BOW

Usually historians love to claim things as old as possible, but sometimes they get real shy. E.g. at the mouth of Volga river there is Astrakhan city. It started in 1558. Can you imagine the most strategic place in the region ignored for so long? And the name does sound very non-Slavic. So we dig a little dipper and discover Hashtar Khan (aka Astarkhan). Now why would Russian historians ignore such a fact which would allow them to claim the city at least 300 years older? It gets better when you know that the capital of Golden Horde was located 130km (80 miles) up the Volga river (Sarai). Given that Sarai was a formal capital (Khan preferred to move around with the Horde), the Hashtar Khan must have been the actual capital, the "New Orleans" of that region for 300 years. Surprisingly we know almost nothing about it other than it was sacked by Tamerlan in 1395 and captured by Russians in 1556. The modern day Astrakhan starts in 1558 in the same area, but that's a different city.

BTW, the history of Saint-Petersburg is very similar. Not much happening there, at the mouth of Neva river, until about 1703, when it suddently becomes a capital of Russian Empire. In case of Saint-Petersburg it's clear that it was Swedish or Hanseatic city before, but they wanted to make it look like it was established by Peter the Great. It's understandable. But why would they make Astrakhan look new? The name is obviously not Russian and not Christian. Nobody ever claimed that Russians lived there in medieval or anything like that.

WHO

Which is exactly the reason. If it was not Russian, if Khan didn't reside in it, - who's city was it in 1200+? The answer is too obvious, it's Persian, as is Derbent (literally Gates in Persian), also in Russia, not far from there. So you start wondering what would the name mean in Persian. That's were the fun begins. The Sumer goddess of love, fertility and war Ishtar was also called Astar/Ashtar which literally means three things in Avestan and Middle Persian: archer (astar) (𐬀𐬯𐬙𐬀𐬭), sin (astar, page 12) and whip (aštar, page 13). If you're wondering what's that sticking from behind her back - that's quivers with arrows. It's not obvious in the right picture, since she holds a whip, but it's clear in the left one, with the bow. She's also depicted with owls, lions, wings, etc. - Athen, Aphrodite, Artemis and Demetra - all in one. Beauty, crime, punishment. Reminds me of Love, Death & Robots show on Netflix :) The metaphor becomes even more meaningful when you remember about the arrow god Tir which, actually, kills.

HORDE

Why would anyone worship Sumerian goddess North of Caspian Sea? As I showed in this article, Tengrism is the old Persian Sumerian religion, with same symbols (humay bird, encircled cross) and god name (dingir). Genghis Khan worshipped Tengri, so no real surprises here. The Golden Horde is a huge part of Russian historiography, Ishtar was worshipped all over Near East, Greece, etc. To easy to guess and wave goodbye to official History, and that's why the city of Astrakhan was established in 1558 under a slightly different name.

This story scheds light on who exactly made mongols so powerful and what the Golden Horde really was. Very similar phenomenon in North America was called Iroquois Empire not so long ago, now it's a "League". Persians were the "Dutch", who payed with metal weapons and armor for furs, horses, soldiers and slaves.

Despite of the giant area that the horde "controlled" it wasn't as powerful as advertised. There were no (published) censuses in Russia but Russian magistrate of 1790 listed (unfortunately the only source I found is Russian) 516 "merchant class" Armenians, 80 "middle class" Armenians, 20 "guild" Armenians, 109 Hindus, 178 Persians, 469 "merchant class" Central Asians ... 400,000 sheep, 150,000 horses, cows, camels. Unfortunately there is no data on nomadic population, but from the cattle numbers we can guess it's dozens of thousands, which would be few thousands, with women and children, in times of Golden Horde. There were probably just as many in Crimea and Kazan.

The Sarai residence of the Khan is believed to be located around modern day village named Selitrennoye (Селитренное) which literally means saltpeter (селитра), a gunpowder ingredient that was mined there since 1700+ (same Russian source quoted above), long after the Golden Horde. I wonder if that's why the place was chosen.