Chapter 15. Reign of Timar (981-1004)

After the death of Talib in the 981 AD, Timar Mumin Badjanak was raised to the throne, with the help of the kazanchis and Badjanaks. This Kan broke the Talib’s decree according to which all Bulgarian ingichis could be only subashes or chirmyshes, and ordered to reassign all heathen Bulgars to the category of the kara-chirmyshes. This caused a strongest discontent in the number of the provinces, especially in the Kashan where the majority of the Bulgarian igenchis were still heathens.

In response, Timar ordered the dangerous for the kazanchis kursybai to fight together with the Saklanian Badjanaks against the Rus, for the refusal of the Bashtu to render the tribute for the Djir, and declared the Kashan an internal province and transferred Kukcha from the governor’s place to the saddle of the sardar of the kursybai. After this he also for a while declared the Mardan an internal il and separated from it an external province of Saksin. Ibragim was displaced and replaced with Masgut who pretended to be quiet and loyal.

Timar had never learnt that it was precisely Masgut who informed on him to Talib, for the Visier presented his letter as intercepted. The kazanchis devoted to the Kan began to be appointed Ulugbeks, and Ibragim was only given the post of Vali in the Aktüba district of the Saksin. It reinforced discontent even more because the kazanchi governors simply extorted the people. Many Kashan subashes, not wishing to become kara-chirmyshes, fled to the Arsu, where they settled as subashes with the sanction of the kind old Mar. Certainly, with his kindness, Mar did not neglect himself and avidly traded the Ars, captured by the subashes when they seized new lands. Timar, reluctantly, tolerated the Deber Ulugbek in order to not quarrel with the merchant guild of the Bolgar and Nur-Suvar.

In the atmosphere of the strong discontent with the reign, Ibragim decided to capture the throne, and concluded a secret alliance with the kursybai and Bulymer, the son of Barys. The Bashtu Bek agreed to help because of the promise by the Emir to stop the galling for the Rus Badjanak War. Our tool in the First Badjanak War was Barysh, a servant of the son of Barys, Yarsub. 

Barys gave Yarsub as a hostage to the Bulgar, and then with our help, he became a Bashtu Bek. When he ( Yarsub – Translator’s Note) was treacherously killed by Bulymer, Barysh fled to the Bulgar and received an estate by the river Sura-su. The river, which flowed through his possessions, began to be called Barysh.

Ibragim with Turkmens and kursybai Kukcha passed through the Burtas and occupied Bulyar without meeting any resistance from the Mardanians. From there he went to the Bolgar, were also sailed Bulymer with his commander, the son of Mal Dyau-Baryn and his 24-thousand army. However, Kukcha, learning of the landing of the hostile to him Balyns, and their plunder of the lower urams of the capital, abruptly altered his plans. Suggesting that Emir satisfied only with a governorship in Baytüba, he attacked Bulymer and drove him to the ship.

In the process, 10 thousand Shamlyns and Galidjians fell at the site, and 8 thousand, together with Dyau-Baryn, were taken, prisoners. Taking advantage of it, Timar entered negotiations with Kukcha and Bulymer. Kukcha demanded the Bulyar for Ibragim, and for himself the Kashan, in exchange for the captured Balyns and termination of the mutiny. Bulymer in his turn asked Timar for the return to him of the captives in exchange for a tripling of the “ Djir Tribute” and an opening of a duty-free Amber way to Artan.

In order not to unite his opponents again, Timar agreed to accept the conditions of Kukcha and returned to Bulymer his captives in exchange for his promises. Besides, Timar took from Bulymer a written obligation to not accept Christianity and not to interfere with the spread of the true faith in the Rus.

To tie Bulymer stronger to the State (Ак Yort), Timar also gave him his daughter Bozok to marry (traditional Türkic manifestation of vassalage relationship with father-in-law – Translator’s Note). After the wedding, which took place here in the Bolgar, Bulymer sailed back to Rus on the Kara-Idel, and the next year seven Bulgarian jurists went to the Bashtu by the Khorysdan way. They were headed by the son of Nasyr, Kul-Mohammed. They converted to Islam the Barynian and Kaubuyian Beks, and also the biys of the Saklanian Badjinaks, and built mosques in the Bashtu, Karadjar, Batavyl, Khursa and the Baryn-Diu.

But in few years Bulymer was completely exhausted under the burden of the new Djir Tribute and decided to buttress the situation with a robbery of the Rumian lands. In 988 AD he suddenly invaded Djalda and seized a local Rumian city. The frightened Rumian Kan then offered to Bulymer, in exchange for the Djalda and acceptance of Christianity by him, a lot of gold and silver, and the Dima-Tarkhan in addition. These conditions were so favourable, that Bulymer could not refuse and accepted the Rums’ conditions…

When Timar learned about the acceptance by Bulymer of Christianity, he sent to him envoys with rebukes. Bulymer justified it saying that it was made for the sake of the Djir Tribute, and treacherously refused to hold the promise he gave earlier.

The negotiations went for a few years until, at last, in 991 AD a commander of Bulymer, together with Rumians, attacked the Khin. The kursybai headed by Sal-Sal, the son of Kukcha from the Badjanakian Bika, mowed 5 thousand Balyns and 3 thousand Rums headed by the commander Ber, and turned the remaining enemies into a panic flight. Despite of it, Bulymer, hoping for the Rumian help, refused to pay the Djir Tribute, and in 992 AD Sal-Sal with the kursybai and Badjanaks set a siege to the city Ber just erected by Bulymer.

A new commander of the Ulubiy, Aslan, from clan Tauk, arrived with reinforcements, but Sal-Sal in one-to-one combat crushed him with his hands, like a chicken, and after this turned Ber into dust. The frightened Bulymer renewed the payment of the Djir Tribute, and decided to steal the money in a war against the Ulak-Bulgar. Taking there really big spoils, he in 995 AD, with the help of the Rumian masters, restored Ber and in memory of Aslan began to call it Ber-Aslan. Learning about it and suspecting Bulymer in an attempt to arrange a road from here to the countries of Islam through the Dima-Tarkhan, and around the Bulgar, Timar immediately sent the same Sal-Sal to the Rus.

Bulymer foolhardily set out towards us, but at the city Vasyl all his army was quickly crushed by the kursybai, and he escaped only by cowardly hiding under the bridge. From that time this Ulubiy never dared to go for a fight with the Bulgars. Sal-Sal saw how Ulubiy hid under the bridge, but, pleased with a victory, spared him and pretended that he did not notice it. The sardar spared also the inhabitants of the Vasyl, and allowed them to leave freely, for they were the Anchians, but after they left the city, he reduced it to ashes, and he called his son Vasyl in memory of it.

Coming back from this battle, which he called “Bridge“, the sardar spent the night in the menzel Kubar on the river Kubar. He liked his rest here and asked the Mardanian Ulugbek to give it a second name, “Kuper“, in honour of a victory of the kursybai.

In the 996 AD Sal-Sal demolished all Balynian fortresses south of Bashtu, mowing down all Balyns found there, and let off all the… In the 997 AD Sal-Sal besieged in the Chally-Kalé the last Balynian forces. Taking advantage of it, the Anchians, led by their head Asmar, came to the Bashtu and demanded from Bulymer the termination of the hated by them war and the removal from the Bashtu and Karadjar of all Balyns. Bulymer promised to satisfy all the requirements of the Anchians, but after that secretly fled to the Galidj for a new reliable army.

But when Sal-Sal prepared to finish with the Chally-Kalé, in a dream to him came Aydar and said: ”You cannot desecrate with fire and blood this place, for here there are tombs of the Kara-Bulgarian Baltavars”. In the morning, shocked by the dream, Sal-Sal allowed the Balynians to leave the city alive, and simply disassembled the fortress…

Then Bulymer moved the war to the north, where for several years of the troops of the Galidjians and Balyns were erecting the fortresses around the Koba-Kül, and our forces were destroying them. Finally, in 1006, the whole Balynian army of 40-thousand men, sleeping serenely at the station Tangra-Maydan on the crossroads of the Artan and Koba-Kül roads, was surrounded by Sal-Sal and finished its existence. Then we took the Balynian fortress Balyk on the Kara-Idel.

Here the captives, who received a nickname “fishermen“, were loaded on the ships and rafts and transported to the Bulgar. In memory of it, this menzel received the name Yoklama, and its old name was given to the fortresses in the Baytüba, built by the 30 thousand of the captured Balyns. In addition to the Tangra-Maydan, they also built in the Baytüba the Akkerman, Aydar., and by the Agidel in the Kashan, Balykly… And in the Talib time the captured Balynians, ransomed from the Burtases and Batyshes, built the Sal-Sal, Shonkar, Arslan, Lachyn. And the captured Rumian built the mosques “ Rum“, “Alamir“, “Djalda“, a new Kan’s palace and the caravanserai ”Таш Yort” in the Bulyar.

After the Tangra-Maydan battle the Second Badjanak War has ended, for Bulymer promised not to establish a road to the Dima-Tarkhan, renewed the payment of the Djir Tribute, opened the Artan road, allowed the Bulgarian merchants a duty-free trade in the Djir and Galidj, and gave the son of Yauchy as a hostage. Negotiations took place in the Bashtu and in menzel Yauchy, and from the Urus side, there was their ambassador, the Frang Boryn. Some say that the station in memory of it received his name, but it seems to me it is a mistake.

Left by us to their fate, the Badjanaks of the Kashan had to accept Christianity of the Frang type from the hands of Boryn. Then Yauchy, who also accepted Christianity from the hands of Boryn, relied on them in the struggle for the Urus throne, and after his defeat left with them to the Modjar state. And Boryn also sent his preacher to the Bulgar under a pretext of keeping Yauchy inclined to the wicked faith of the Frants. The Kaubuyian Bek Boyan Ryshtauly came with him to the Bulyar and gave money for the construction of the mosque “Boyan“.

And the wicked preacher was called Autun. He persuaded Yauchy to give money for the construction of the caravanserai ”Bukhar Yorty” and to set up the balik “Bata-balik“ for the Christians, for which he received permission to erect a wooden church for the Christians of the Bulyar. It began to be called “Bura-Kala“, and in it Autun was saying that time will come for the acceptance by the great eastern people of the Christianity, and for the punishment of all sinners worldwide… And when Yauchy was sent home with honor and went to the Bashtu by the Horys-yuly, Autun did not go with him and remained in the Bulyar to serve in the church, which suffered strongly during the time of the Syb-Bulat’s siege in the 1183 AD.

When the Badjanak War began, Timar had to return the Kashan to Kukcha, for otherwise the kursybai refused to battle. But in the 1004 AD, when Kukcha died and Sal-Sal was fighting in the North, Timar conceded to the demands of the kazanchis to transfer the Kashan to the ulanian governor. The son of Sal-Sal, the Kashan Ulugbek Vasyl, was summoned to the Bolgar and put in chains, after which a group of the kazanchis moved to the Kashan.

However, Shukriya, the daughter of Sal-Sal, blocked together with subashes all approaches to the city. Then Sal-Sal arrived here in time, after receiving the news about the death of his father… The kazanchis at the approach of the kursybai hasty melted back, but unexpectedly Sal-Sal got under a barrage by a unit of his own daughter. It turned out that the father and the daughter did not see each other for a long time, and Shukriya did not recognize her own father and took him for the leader of the kazanchis.

Fortunately, one of the chirmyshes of Shukriya recognised the Bek and had time to prevent bloodshed. Pleased with the arrival of the kursybai, the Kashans immediately lifted Sal-Sal to the throne of the Ulugbeks. Timar did not recognize, in vain, the legality of this act, which caused indignation of the Kashans. They immediately supported by the whole dissatisfied country: the subashes and chirmyshes indignant for the extreme military obligations, the Mardanians that hated the Kan for the violations of their liberties, Baytübaes afraid of the transfers of the Bulyar lands into the hands of the kazanchis.

The quiet Masgut immediately took advantage of widespread indignation and went with a unit of Mardans onto the capital. The kazanchi militia was sent, prior to it, to fight with the Bulyars, who expelled the ulanian Ulugbek, and Timar remained in the Bolgar with only a small militia unit. Masgut surrounded the citadel “Mumin“ and offered the Kan to surrender the throne peacefully and to leave to the Nur-Suvar. Timar had to submit, but he barely left the gate when an arrow of one of the Bellak’s archers killed him on the spot.