(his) story .. eso. eryk (ur-sprache) (and no.. there is no *her- story*.. ;)

Tatars (Tatar: Tatarlar/

+ + +

is a collective name applied to the Turkic people of Eastern Europe and
Central Asia. The name is derived from Ta-ta or Dada, a Mongolian tribe
that inhabited present Northeast Mongolia in the 5th century.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Crimea_Emblem.gif

Crimea /kra
mia/ or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Ukrainian:

,


- Avtonomna Respublika Krym, Russian:

,


- Avtonomnaya Respublika Krym, Crimean Tatar: Q
r
m, Q
r
m Muhtar Cumhuriyeti) is an autonomous republic of Ukraine on the northern
coast of the Black Sea, and a peninsula of the same name.

Crimean Tatars are descendants of Turkic (Bulgars, Khazars, Petchenegs
and Kypchaks) and non-Turkic (Scythians, Sarmatians, Cimmerians, Alans,
Greeks, Goths, Adyghe) peoples who had settled in Eastern Europe as early
as the 7th century. The earliest non-Turkic population was assimilated to
Turkic.

The Crimean Tatars emerged as a nation at the time of the Crimean Khanate.
The Crimean Khanate was a Turkic-speaking Muslim state which was the
strongest power in Eastern Europe until the beginning of the 18th century.
The Crimean Tatars adopted Islam in the 13th century and henceforth Crimea
became one of the centers of Islamic civilization. According to Baron
Iosif Igelstrm, there were close to 1600 mosques and religious schools in Crimea in
1783.

Crimean Tatars were known for frequent devastating raids into Ukraine and
Russia, 1571 they seized and burned Moscow. For a long time, until the
early 18th century Crimean Tatars maintained massive slave trade with the
Ottoman Empire and the Middle East. One of the most known and important
trading ports and slave markets was Kefe.

(This is why I wrote.. do you enjoi exotic prostitution?)

Some researchers estimate that altogether more than 3 million people,
predominantly Ukrainians but also Russians, Belarusians and Poles, were
captured and enslaved during the time of the Crimean Khanate in what was
called "the harvesting of the steppe".

(Subjugation to the Burtas Chino–willing, or blind).

The Crimean Khanate became a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire in 1475,
when the Ottoman general Gedik Ahmet pasa conquered the southern coast of
Crimea. However, the Ottomans respected the legitimacy of Giray khans to
rule in the rest of Crimea and the steppes, because of their Chingizid
lineage. The alliance with the Ottomans became an important factor in the
survival of the khanate until the 18th century, while its sisters, the
Kazan Khanate and the Astrakhan Khanate were destroyed by the increasingly
powerful Russian state.

Today the descendants of these Crimeans form the Crimean Tatar diaspora in
Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey.

During World War II, the entire Crimean Tatar population in Crimea fell
victim to Stalin's oppressive policies. Although a great number of Crimean
Tatar men served in the Red Army and took part in the partizan movement in
Crimea during the war, the existence of the Tatar Legion in the Nazi army
and the collaboration of Crimean Tatar religious and political leaders
with Hitler during the German occupation of Crimea provided the Soviets
with a pretext for accusing the whole Crimean Tatar population of being
Nazi collaborators. Modern researchers also point to the fact that a
further reason was the geopolitical position of Crimea where Crimean
Tatars were perceived as a threat.

The angry and wild Black Sea roared,
Rushed to extinguish my burning motherland.
The old Catirdag, distressed and worried,
"Where are the Tatars going?" she cried.

Following the disintegration of the Golden Horde, Crimean aristocrats
established their own Khanate under the leadership of Haci Giray in the
1440s. However, the young Khanate became subject to the Ottoman rule in
1475, following the capture of the Genoese ports on the Crimean coast by
the Ottoman naval forces. In the next three hundred years, the Crimean
Khanate remained an important political power in eastern Europe,
continuing to raid Muscovy and making alliances with Poland, Lithuania,
and Sweden. (See, for example, the Outline by B. Haggman.) The Ottoman
influence on the Crimean society was profound.

An historian of early 15th century (quoted by Togan), wrote of the Tatars:

Their thought processes are as swift as their
actions. All information regarding the political
conditions existing on earth arrive in their
quarters. But, no details of their intentions or
thoughts are allowed to leave their domains or
reach other people.

The Tatars, like other Turks in Chinggisid armies, practiced Shamanism.