Kasimov

Kasimov stands on the Oka amid the forests of the Meshchera country. Once known as Gorodets Meshchersky, it became the seat of a Tatar khanate under Muscovite overlordship. Its mosques and tombs recall a Muslim ruling house and a community whose history was closely intertwined with that of the Russian state.

In the middle of the fifteenth century Qasim, a son of the Kazan khan Uluğ Muhammad, entered the service of Grand Prince Vasily II and received the town that took his name. The rulers of Kasimov were Chinggisids, but their authority was constrained by Moscow, which nominated or confirmed them and appointed a Russian governor. They collected tribute from a population that included Mordvins, Meshcherans, Russians and Tatars. The town also offered refuge to other displaced Tatar princes, some of whom served Moscow in campaigns against rival khanates.

The khanate lasted until the death of its last ruler, Fatima Sultan, in 1681, after which its lands passed directly under Russian administration. Kasimov remained a town of Russian and Tatar communities on the Oka. Its surviving religious buildings and mausoleums preserve a distinctive legacy of the time when a Muslim court stood within the orbit of Moscow. The river carried the town’s connections beyond its immediate hinterland, joining the Oka to the Volga and to the markets of central Russia.