Chufut Kale

There is an uninhabited city situated in 1.5 km from Bahchisaray. Long ago it was a very developed city. The last person lived here before the beginning of the XIX century. Though, it is known that in the beginning of the XX century a couple of families who wanted to escape from civilization, lived here. The history of the place is very interesting.

The name Chufut-Kale came from Jufut-kale what means “a Judaic fortress” because the population was mainly represented by orthodox Jews and Karaites. “Jufut” came from the national and familiar sounding word “juft”, that means “double”. The last name appeared dew to the Eastern defensive wall, built in the XIV-XV centuries.

Before that the place was called simply Kale or Fortress (XVII century). The main fortress of Alans Kircor has lost its major role in the defense because of the construction of Bahchisaray in the XVI century, where khan later moved to with his retinue. Kircor means „forty fortresses”. Actually there has been only one fortress in Kircor and the name was given to the whole mountainous area and later the name was given to the capital. It is interesting that in XII-XII centuries the bigger part of the population of the Allanic princedom were Christians, but in 1299 it was devastated by the Golden Horde Khan Nohay, and the Tatars reign was established later (middle of the XIV century).

There is a legend about how emir Yashlavskij conquered the fortress:
Emir ordered to gather all the musical instruments and copper dishes and play and ring them for three nights and three days. The guard of the fortress was shocked thinking the attack was about to begin. So for three days they stood waiting until on the fourth day they didn’t fall asleep, as they were tired. The sly emir used the time and attacked the fortress.
It is unknown when exactly the fortress was conquered but from the year of 1363 it belonged to the Tatars. The first mosque was built in 1346, as well. We should mention that during the construction of the mosque the remains of Christian church namely marble columns of the VI century were used.

The last inhabitants of the fortress were Karaites. The origin of Karaites is not exact till nowadays, one of the versions is the Khazar theory, that considers Karaites as Jews of Tatars origin. Their language was close to polovetsk, and the old Jewish language was used only in the cult. Clothes, way of life, meals, position of the woman in the family were very similar to those of the Tatars. Karaites, from the word “karait” – the reading one, appeared as the opposition to the study of Talmud. The Karaites were faithful to the Pentateuch of Moses. They esteemed Bible (Old testament). In the Crimea the Karaites appeared in the end of the I millennium. They were separated from Jews with their rights and position, they did not pay taxes, they had very high positions in the surrender of Khan, but they were obliged to guard the fortress. They were allowed to trade in Bakhchisaray, but only under the option of returning to the fortress before night. In the XIX century the city died as well as completely, except the rare visits of the Emperors of the Roman Empire. Here used to live and work the famous scientist.