Nogais Nogais Mughal Gardens Category="Ethnic groups of Dagestan"Category="Mongol peoples"Category="Muslim communities"Category="Turkic peoples"

Nogai people

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The Nogai, also spelled Nogay, Noghai, and often called the Caucasian Mongols ("Caucasian" refers to their geographic position in the Caucasus mountains, not to their ethnicity), are a Turkic people, and an important ethnic group in the Daghestan region who speak the Turkic Nogai language. They are related to the Crimean Tatars.

The Nogai are descendants of Kipchaks who mingled with their Mongol conquerors and formed the Nogai Horde (see below). Most Nogai are Sunni Muslims. They have scant beard growth, and are shorter than most people of the Caucasus. The average height for males is 160 cm. They often have almond-shaped eyes, flat faces, high noses, and sometimes blue eyes. The name Nogai is derived from Nogai Khan, a general of the Golden Horde.

Most Nogai Turks living in the Caucasus were obliged by Tsarist Russia to emigrate to Anatolia, together with the Circassians. An estimated 90,000 Nogais live in Turkey today, mainly settled in Ceyhan/Adana, Ankara and Eskisehir provinces. The Nogai language (close to Kazakh) is still spoken in some of the villages of Central Anatolia - mainly around the Salt Lake, Eskişehir and Ceyhan. To this day, Nogais in Turkey have maintained their cuisine: Üken börek, kasık börek, tabak börek, şıy börek, köbete and Nogay şay (Nogai tea - a drink prepared by boiling milk and tea together with butter, salt and pepper). For more on Nogais in Turkey, see /scholarly/jankowski.html

Khanate of the Nogai Horde

The Nogai Horde was the Tatar Horde that controlled the Caucasus Mountain region after the Mongol invasion. The Nogai Horde developed as a synthesis of Turkic Kipchaks with the Mongols who conquered them. Their descendants today are also known as the Caucasian Mongols (see above).

Their khanate, named after Nogai Khan (d. 1299) and established by Edigu (d. 1419), included the regions extending from the Volga to Irtish Rivers, and from the Caspian Sea towards the Aral Sea. Its capital was the city of Saraycik, located in the mouth of the Yayik (Ural) River which was the eastern border of their territory, separating them from the Kirghiz-Kazakhs.

The main element of the Khanate's people was composed of Kipchak groups, just as in the Crimean, Astrakhan and Siberia Khanates. Among these tribes, the Mangit people -- supposedly a Mongol tribe that had become Turks -- had a privileged status.

Pursuant to the submission of the Kazan and Astrakhan Khanates to Russia (1552-1557), the Nogay Khanate was divided into several entities. Those in the north of the Caucasus were called "Küçük Orda" (Small Horde), and those within the environs of Emba Lake were called "Altiul Ordası". Those who remained under the domination of Ismail Khan were united under the collective name of the "Great Nogay Horde", and recognised the domination of Ivan IV (1555-1557).