Avaria

Avaria, or the Avar Nutsaldom, was a highland state of the Avar people in Dagestan, centred on Khunzakh. The Golden Horde overran it in 1241, but Avar khans retained practical independence in the fourteenth century.

The rise of a neighbouring shamkhalate after the Golden Horde’s collapse narrowed their power, and Avar tribes adopted Islam in the seventeenth century. In 1741 they destroyed Nader Shah’s army in the mountains. Under Umma-Khan, who ruled from 1775 to 1801, neighbouring rulers paid tribute; the khanate submitted to Russia in 1803.