Chazars

Chazars, or Khazars, a Scythic, or, more probably, Finnish people of Eastern Europe, by Byzantine writers connected with the Turks. Settled originally on the north of the Caspian Sea, they made frequent raids into Persia in the sixth century, while on the fall of the Sassanide dynasty (q.v.) they acquired part of Armenia, and also the Crimea. Astrakhan on the Volga was long their capital. From the middle of the tenth century their power waned before the growing strength of the Grand Dukes of Russia. In the eleventh century they lost the Crimea, then called Khazaria, and thenceforward disappear from history. The Caspian Sea has sometimes been called Khazarian after them.