Tatartup

Tatartup, also known as Upper Dzhulat, was a large medieval settlement on the left bank of the Terek near the narrow passage called the Elkhotovo Gates. An Alan settlement occupied the site in the tenth to twelfth centuries; in the fourteenth century it developed into a town of the Golden Horde. Its position commanded the river corridor between the mountains and the northern plains.

The town's remains included a great brick mosque and a tall minaret, as well as Christian monuments in its vicinity. Carved crosses and the foundations of a church speak to the coexistence of religious traditions around the settlement. In the seventeenth century the Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi described extensive old buildings in the area, recalling the former scale of the town.