Dissolution of the Golden Horde

The peripheral regions of the Golden Horde broke off as follows: 1438: Kazan Khanate, 1441: Crimean Khanate

Crimean Khanate

Crimean Khanate, or Khanate of Crimea , was a state ruled by Crimean Tatars from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was . Its khans were the patrilineal descendants of Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan...

, 1466: Astrakhan Khanate

Astrakhan Khanate

The Khanate of Astrakhan was a Tatar feudal state that appeared after the collapse of the Golden Horde. The Khanate existed in the 15th and 16th centuries in the area adjacent to the mouth of the Volga river, where the contemporary city of Astrakhan/Hajji Tarkhan is now located...

 The remnant, which became known as the Great Horde, was left with the steppe between the Dnieper and Yaik, the capital Sarai

Sarai

-Places:*Saraj , an historic estate in Resen built by Ahmed Niyazi Bey*Bal-Sarai, a village in Amritsar District of Punjab, India*Sarai , the capital city of the Golden Horde*Saraj municipality, a municipality in Greater Skopje, Republic of Macedonia...

 and a claim to represent the tradition of the Golden Horde. By the 1470s the Nogais north of the Caspian were hostile to the Great Horde and, in the west, and Poland-Lithuania was expanding along the Dnieper.

In 1480 Muscovy and Crimea formed an alliance against the Great Horde which in turn allied with Lithuania. In 1480 the Great Horde's attempt to invade Muscovy failed. In 1481, its ruler Akhmat Khan

Akhmat Khan

Akhmat Khan was a khan of the Great Horde between 1465 and 1481.In 1465, Akhmat seized power in the Horde by rising against his brother Maxmud of Astrakhan, who had been its ruler since 1459. In 1472, Akhmat entered into alliance with the Polish king Casimir IV against Ivan III...

 was killed by the Nogais. He was succeeded by his son Shaikh 'Ali. After this, the Horde was weakened by conflicts among Akhmat's sons.

In the spring of 1491 the Crimean Khan suggested that Moscow send troops to finish off the Great Horde since he had ‘seized all the Horde's horses'. Moscow sent some Tatar and Russian cavalry and the Ottomans sent 2,000 Janissaries. By November part of the Horde had seceded and the remainder had been routed by the Nogais. By 1500 it was reported near the Kuban

Kuban

Kuban is a geographic region of Southern Russia surrounding the Kuban River, on the Black Sea between the Don Steppe, Volga Delta and the Caucasus...

 and in very bad shape after having been beaten by the Kabardinians. In 1501 Sheikh Ahmad Khan and 20,000 of his people moved north of the Don. Many of his people deserted.

In 1502 the Crimean Khan seized most of the Horde's people and herds and moved them to the Crimea (sometime before July 3 and somewhere near the Sula River

Sula River

The Sula River is a left tributary of the Dnipró or Dnieper River with a total length of 365 km and a drainage basin of 19,600 km²....

). Sheikh Ahmad fled. He was next reported near Kazan with 4,000 horsemen negotiating with Muscovy. He then went to Astrakhan from which he was expelled by the Nogais (1504). He then moved to Kiev to deal with the Polish king and then to Akkerman to deal with the Ottomans. He was last reported as a Lithuanian prisoner at Vilna.

Other uses

The Nogais

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...

 and Kazakhs

Senior juz

Great jüz is one of three traditional unions of the pastoral tribes of the Central Asian steppe area within the territories of modern Southeastern and southern Kazakhstan, parts of Northwestern China and parts of Uzbekistan. In contemporary Kazakhstan, the Great jüz is regarded as one of the...

also had divisions called Great Hordes.