ABSTRACT
COMMENTARY 70 Buturlin's catastrophe at Tarlcu (ref. Chap. I;, p. 5 12, n. 2) This passage in Tatishchev's report helps to date the final catastrophe at Tarku which Russian historians give, rather indefinitely, as 'the Spring of 1605'. At the end of the first week of June, Aytek told the ambassadors that the Kumukhs had captured the fort on the Koysu (Sulak) and that Tarku was under artillery bombardment. Buturlin was besieged and cut off from the sea by a mixed horde of Kumukhs and A vars under the command of the Shevkal's son, Saltan-Mahmut, who had in the previous year been in touch with the Turks in Shemakha (see above, Chap. I I, p. 4; I, n. I). For the siege he received cannon and some reinforcements in men from the Turkish Pasha in Derbent. Saltan-Mahmut proposed capitulation to Buturlin - whose position was further weakened by the mining of a bastion which collapsed and buried over a hundred musketeers. Terms were agreed: that the Russians should withdraw under arms, taking with them their sick and wounded; Saltan-Mahmut gave his own son as hostage for the proper carrying out of the agreement. But it was the day fixed for the celebration of the marriage of the Shevkal with a daughter of the Avar Khan. Hundreds of tululcs of bu'{a (goatskin bags filled with Tartar beer) were distributed to the wild victors who were further excited by the preaching of their mullahs. The orgy proved fatal to the Russians. While their columns, with sick and wounded, were crossing the marshy land on both sides of the Osen river they were set upon by the fanatical and drunken hordes. Buturlin struck off the head of
