ABSTRACT
In the eighteenth century the settlement of Boynak was the residence of Shevkal's heir where 'he may learn the art of governing' (Reineggs/W ., Vol. I, p. I 13 and Vol. II, map, where the author indicates a small river but does not show the place). It lay in the mountains south-east of Tarku on a ridge rising to about 2,000 m. In Khvorostinin's state of Shevkal's forces, it only furnished thirty horsemen, while the district of Kafyr Kumukh (in Reineggs, Ghyffr) as a whole provided one hundred and fifty, so Boynak must have been a comparatively small fief. The river of Boynak was not anything like the size of the Koysu (Sulak), as indicated by Kiril who seems to have confused it with the larger Osen of Reineggs's map and the Shura-Osen of Felitsyn's map. Overlooking the Osen was Shura or Temir-Khan-Shura, which name is interpreted by Baddeley (RFC, Vol. II, pp. 2-3, citing P. K. Uslar) as meaning 'the rock or lake of Timur', since Timur is said to have camped there after his victory over Tokhtamysh on the Terek in 1395. But there is a reference to a contemporary Temir Khan of Shura in Sovin's embassy (Belokurov, Snosheniya, p. 293). The name of Buinaksk has been given, under the Soviets, to former Temir-Khan-Shura, which is now the administrative capital of the Daghestan ASSR.
