tatarstan
7.
Bashkortostan
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The Republic of Bashkortostan, also known as Bashkiria is a federal subject of Russia. It is located between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains and its capital is the city of Ufa. With the population of 4,072,292 as of the 2010 Census, Bashkurdistan, the first ethnic autonomy in Russia, was established on November 281917. On March 20,1919, it was transformed into the Bashkir ASSR, in accordance with the Constitution of Bashkortostan and Russian Federation Constitution, Bashkortostan is a state, but has no sovereignty. On 11 October 1990 Bashkortostan adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty,11 October is Republic Day in Bashkortostan. The name Bashkortostan derives from the name of the Bashkir ethnic group, while the root of the name is Turkic, the suffix -stan is Persian, common to many Eurasian country-names. They speak the Bashkir language, which belongs to the Kypchak branch of the Turkic languages, the first settlements in the territory of modern Bashkortostan date from the early Paleolithic period, but the Bronze Age spurred an upsurge in the population of this territory. When people of the Abashevo culture started settling here they possessed high skills in manufacturing bronze tools, weapons and they were the first to establish permanent settlements in the Southern Urals. Bashkortostan takes its name from its native people — the Bashkirs, the Russian name of the country — Bashkiriya — formed at the end of the 16th century. Originally it appeared in the forms Bashkir land, Bashkir’, Bashkirda, the ethnonym Bashkirs first became known in the 7th century. His contemporary Ibn-Ruste described the Bashkirs as an independent people, occupying territories on both sides of the Ural mountain ridge between Volga, Kama, Tobol and upstream of Yaik river. After the early-feudal Mongolian state had broken down in the 14th century, the tribes that lived there were headed by bi. After Kazan fell to Ivan the Terrible in 1554–1555, representatives of western and northwestern Bashkir tribes approached the Tsar with a request to voluntarily join Muscovy, starting from the second half of the 16th century, Bashkirias territory began taking shape as a part of the Russian state. Ufa Governorate, with a center in Ufa, was formed in 1865— another step towards territorial identification, after the Russian Revolution of 1917 are All-Bashkir Qoroltays on which a decision on the need to create a national federal republic within Russia. The congress was formed the government of Bashkurdistan, the Pre-parliament - Kese-Qoroltay and other bodies of power and administration, in March 1919, based on the agreements of the Russian Government with the Bashkir Government was formed Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. During the Soviet period, Bashkiria was granted broad autonomous rights— the first among other Russian regions, the administrative structure of the Bashkir ASSR was based on principles similar to those of other autonomous republics of Russia. On October 11,1990 the Supreme Soviet of the Republic adopted the Declaration on state sovereignty of the Bashkir ASSR, on February 25,1992, the Bashkir ASSR was renamed the Republic of Bashkortostan. Bashkortostan contains part of the southern Urals and the adjacent plains, many rivers are part of the deepwater transportation system of European Russia, they provide access to ports of the Baltic and Black seas
8.
Chelyabinsk Oblast
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Chelyabinsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia in the Ural Mountains region, on the border of Europe and Asia. Its administrative center is the city of Chelyabinsk, during the Middle Ages, the Southern Urals were populated by Bashkir tribes that were part of the Golden Horde, Nogai Horde, and smaller Bashkir unions. The area was incorporated into the Tsardom of Russia in the late 16th century, many cities of Chelyabinsk Oblast, including the city of Chelyabinsk itself, trace their history back to those forts. In 1743, the Chelyabinsk fortress became a center of the Iset Province, the 1750s-1770s saw the emergence of industrial enterprises in South Ural, when the first factory-centered towns like Miass, Kyshtym, and Zlatoust were founded. After South Ural recovered from the Pugachevs Rebellion, the territory of modern-day Chelyabinsk Oblast started to more people from the European part of Russia. In 1919, Chelyabinski became the capital of the newly formed Chelyabinsk Governorate. At this time, the population of the new region already exceeded one million people, in 1923, together with the Perm, Yekaterinburg and Tyumen governorates, it was merged into a single Ural Oblast that lasted less than ten years, until 1934. On January 17,1934, Chelyabinsk Oblast was finally established and its current boundaries were formed when Kurgan Oblast was detached from it in 1943. During the 1930s, the economy and industrial output grew as Chelyabinsk Oblast became a key focus of the first Five-Year Plans. The economy continued to grow with the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, as industries were evacuated from the parts of the Soviet Union to Ural. During the war, Magnitogorsk alone produced one third of all Soviet steel, while the city of Chelyabinsk became the center of Soviet tank production. Chelyabinsk Oblast has been associated with nuclear research since the 1940s. While there are no power stations in Chelyabinsk, a number of production reactors were located there starting with the early Cold War. The province was closed to all foreigners until 1992, with the exception of allowing a British medical team following a two-train rail explosion in the mid-1980s. The documentary Chelyabinsk, The Most Contaminated Spot on the Planet was made by Slawomir Grunberg about the dumping of radioactive waste in the Techa River. Chelyabinsk Oblast is on the slope of the Southern Urals. Only a small part of the territory to the west is on the slopes of the Southern Urals. Chelyabinsk Oblast is situated in the Southern Urals, near Kurgan, Most of the Oblast is located to the east of the Ural Mountains, which form the continental boundary between Europe and Asia
9.
Turkic peoples
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The Turkic peoples are a collection of ethnic groups that live in central, eastern, northern, and western Asia as well as parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family and they share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds. The first known mention of the term Turk applied to a Turkic group was in reference to the Göktürks in the 6th century, a letter by Ishbara Qaghan to Emperor Wen of Sui in 585 described him as the Great Turk Khan. The Orhun inscriptions use the terms Turk and Turuk and this includes Chinese records Spring and Autumn Annals referring to a neighbouring people as Beidi. During the first century CE, Pomponius Mela refers to the Turcae in the north of the Sea of Azov. There are references to certain groups in antiquity whose names could be the form of Türk/Türük such as Togarma, Turukha/Turuška, Turukku. But the information gap is so substantial that we cannot firmly connect these ancient people to the modern Turks, turkologist András Róna-Tas posits that the term Turk could be rooted in the East Iranian Saka language or in Turkic. This etymological concept is related to Old Turkic word stems tür, türi-, törü. The earliest Turkic-speaking peoples identifiable in Chinese sources are the Dingling, Gekun, the Chinese Book of Zhou presents an etymology of the name Turk as derived from helmet, explaining that taken this name refers to the shape of the Altai Mountains. During the Middle Ages, various Turkic peoples of the Eurasian steppe were subsumed under the identity of the Scythians, between 400 CE and the 16th century, Byzantine sources use the name Σκύθαι in reference to twelve different Turkic peoples. However, the usage of the term is based on the linguistic classification in order to avoid any political sense. In short, the term Türki can be used for Türk or vice versa and it is generally agreed that the first Turkic people lived in a region extending from Central Asia to Siberia, with the majority of them living in China historically. Historically they were established after the 6th century BCE, the earliest separate Turkic peoples appeared on the peripheries of the late Xiongnu confederation about 200 BCE. Turkic people may be related to the Xiongnu, Dingling and Tiele people, according to the Book of Wei, the Tiele people were the remnants of the Chidi, the red Di people competing with the Jin in the Spring and Autumn period. Turkic tribes such as the Khazars and Pechenegs probably lived as nomads for many years before establishing the Turkic Khaganate or Göktürk Empire in the 6th century and these were herdsmen and nobles who were searching for new pastures and wealth. The first mention of Turks was in a Chinese text that mentioned trade between Turk tribes and the Sogdians along the Silk Road, the first recorded use of Turk as a political name appears as a 6th-century reference to the word pronounced in Modern Chinese as Tujue. The Ashina clan migrated from Li-jien to the Juan Juan seeking inclusion in their confederacy, the tribe were famed metalsmiths and were granted land near a mountain quarry which looked like a helmet, from which they were said to have gotten their name 突厥. A century later their power had increased such that they conquered the Juan Juan, Turkic peoples originally used their own alphabets, like Orkhon and Yenisey runiforms, and later the Uyghur alphabet
10.
Azerbaijanis
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Azerbaijanis or Azeris, also known as Azerbaijani Turks, are a Turkic ethnic group in the Caucasus living mainly in Iranian Azerbaijan and the independent Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most numerous ethnic group among the Turkic peoples after Anatolian Turks and they are predominantly Shii Muslims, and have a mixed cultural heritage, including Turkic, Iranian, and Caucasian elements. They comprise the largest ethnic group in Republic of Azerbaijan and by far the second-largest ethnic group in neighboring Iran, the worlds largest number of ethnic Azerbaijanis live in Iran, followed by Azerbaijan. The formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 established the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan, despite living on two sides of an international border, the Azeris form a single ethnic group. However, northerners and southerners due to nearly two centuries of separate social evolution of Iranian Azerbaijanis and Azerbaijanis in Russian/Soviet-influenced Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is believed to be named after Atropates, a Persian satrap who ruled in Atropatene circa 321 B. C. The name Atropates is the Hellenistic form of Aturpat which means guardian of fire, itself a compound of ātūr fire + -pat suffix for -guardian, -lord, present-day name Azerbaijan is the Arabicized form of Azarbaigān. The latter is derived from Ādurbādagān, itself ultimately from Āturpātakān meaning the land associated with Aturpat, the Russian Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, written in the 1890s, also referred to Tatars in Azerbaijan as Aderbeijans, but noted that the term had not been adopted widely. In Azerbaijani language publications, the expression Azerbaijani nation referring to those who were known as Tatars of the Caucasus first appeared in the newspaper Kashkul in 1880, Ancient residents of the area spoke the Old Azeri, which belonged to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. In the 11th century AD with Seljukid conquests, Oghuz Turkic tribes started moving across the Iranian plateau into the Caucasus, the influx of the Oghuz and other Turkmen tribes was further accentuated by the Mongol invasion. Today, this Turkic-speaking population is known as Azerbaijani, caucasian-speaking Albanian tribes are believed to be the earliest inhabitants of the region where the modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan is located. Early Iranian settlements included the Scythians in the ninth century BC, following the Scythians, the Medes came to dominate the area to the south of the Aras River. Ancient Iranian people of the Medes forged a vast empire between 900 and 700 BC, which the Achaemenids integrated into their own empire around 550 BC, during this period, Zoroastrianism spread in the Caucasus and in Atropatene. Alexander the Great defeated the Achaemenids in 330 BC, but allowed the Median satrap Atropates to remain in power, following the decline of the Seleucids in Persia in 247 BC, an Armenian Kingdom exercised control over parts of Caucasian Albania. Caucasian Albanians established a kingdom in the first century BC and largely remained independent until the Persian Sassanids made their kingdom a vassal state in 252 AD, sassanid control ended with their defeat by Muslim Arabs in 642 AD, through the Muslim conquest of Persia. Muslim Arabs defeated the Sassanids and Byzantines as they marched into the Caucasus region, the Arabs made Caucasian Albania a vassal state after the Christian resistance, led by Prince Javanshir, surrendered in 667. Between the ninth and tenth centuries, Arab authors began to refer to the region between the Kura and Aras rivers as Arran, during this time, Arabs from Basra and Kufa came to Azerbaijan and seized lands that indigenous peoples had abandoned, the Arabs became a land-owning elite. Conversion to Islam was slow as local resistance persisted for centuries and resentment grew as small groups of Arabs began migrating to cities such as Tabriz and this influx sparked a major rebellion in Iranian Azerbaijan from 816–837, led by a local Zoroastrian commoner named Bābak
11.
Iranian Azerbaijanis
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Azerbaijanis are the second largest ethnic group in the nation. Furthermore, the largest population of ethnic Azerbaijanis in the live in Iran. Iranian Azerbaijanis also constitute a significant minority in Tehran, Karaj, Azerbaijanis comprise the largest minority ethnic group in Iran. Apart from Iranian Azerbaijan, indigenous Azeri population is found in numbers in four provinces, Hamadan, Qazvin, Markazi. Azeri-populated parts of Markazi include Komijan, Khondab, Saveh, Zarandieh, Shazand, in Kurdistan, Azeris are mainly found in villages around Qorveh. It is a Turkish language learned and spoken by Iranian peasants”, according to Richard Frye, The Turkish speakers of Azerbaijan are mainly descended from the earlier Iranian speakers, several pockets of whom still exist in the region. Here they divided into Ottomans, who were Sunni and settled, and Turkmens and these are the people today known as Azeris. As for the culture, it remained traditional even after the Turkicization of the local population. The latter entered both the Azeri and Turkish language mainly through the Iranian intermediary, having become independent, the Azeri culture retained close connections with the Iranian and Arab cultures. They were reinforced by religion and common cultural-historical traditions. ”. The Iranian origins of the Azeris likely derive from ancient Iranian tribes, such as the Medes in Iranian Azerbaijan and it is believed that the Medes mixed with an indigenous population, the Caucasian Mannai, a Northeast Caucasian group related to the Urartians. It has also hypothesized that the population of Iranian Azerbaijan was predominantly Persian-speaking before the Oghuz arrived. The claim is mentioned by medieval historians, such as Al-Muqaddasi. Other common Perso-Azeribaijani features include Iranian place names such as Tabriz, the modern presence of the Iranian Talysh and Tats in Azerbaijan is further evidence of the former Iranian character of the region. As a precursor to modern groups, the ancient Azaris are also hypothesized as ancestors of the modern Azeris. The Russo-Persian Wars of the 19th century settled the boundary of Iran, stripping it of all its Caucasian territories. The eventual formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 established the territory of modern Azerbaijan, as a direct result of Qajar Irans forced ceding to Russia, the Azerbaijanis are nowadays parted between two nations, Iran and Azerbaijan. Despite living on two sides of a border, the Azeris form a single ethnic group
12.
Azerbaijanis in Georgia
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Azerbaijanis in Georgia or Georgian Azerbaijanis are Azerbaijani people in Georgia, and are Georgian citizens and permanent residents of ethnic Azerbaijani background. According to the 2002 census, there are 284,761 ethnic Azerbaijanis living in Georgia, there is also a historical Azerbaijani community in the capital city of Tbilisi and smaller communities in other regions. There were some tensions in the late 1980s in the Azerbaijani-populated regions of Georgia, however, natalia Volkova explained this by the large size of the community and its tendency to being restricted to a specific geographical area. Volkova noted that as of 1976, cases of assimilation of Azeris even in the smallest communities were unheard of, Georgias Azerbaijani population traces its roots to the events following the Seljuk invasion in the second half of the eleventh century, when Oghuz tribes settled in southern Georgia. To oppose being subjected to the Seljuk Empire, Georgians allied with the Cumans thus allowing for more Turkic migration into the region, in the 1480s, groups of Azeris originally from Qazakh, Pambak and Shuragel further settled along the banks of the rivers Aghstafa and Debed. By the beginning of the century, they spread eastward into fertile lands of Karaiazi and in the west, they reached Shulaveri. Their consolidation led to the formation of the Azeri community, the area populated by ethnic Azeris today is historically known as Borchali. The area in turn gave its name to the Sultanate of Borchali that existed there from 1604 to 1755 with its capital in Aghjagala, however, those settlers were almost entirely annihilated less than a decade later in the course of an uprising in Kakheti. The area of Azeri settlement spread northward into the Tsalka Plateau throughout the eighteenth century, in 1868, the latter two became part of the Elisabethpol Governorate, while the former three were incorporated into the Tiflis Governorate as the Borchali uyezd. The plains of the uyezd were mainly Azeri-populated, out of 63 villages in the Borchali Plain covering 390 square versts of land,61 were populated with Azeris. In Tiflis, Azeris have historically populated the neighbourhood of Ortachala, also known as Maidan or Sheitanbazar, as well as Seidabad, the old baths district. In November 1905, Tiflis almost became an arena of Armenian–Azeri ethnic clashes, the Armenian population of the city at the time was 50,000, putting the 1,000 Azeris in a dangerous situation. Militia units of the Armenian nationalist Dashnaktsutiun party seized control of key positions, the Azeris were assisted by 2,000 mounted volunteers from Borchali. By three oclock in the afternoon on 27 November there were already 22 killed and wounded, following mediation, both sides came to a peaceful agreement on 1 December 1905, and the Borchalians left the city. Due to this, the numbers of Azeris rose to make them Georgias largest minority group by 2002. Only 31 Azeri families were permitted to stay in Tbilisi, mostly military personnel, handicapped war veterans, Georgian NKVD officers made no distinction between the Azeris and the key deportation target groups, as together with Kurds and Hamsheni Armenians, they were seen as Turkish-oriented. In 1949, it was revealed out of almost 100,000 deportees,24,304 were Azeris. Azeris living in parts of the country were mainly engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry in kolkhozes and sovkhozes, as well as small-scale trade
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