Sarai Batu: The Reconstructed 13th Century Capital City of The Golden Horde

The ancient city of Sarai Batu was located on the lower stretch of the Volga River, about 120 km north of the modern city of Astrakhan in p...

The ancient city of Sarai Batu was located on the lower stretch of the Volga River, about 120 km north of the modern city of Astrakhan in present-day Russia. It was the capital of the Golden Horde, the western part of the Mongol empire, which flourished from the mid-13th century to the end of the 14th century. At its peak, the territory of the Golden Horde included most of Eastern Europe from the Urals to the Danube River, and extended east deep into Siberia. On the south the Horde’s lands bordered on the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, and the Iranian territories of the Mongol dynasty known as the Il-Khans.

Sarai Batu (meaning “Batu’s Palace”) was established in the mid-1240s by the Mongol ruler Batu Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan. At that time, it was quite a large settlement with a population of 75,000, making it one of the largest cities of the medieval world.