Saqsin

Saksin (also Sakschin or Saksin - Bolgar ) was a medieval town at the mouth of the Volga, from the 11th - 13th Century had its heyday. The town was located within the present boundaries of the Astrakhan Oblast, Russia. At the time of the Mongol conquest, the city was known as Sarai Batu and has long been the capital of the Golden Horde. In addition to the mention of Arab and Persian geographers such as al- Gharnati or Qazwini, the city in the report of the monk Benedictus Polonus about the trip ( 1246 ) by Giovanni da Pian del Carpine through the camp of the Mongol prince Batu Khan on the banks of the Volga is also sometimes called "the land of Saksin " as.

Apparently Benedictus Polonus has misunderstood the name and connected the city with the Saxons against the end of the early Middle Ages. Erroneously, he wrote that the inhabitants are Christian, and related to the former Goths. In reality, they were probably Turkic Muslims.

Saksin also benefits from an Arabized form of Sarighsin point (Turkish for yellow city).

Excavations

As of 2003, led by Dmitri Vasilyev of Astrakhan State University, a series of excavations in the vicinity of the village Samosdelka in the Volga Delta through. The artifacts discovered during he assigns to the cultures of the Khazars, Oghuz and Bulgarians. These findings led him to the conclusion to have discovered parts of the lost city Saksin. In this respect, however, there is still confusion.