The Necropolis of the Atazhukiny at the Mouth of the Gundelen River near the Village of Zayukovo

The emergence of the princely family of the Atazhukiny dates to the seventeenth century. It is known that in 1615, after the death of Kaziy Psheapshkov, his son Khatakshuko (the distorted form — Atazhuka) became one of the most influential princes of Kabarda. In the 1630s, Greater (Kaziy’s) Kabarda was divided among three brothers — Khatakshuko, Zhambot, and Misost. In the 1650s–1670s, Khatakshuko Kaziyev was the senior prince (ualiy) of Greater Kabarda. Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, outstanding representatives of the Atazhukiny family are known (Kurgoko Khatakshkov, Bamat Kurgokin, Hadzhi-Temryuko Bamatov, Misost Bamatov, Ismail Atazhkin (Izmail-Bey), Aslanbek Misostov (the distorted form — Roslambek), Adilgeri Atazhkin, Khatakshuko Misostov).

The representatives of the Atazhukiny family maintained the princely way of life until the second half of the nineteenth century. In the published materials of the commission for the examination of personal and land rights of the highlanders of the Terek Oblast, it was stated: “…of princes who by their way of life would correspond to the former Kabardian understanding of princely dignity, there are none in the Kaytukiny, Bekmurziny, and Misostovy families; only in the Atazhukiny family is there still one representative of the ancient type of Kabardian prince, though modified by the influence of his time. With the death of this representative, there will remain in Kabarda nothing but a meaningless princely title…” This document referred to Atazhuko Atazhkin (1811–1868) — the grandson of Hadzhi-Temryuko Bamatov (Atazhkin).

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the ancestral domains of the Atazhukiny were located on the banks of the Baksan, in Pyatigorye (the Pyatigorsk region), and in the Upper Kuban area. Kabardian settlements subject to the Atazhukiny had long been mentioned in the western part of the Baksan River valley. From no later than the mid-nineteenth century, the village of Zayukovo was situated here.

According to travellers and researchers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in the environs of the present-day village of Zayukovo, in the lower reaches of the Gundelen River, there lay an enormous cemetery — the so-called necropolis of the Atazhukiny princes.

The vault burial ground in the lower reaches of the Gundelen near Zayukovo was surveyed in 1867 by the Naryshkin brothers. The entire area from the village of Gundelen “all the way to the confluence of the Gundelen with the Baksan was covered with a multitude of graves marked by heaps of stones and, in places, fairly regular monuments resembling round or square chapels with windows… above which well-preserved Arabic inscriptions were found…”

In the published report of B. E. Degen-Kovalevsky, who conducted excavations and surveys in the area of the present-day villages of Zayukovo and Atazhukino during the construction of a hydroelectric power station in 1932–1933, mention is made of an ancient abandoned cemetery located at the mouth of the Gundelen River: “upon it are the remains of a group of stone vaults, which in recent times belonged to the princely Kabardian clan of the Atazhukiny… In 1925, the above-ground parts of the vaults were dismantled by the inhabitants of the village of Gundelen for use as building material; the burials themselves, according to local workers, remained intact.” The external appearance of the burial ground was recorded in photographs (Fig. 1), including in a tourist guidebook.

It is known that on the necropolis near the village of Zayukovo stood the mausoleum of Bamat and Temryuko Atazhkiny. The inscription on the monument, recorded by the Naryshkins, was translated by L. I. Lavrov: “The deceased, buried in this mausoleum, Hadzhi-Temruk-Bek, son of Muhammad-Bek — may God forgive them both! In the (year) 1194. Death is a chalice, and all people bend towards it.” The date of the inscription on the monument is 1194 AH (1779 CE). Buried here were Temryuko Atazhkin and his father Bamat Kurgokin, the senior prince of Kabarda from the late 1730s until his death in the early 1760s.

The existence of a necropolis of the nobility, consisting of numerous stone mausoleums and tombstones at the mouth of the Gundelen River near Zayukovo, has been noted by other researchers as well. Although in a number of publications, the reference to the Gundelen River as a landmark creates the false impression that the mausoleums built here were scattered and did not constitute a single cemetery. It is possible that certain other mausoleums situated in the lower course of the Gundelen and the adjacent part of the Baksan valley were territorially connected with the Atazhukiny cemetery. It is entirely possible that the grave and, accordingly, the tombstone of the celebrated public figure of eighteenth-century Kabarda, Zhabagi Kazanoko, were located in the cemetery at the mouth of the Gundelen River. Thus, in the publication of S. Anisimov, mention is made of a monument in honour of “the people’s hero of Kabarda, lawgiver and leader — Kazanuko Dzhabago,” which stood near the village of Gundelen and was later relocated to the city of Nalchik.

In the spring of 2009, I examined the surviving section of the Atazhukiny necropolis between the villages of Zayukovo and Gundelen, near the modern monument “The Grieving Highlander.” Several ancient stone tombstones have survived here, as well as traces of the former existence of stone mausoleums and above-ground vaults — for example, a foundation block of a destroyed mausoleum. The remains of a circular structure, evidently a cult building, have also been preserved.

At the mouth of the Gundelen near the village of Zayukovo, in the immediate vicinity of the once-extensive Atazhukiny necropolis, in February 2009 I also examined the large burial-mound cemetery of Kuzanako (in Kabardian: Kkh”uzanek”ue — “grave-sieve”). The barrows are scattered across the broad part of the promontory formed by the confluence of the Gundelen and Baksan rivers. The number of mounds amounts to several dozen. This is one of the largest burial-mound cemeteries in the territory of the KBR. The number, form, and arrangement of the mounds allow this necropolis to be preliminarily dated to the fifteenth–seventeenth centuries and attributed to the Old Kabardian culture. It is possible that several mounds in this cemetery date to the Bronze Age (3rd–2nd millennia BCE).

The presence of a large number of sizeable mounds up to 3–4 metres in height in this barrow field suggests a pronounced social stratification among the local population in the fifteenth–seventeenth centuries. This may indicate the origin of the Old Kabardian culture from antiquities of the thirteenth–fifteenth centuries (of the Belorechensk burial-ground type), located in the Trans-Kuban region.

At present, the Kuzanako burial ground is being intensively destroyed by treasure-hunters and local inhabitants. More than ten mounds bear traces of recent looters’ trenches.

It is possible that the Atazhukiny necropolis, consisting of stone mausoleums and tombstones, served as a local Muslim shrine and is genetically linked to the earlier barrow cemetery of the fifteenth–seventeenth centuries located on the same site.

In the environs of the village of Zayukovo, several more groups of Adyghe barrows (Іueshchkh’ebyn) from the fifteenth–seventeenth centuries are located. They were examined and, to a minor degree, investigated by archaeologists V. I. Dolbezhev, B. E. Degen-Kovalevsky, N. A. Shafiyev, and V. M. Batchaev. In the spring of 2009, I examined the barrow cemetery Іueshchkh’ebyn several kilometres to the south of the village of Zayukovo. The number of mounds is several dozen. On the outskirts of the cemetery stands a large barrow with a stone monument on its summit. The monument is massive, bearing a poorly legible inscription and a tamga.

In the environs of the neighbouring village of Atazhukino (within the village itself and on its outskirts, in the valley of the Kardantkhalye stream), there exist several sizeable ancient barrows linked in the historical memory of the local population with the princely family of the Atazhukiny. Thus, the barrow of Kurgoko Atazhkin is known — the largest of them. The remains of roadside monuments of certain representatives of the Atazhukiny family are also known, in particular the well-preserved monument of Hadzhi-Temryuko Atazhkin on the bank of the Kardantkhalye stream near the village of Atazhukino.

The monuments mentioned and briefly described in the present work only partially characterise the historical and archaeological sites of the eastern Adyghe (Kabardians) from the fifteenth–nineteenth centuries in the Baksansky District of the KBR that have survived to the present day. The gathering of information must continue. Systematic and planned study of the large barrow cemetery of Kuzanako from the fifteenth–seventeenth centuries will make it possible to examine in greater detail and with greater reliability the stages of the early ethnic history of the Adyghe.

V. A. Fomenko