The Khazars formed and governed a large empire centered in what is now called the Ukraine at the north end of the Caspian Sea where the river Volga empties into this large body of water.
The empire began around 600 AD and lasted for over 400 years before it faded. By the eighth century, the Khazar Empire extended northward to Kiev and westward to include the Magyars, the ancestors of modern Hungary.
The Khazars were a Turkic people who worshipped Tangri and were governed by khagans and tarkhans.
They were said to be descendants of the White Huns also called Hephthalites or Epthalites. They were already powerful nation when in 626 their khan Ziebil, at the request of Heraclius at a meeting in Tiflis, lent the Byzantine emperor 40,000 men to make war on Persian, a reinforcement with which Heraclius laid waste the Sassanid province of Azerbaijan.
During the second half of the tenth century, the power of the Khazar Empire started to decline.
In the year 1016, after the attacked by combined Kievan Rus and Byznatine the Khazar Empire was shattered. The Khazars retreated to the steppe and the mountains of the Caucasus.
The Khazars in the area of the Volga kept their independence until the invasion by the Tatars in 1223.
Khazar Empire
