The Fall of Sarkel and the End of the Khazar Khaganate (965-969)

The Khazars built the fortress of Sarkel on the Don in the 830s, with an engineer, Petronas Kamateros, sent by the Byzantine emperor Theophilos. Its name means "white house" in Khazar, for it was built of white limestone.

By the mid-10th century the Kievan Rus was growing stronger while the Khazars weakened. Around 965 Prince Sviatoslav marched to the Volga, defeated the Khazar army and took Sarkel. According to the sources the Khazar capital Atil was destroyed a few years later.

With this the Khazar Khaganate, which had ruled from the Caucasus to the Volga for three centuries, left the stage of history. Russian sources afterwards call Sarkel "Belaya Vezha". Its ruins were excavated in the 1930s to 1950s and then disappeared under the Tsimlyansk Reservoir.