Great Horde

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The Great Horde, or Big Horde was the central principality of the Mongol-Tartar Golden Horde, the westernmost successor state of Genghis Khan's legacy.

Following Timur's invasion (roughly reconstituting the Persia-based Ilkhanate), the Golden Horde started to disintegrate. The major principalities of Kazan and Crimea gained independence as princely khanates. The Russian rising power Muscovy, Astrakhan Khanate, Nogay Horde and Siberia Khanate followed. The remaining territory around capital Saray on the Volga still claimed to be the legitimate khanate of the Golden Horde, but it retained neither the political clout nor the military might of the original Golden Horde. In 1502 the Great Horde was completely destroyed by Meñli I Giray of the Crimean Khanate, by then an Ottoman tributary state. Ultimately all these Turkic polities were to fall prey to Russian forces, including Cossack armies.