THE DECLINE OF THE GOLDEN HORDE CITIES OF WESTERN KAZAKHSTAN ON HISTORICAL MAPS: SPECIFICS AND CHRONOLOGY OF THE PROBLEM

Abstract

This article is devoted to one of the little -studied problems of studying the Golden Horde, namely the problem of the chronology of the functioning of the Golden Horde cities in Western Kazakhstan. Despite its peripherality, the data of the city, judging by the information of European maps, could continue their existence for quite some time despite the collapse of the existing centralized empire. The imperial impulse turned out to be so powerful that it allowed the cities to continue to fulfill its functions, even within other states, such as the Nogai Horde or the Kazakh Khanate. Despite the scarcity of written sources, the maps help clarify the chronological data, thereby compensating for the absence of written information and can serve as the basis for the reconstruction of the existence of a saddles' crops. 

Information from historical maps can not only assume the duration of the functioning of a settled life, but also the existence of developed urban practice, the beginning of which in Soviet historiography has traditionally dated the beginning of the colonization of the territory of the Kazakh Urals by Cossacks and Russian settlers.