Traditional Communication Routes Of The Bashkirs In The Early Middle Ages

Abstract

The paper describes for the first time the traditional ways of Bashkir movements in the Southern Urals and adjacent lands, shows their relation to transcontinental routes to the Caucasus, Central and Western Asia, and poses the problem of interrelation of roads and the ethnogenesis of the Bashkirs. The reasons for division of the Bashkir land into four roads (Kazan, Osinsk, Nogai and Siberian) during their stay in the Golden Horde, and later in the Russian state are provided. This division is of very ancient origin and is related to the traditional worldview of the people, as well as to geographical features of the Southern Ural landscape, where the Bashkirs were formed as an ethnic group. The four roads across the Bashkir land can be interpreted through the Bashkirs ancient idea of ​​the tetrahedral structure of the World oriented to the four sides of the world. This idea of the ancient ancestors coincided with the features of the Ural Mountains stretching meridionally from North to South and being a watershed. The Bashkirs very early understood this fact and used it when laying out the routes between the southern and northern borders of their land. That is how the ancient roads "Kunyr Buga" (Brown Bull) and "Kanif Road" were formed. As soon as the relations of the Bashkirs with their neighbors expanded, these roads connected with the transcontinental paths, which led to the Caucasus and Central Asia. After that, both material and spiritual values were delivered to the Bashkir land.