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 In ancient times, one of the more developed branches of the Great Silk Road ran through China and India to Central Asia, then to the Caspian Sea along the Uzbai river, and across the territories of contemporary Azerbaijan and Georgia towards the Black Sea region and Asia Minor which were home to a number of Greek city-states. There also existed a “Steppe Branch” of the Road running along the Volga to southern Russian steppes and further to the Crimea and Eastern Europe. Following the collapse of the ancient empires, during the Great Migration, the Steppe Branch served as an important link between West and East: Sasanid Iran, later Arab Caliphate, in its struggle and competition with Byzantium, directed the main routes of the Great Silk Road to circumvent Byzantine lands. In the same historic period, China, India and Khorezm were joined by ancient Turkic people as trading partners of Byzantium and Sasanid Iran. One of the liveliest routes in the third and fourth centuries ran West across the entire Caucasus to the lands of Eastern Europe and Byzantium.
In addition to older partners, China, India, Indochina, countries of Asia Minor, the Caucasus, the Near and Middle East, Byzantium and others, commercial activity along the Great Silk Road also involved ancient Russia as well as Central and Northern European countries.
Trade involving the Great Silk Road experienced especially intensive growth following the temporary closure in the 12th century of the maritime route connecting China to the Persian Gulf, and the entire flow of China-bound goods from the West was re-routed and ran across Khorezm. For fifty years, Khorezm became an important commercial intermediary between China and the rest of the world. Merchants from the Volga region, India and Iran would come here, and caravans bound for the Middle East, East Turkistan and China had that area as their point of departure. Ugrench, the capital of Khorezm, was the starting point on the way to Mongolia, across the steppes controlled by the Polovets, to Saksin (a port city in the Volga delta), to the Russian principalities and Europe. |
