Sarai's Library: The Lost Books of Mongol Russia

Beneath the ruins of Old Sarai, the Mongol capital on the Volga, lie fragments of a lost world: the city's libraries. While the Horde is remembered for horsemen and yurts, its capital was a literate, multilingual crossroads. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore what was read in the steppe capital — from Persian histories and Islamic jurisprudence to Russian chronicles and Mongol legal codes. They trace the journey of books across the empire: how Ibn Battuta found a scholar reading al-Biruni in a Sarai mosque, how Russian monks copied chronicles under Tatar patronage, and how the Great Troubles of the 1360s scattered or destroyed much of this heritage. They also touch on the curious case of the 'Sarai Gospel' and the question of whether a distinct steppe literary culture ever formed. A window into the Horde's intellectual life — fleeting, fragile, and often overlooked. #GoldenHorde #Sarai #MongolLiterature #IbnBattuta #al-Biruni #RussianChronicles #GreatTroubles #SteppeHistory #MedievalBooks #PersianManuscripts #IslamicLearning #MongolEmpire #VolgaRiver #UzbekKhan #JochidUlus #History #FexingoHistory #LostLibrary Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo