2. The huns’ movement from the volga to the west and its consequences

The mass resettlement of Hun peoples west of the Volga was connected with the movement of a Hun people (the Hunugurs), in which a clan Bulyar held a prevailing position. In the beginning of the 4th c. the Hunugurs left Tarbagatai region under the leadership of Bulьmar (in the Greek sources his name is given in the form Belemer) from the clan Bulyar. At first the Hunugurs wanted to settle down in the Semirechye regions. When it failed, they set out further west, and came to the Middle Volga basin. It happened approximately in 329 AD. At that time the Utigs were left without a ruler. The last ruler of the Bulyar princedom, Djoka-Utig, was killed, together with his sons, in a battle with Scandinavians (1; 11). Therefore, Utigs recognized Bulьmar as a ruler. He ruled the Bulyar princedom for 30 years. The winter of 359- 360 was severe, trees split from severe cold, birds were falling in flight. There were no rains in the spring and summer. A hunger began. A loss of cattle resulted in famine. To save his people from death, Bulьmar took the Hunugur people to the west of the Volga. Together with the Hunugurs went a part of the Utigs, Khots and Huns, who lived in the Caspian lowland. The Byzantian and Latin historians called them by a collective name Huns. The Huns crossed the Volga in 360 AD (before, it was believed in 350 AD) (2; 270 and 3; 124). The Alans tried to block the Huns in their move to the west. Alans are the ancestors of modern Ossetians, descendents of Kara Saklans (western Saklans, separated from Sinds-Urts in remote times). Alans, led by a prince Boz-Urus used the usual Sarmatian tactics of combat. Their mounted warriors were protected by chain mail armour, and armed with swords. The Alans attached long lances to horse necks with chains. To the strike of the lance it gave the power of a fast running horse. Alans used to break easily an enemy infantry, armed with light bows (3; 124).

Ammianus Marcellinus wrote about the Hun tactics of combat at the end of the 4th c.: “They battle from afar by flying arrows, to which with remarkable skill are attached bone arrowheads as sharp tips, but, having crossed the (separating them from an enemy) distance, they fight hand-to-hand with swords, not thinking at all about themselves. When they see a danger of the enemy blades, they throw nooses which entangle the enemy”(4; 330). If Ammianus Marcellinus compared the approach of the Huns to a snow hurricane in the mountains, historian Jeronimus (5th c.) compared it with a cloud of bees. The onslaught of Huns was so powerful and furious, that the Alans broke and began to retreat to the west in a panic. Other peoples, who lived in the regions of Northern Caucasus, also began to leave with the Alans. Thus began the so-called Great Movement Of The Peoples.

In the second half of the 60s - first half of the 70s of the 4th c., the Huns reached the east coast of the Azov sea (then called Meotida) and came to the lowlands of the Don. On the east coast of the Azov sea lived the Sarmatian peoples known as Yazygs and Roxolans. They could not resist the onslaught of the Huns. Utigs and Khots returned to the home of their Cimmerian ancestors.

In 375 or 376 AD the Huns came to the Don. Here they met with the Ostrogoths. Their leader was king Germanarix. The Goths came to Northern Pontic in the second half of the 2nd c. Depending on where they resettled, the German peoples were grouped in “Vest”and “Ost” Goths, i.e. western and eastern Goths. Ostgoths (Ostrogoths) camped between the Dniestr and western bank of the Don, and the Visigoths (Vesegoths) lived in Walacia, Moldova and modern Bessarabia.

Due to an incident (the Hun hunters saw as a deer crossed Kerch straightin a narrow place of 3 - 4 km), Huns crossed the Kerch straight, shallow from the Don silt, to the Crimean peninsula and struck Ostgoths from the rear. The defeated Ostgoths left to the west.