The NOGAI The Nogai people are related to the famous Nogai Horde of the 13th and 14th centuries, though they contain large admixtures of Cuman blood. The Nogai Khanate had taken its name from Nogai (died in 1299) one of the great commanders of the early Golden Horde (1223-1502) and his khanate was founded following the collapse of the Golden Horde. The Khanate included the regions extending from the Volga to the Irtish Rivers and from the Caspian Sea towards to the Aral. Its capital was Saraycik, located at the mouth of Yayik River. Most of its people were Turkic tribes connected to Cumans (Kipchak), similar to the Kazan, Crimean, Astrakhan and Sibir Khanates. Among these tribes, the Mangit people, regarded as Mongolians that had become Turkified, held a privileged position. After the submission of the Kazan and Astrakhan Khanates to Russia (1552-1557), the Nogai Khanate fragmented into several septs. Those in the north of the Caucasus were referred to as the "Küçük Orda" (Lesser Horde), and those within the environs of Emba Lake were called the "Altiul Orda". Those that remained under the domination of Ismail Khan were united under the collective name of Greater Nogai Horde, and they recognised the domination of Ivan IV (1555-1557). Until the first half of the 17th century a number of Nogai tribes were nomadic on the steppes between the Danube and the Caspian. As indicated above, originally Mongol, the Nogai language is now a Turkic dialect of the Cuman group. The invasion of the Kalmucks forced several of the Nogai tribes to leave the steppes and withdraw to the foothills of the North Caucasus. In the Moscow chronicles from the 16th and 17th centuries there are several references to them, including the two Nogai Hordes, the Great and the Small. The former roamed beyond the River Volga, the latter somewhat to the west. Both had numerous military encounters with the Russians. In the 17th century some of the Nogai chiefs entered into an alliance with Moscow and fought at times together with the Russians against the Kabardians, the Kalmucks and peoples of Dagestan. Since the early 19th century the majority of the Nogai have settled in North Caucasia.
Nogai Horde This was a Mongol vassal realm consisting of the part of the Golden Horde which existed west of the Carpathians (the Dest-i-Kypchak, i.e. the Cumanian Steppe). The Great Nogai Horde was not technically an independent entity, though Nogai Khan was considered the real power behind the Golden Horde following the death of Batu and he ruled his own lands more or less separately from 1279 on.