Bikhakhanim was the reigning princess of a small polity

Polity

Polity is a form of government Aristotle developed in his search for a government that could be most easily incorporated and used by the largest amount of people groups, or states...

 located on the Taman Peninsula

Taman peninsula

The Taman Peninsula is a peninsula in the present-day Krasnodar Krai of Russia. It is bounded on the north by the Sea of Azov, on the west by the Strait of Kerch and on the south by the Black Sea. The peninsula has evolved over the past two millennia from a chain of islands into the peninsula it is...

 in southern Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. She may have been of Circassian, Georgian

Georgian people

The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....

, or Cuman origin. The Russian historian F. K. Brun, suggests that the name of the princess might not have been "Bikhakhanim," but "Bikhakhatun," and that, if so, she was the daughter of the Georgian prince Beka II Jakeli (died 1391), the ruler of Samtskhe and Klarjeti

Klarjeti

Klarjeti was a province of ancient and medieval Georgia, which is currently part of the Artvin Province in northeastern Turkey. Klarjeti, the neighboring province of Tao and several other smaller districts constituted a larger region with shared history and culture conventionally known as...

.

However, "Beki" means "Ruling Woman" in Mongolian

Mongolian

Mongolian may refer to:* Something of, from, or related to Mongolia, a landlocked country in East and Central Asia that borders Russia to the north and People's Republic of China to the south, east and west.* Mongolians, Mongols.* Mongolian language...

 and "Khanim" was the Medieval title of a female patrilineal descendant of Genghis Khan

Descent from Genghis Khan

Descent from Genghis Khan is traceable primarily in Central Asia. His four sons and other immediate descendants are famous by names and by deeds. Later Asian potentates attempted to claim descent from the House of Borjigin even on flimsy grounds. In the 14th century, valid sources all but dried...

 (equivalent to "Khan" for a male). 1419 was the year that the sons of Tokhtamysh

Tokhtamysh

Tokhtamysh was the prominent khan of the White Horde, who briefly unified the White Horde and Blue Horde subdivisions of the Golden Horde into a single state. He was a descendant of Genghis Khan's eldest grandson, Orda Khan or his brother Tuqa-Timur...

 Khan

Khan (title)

Khan is an originally Altaic and subsequently Central Asian title for a sovereign or military ruler, widely used by medieval nomadic Turko-Mongol tribes living to the north of China. 'Khan' is also seen as a title in the Xianbei confederation for their chief between 283 and 289...

 of the Golden Horde

Golden Horde

The Golden Horde was a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate that formed the north-western sector of the Mongol Empire...

 killed his rival Edigu

Edigu

Edigu was a Mongol emir of the White Horde who founded the new political entity, which came to be known as the Nogai Horde....

 the Khan of the Nogai Horde

Nogai Horde

The Nogai Horde was a confederation of about eighteen Turkic and Mongol tribes that occupied the Pontic-Caspian steppe from about 1500 until they were pushed west by the Kalmyks and south by the Russians in the 17th century. The Mongol tribe called the Manghits constituted a core of the Horde...

 as a continuation of the Tokhtamysh–Timur war and reestablished control over the region.

Bikhakhanim was married in 1419 to the Genoese

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

 Jew Simeone de Guizolfi, who through this marriage became ruler of that country under Genoese overlordship. One of his heirs, Zacharias de Guizolfi, was still reigning in 1482.