At the Dawn of our History.

The Don Slavs are the First Christians in the East Europe

The most ancient archeological findings on the territory of present Rostov-on-Don belong to the 15–14-th centuries B.C. There were two mighty fortresses: Liventsovskaya and Karataevskaya (of course, these names have been given only recently according to the nearest villages). One can only imagine what happened to these fortresses which had existed at the same time as Troy but history of their decay could have been similarly tragic and romantic.

Many centuries passed since then. Jesus Christ’s apostles did not receive a backing of his doctrine in their Motherland – Palestine, so they began preaching among the pagans, especially in Greece. Greece was the country with democratic traditions and the Christian preachers faced no troubles there. Christianity spread quickly from Greece to all its colonies, including the Bosporus Kingdom. In the 1-st century A.D. Christianity came to the Don. There are many inscriptions on stones which prove this fact. In Tanais two pray houses with Christian subjects of cult were found. The Greeks called the inhabitants of Tanais «Miks Hellenes», which means «junior Greeks». Only one tribe that lived near the lake Ilmen in the Slavia region was called the Slavs.

In 375 A.D. the Nomads-Huns came from Asian steppes to the Don. They destroyed the state of the Goths in the North Azov region, ruined antique towns and sowing death and destruction rolled over the Europe. A small part of the Goths remained only in the mountainous forests in the Crimea and the Western Caucasus. As the Slav tribes lived mainly in the forests, the Huns’ invasion did not affect them. For the Huns’ cavalry thick forests were a serious obstacle. The Huns reached almost the Atlantic Ocean, but in 451 A.D. they were defeated in the Catalan fields (on the territory of present France).

In the Turkic Caganate, which had arisen on the ruins of the Hun’s state, the main ethnic group of the Slavs lived. The Turkic Caganate was greatly influenced by Byzantium which was its ally in the war against Persia. Byzantium patronized the Christians in the Turkic Caganate. The Turkic language spread very quickly at that time on a vast territory. Evidently at that time the Slavs of the South-Eastern Europe received a nick-name «Caz ak», which means in Turkic «a white goose». After the disintegration of the Turkic Caganate in the middle of the 7-th century the Khazar Caganate was formed. The Khazars were also called «Cazars», where a Turkic word «a goose» was present too. The Slavs had equal rights with the Khazars in the Caganate. The Arab chronicles called them both «the Slavs» and «the White Khazars». The Slavs formed the main part of the Khazar army and were even accepted as the guards of the Khazar Cagan.

In the 9-th century after the destruction of the settlement on the right bank of the Don, on the territory of stanitsa Tsymlyanskaya, the Byzantine engineer Petrona built the fortress Sarkel (Byelaya Vyezha).

In 735 A.D. the Arab army under the command of Marvan came to Khazaria. The Khazar army was defeated, the Cagan fled to the Volga. Marvan captured 20.000 prisoners, mainly the Don Slavs, and brought them to the Caucasus, where they all were killed for their attempt to escape.

Later the Arabs demanded that the Cagan should adopt Mohammedanism. The Cagan Bulan did not want to be dependent either on Byzantium or the Arabs, that is why he adopted Judaism. In the palace of Bulan and later of Obadia, who had succeeded his father on the throne, the Jews from all over the world lived. This policy led to the aggravation in the relations between Byzantium and Khazaria, between the Khazar Slavs and Khazar leadership.

In the 9-th century the Slavs formed a mighty and huge state with Kiev as the capital which spread from the Varyag (the Baltic) Sea in the North to the Russian (the Black) Sea in the South. To secure his people from the nomads’ attacks Svyatoslav, the Prince of Kiev, took advantage of the discord in the Caganate. He invaded Khazaria in 965 A.D. and gained a light victory over the Khazar army. The Khazar Slavs did not support their Cagan. On the territory of the former Khazar Caganate a large Slav Christian Princedom with the capital in Itil was established. The Prince of Kiev became its ruler. This fact accelerated the spreading of Christianity in Russia by Prince Vladimir.