Latest / Trade Routes That Changed Human History Forever — Fexingo History / The Slave Route: How the Khazars Built an Empire on Captives
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- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the Silk Road as a network of goods — silk, spices, incense. But there's a darker cargo that moved along those routes, and one empire in particular built its wealth on it: the Khazars. Luna: The Khazars — I know they were a steppe empire, but I always thought they were known for converting to Judaism. Lucas: That's exactly the hook. The Khazar Khaganate controlled the territory between the Black Sea and the Caspian from roughly the 7th to the 10th century. They were the gatekeepers of a major north-south trade corridor. And the most lucrative commodity moving through their lands wasn't fur or honey — it was people. Luna: Slaves. Lucas: Yes. Specifically, slaves from Eastern Europe — Slavs and others — who were captured by Vikings, or by the Khazars themselves, and then sold down the Volga River to the Islamic world. The Arabic term for these slaves was Saqaliba, which originally meant 'Slavs' but came to mean any light-skinned captive from the north. Luna: And the Khazars were taxing that trade? Lucas: They did more than tax it — they actively controlled it. The Khazar Khaganate sat at the nexus of two major slave-supply routes. One came from the Viking world: the so-called 'Route from the Varangians to the Greeks,' which went down the Dnieper to the Black Sea. But the other, even more important route, went from the Baltic down the Volga, through Khazar territory, to the Caspian Sea and then to the Abbasid caliphate. Lucas: The Khazars didn't just let these caravans pass. They required tolls, they regulated the markets, and they sometimes raided for captives themselves. Their capital, Atil, on the Volga delta, became one of the largest slave markets in the medieval world. Luna: I've heard of Atil — it was built on islands in the river, right? Sort of like a steppe Venice? Lucas: That's a great comparison. Atil was actually two cities — one on the east bank, one on the west, connected by a pontoon bridge. The western half was the royal quarter, with the khagan's palace; the eastern half was the commercial district, where merchants from everywhere — Jews, Muslims, Christians, pagans — traded side by side. The slave market was right in the middle. Lucas: The most famous description comes from the Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan, who visited the Volga region in 921. He didn't make it to Atil itself, but he encountered the Rus — Viking traders — on the Volga, and described their slave-trading practices in graphic detail. He wrote about how they offered sacrifices to their gods, hoping for more captives to sell. Luna: And the Khazars were the middlemen. Lucas: Exactly. The Khazars would buy slaves from the Rus and other northern tribes, then move them south. But they also had their own source of captives: raids against neighboring peoples, especially the Slavs and the tribes of the Caucasus. The Khazar army was a multi-ethnic force, and part of their payment came in the form of prisoners. Lucas: Now, this slave trade wasn't just a side business — it was the engine of the Khazar economy. Unlike the settled empires of Byzantium or the Abbasids, the Khazars didn't have a massive agricultural base. Their wealth came from controlling trade routes and taxing the movement of goods. And slaves were the highest-value, most portable commodity. Luna: Did they have any competition? I mean, were other groups trying to control the same routes? Lucas: Yes, and that's where it gets interesting. The Volga Bulgars, who were upstream from the Khazars, also wanted a piece of the action. They converted to Islam in the early 10th century, partly to strengthen their trade ties with the Abbasids and undercut Khazar influence. But the Khazars held the strategic chokepoint — the Volga delta and the port of Atil. Lucas: And then there were the Rus. Those same Vikings who supplied the slaves eventually became powerful enough to challenge the Khazars directly. In 965, the Kievan prince Sviatoslav launched a massive campaign against the Khazar Khaganate. He sacked Sarkel — the Khazar fortress on the Don — and then destroyed Atil. Luna: So the slave trade basically funded the empire, but it also brought the armies that destroyed it. Lucas: That's a perfect way to put it. The Khazars had grown rich by taxing the flow of captives, but that same flow created powerful neighbors who eventually turned on them. After Sviatoslav's campaign, the Khazar Khaganate collapsed, and the Volga route fell under Rus control. Luna: What about the conversion to Judaism? Does that tie into the slave trade at all? Lucas: It might, indirectly. The Khazar elite converted to Judaism sometime in the 8th or 9th century — the exact date is debated. One theory is that it was a way to maintain political independence from both the Christian Byzantines and the Muslim Abbasids, who were pressuring them to convert. But there's also an economic angle: Jewish merchants were already deeply involved in the slave trade across Eurasia. By adopting Judaism, the Khazar rulers may have been signaling their reliability as trade partners to Jewish networks stretching from Spain to China. Lucas: We have a fascinating primary source on this: the Khazar king Joseph's letter to the Spanish Jewish statesman Hasdai ibn Shaprut, written around 960. In it, King Joseph boasts about the size of his kingdom and his control over trade routes. He mentions that he collects tribute from various tribes and that his kingdom is a safe haven for Jewish merchants. Luna: So the Khazars were actively marketing themselves as a safe port for Jewish trade. Lucas: Exactly. And slave trading was a major part of that commerce. Jewish merchants in the early Middle Ages were some of the most prominent slave traders in the Mediterranean and beyond. They had networks that could move captives from Prague to Cordoba. The Khazars, by aligning themselves with Judaism, basically got a VIP pass into that network. Luna: That's a side of the Silk Road I'd never considered — that religion and commerce were so tightly linked, even for something as brutal as the slave trade. Lucas: It's a reminder that the Silk Road wasn't just about exotic luxuries. It was also about the movement of people — sometimes voluntary, often forced. And the Khazars are a perfect case study of how a state can build itself on that kind of traffic. Lucas: You know, this is exactly the kind of story we try to tell on this show — the hidden connections that shaped history. And we're able to do it because we keep the show ad-free. If you've been enjoying these deep dives, and you want to help us keep it that way, you can support us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just a way to keep the show independent. Luna: Yeah, it really does make a difference. And we appreciate everyone who's chipped in. Lucas: So, back to the Khazars. One of the most striking archaeological sites is Sarkel, the fortress that Sviatoslav destroyed. It was built with Byzantine help in the 830s, using bricks stamped with Greek letters. The Khazars used it to control the Don River portage — a key link between the Black Sea and the Volga. Luna: So it was like a tollbooth for the slave route. Lucas: Exactly. And when the Rus prince Sviatoslav took it, he didn't just destroy it — he repurposed it. Sarkel became a Slavic settlement, and the trade routes shifted north, away from Khazar control. Lucas: The Khazar Khaganate's fall was sudden, but its legacy lingered. The word 'Cossack' might even derive from the Turkic 'Khazar' — though that's contested. And the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe sometimes claim Khazar ancestry, though that's also hotly debated among historians. Luna: So the Khazars are still a kind of mystery, even today. Lucas: Definitely. We know they existed, we know they were powerful, and we know they traded in slaves. But a lot of the details are lost because they didn't leave many written records of their own — just the letters from King Joseph and a few inscriptions. Most of what we know comes from outsiders: Arab geographers, Byzantine chroniclers, and the occasional Viking saga. Lucas: One of the most vivid accounts comes from the Persian geographer Ibn Rusta, writing around 903. He describes the Khazar king as a figure of immense wealth, seated on a golden throne, with 25 wives — each the daughter of a tributary king. And he says the king's revenue came largely from tolls on trade, including the slave caravans. Luna: A golden throne paid for by human misery. Lucas: That's the reality of a lot of these trade empires. The gold, the silk, the spices — they often had a hidden cost in human lives. The Khazars are just one example, but they're a particularly stark one because the slave trade was so central to their identity. Lucas: And it's a reminder that when we think about the Silk Road, we shouldn't imagine it as a peaceful exchange of cultures. It was also a battlefield, a slave market, and a source of immense inequality. Luna: Next time I think about trade routes, I'll definitely remember the Khazars. Lucas: I think that's a good takeaway. The Khazars may be gone, but the patterns they represent — of using geography and violence to control trade — are still very much with us.