The oldest written history of the Slavs can be shortly summarised–myriads of slave hunts and the enthrallment of entire peoples. The Slav was the most prized of human goods. With increased strength outside his marshy land of origin, hardened to the utmost against all privation, industrious, content with little, good-humoured, and cheerful, he filled the slave markets of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It must be remembered that for every Slavonic slave who reached his destination, at least ten succumbed to inhuman treatment during transport and to the heat of the climate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_medieval_Europe#Jewish_merchants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_slavery
Records of long-distance Jewish slave merchants date at least as far back as 492, when Pope Gelasius permitted Jews to import non-Christian slaves into Italy, at the request of a Jewish friend from Telesina Valley. By the turn of the 6th to the 7th century, Jews had become the chief slave traders in Italy, and were active in Gallic territories. Pope Gregory the Great issued a ban on Jews possessing Christian slaves, lest the slaves convert to Judaism. By the 9th and 10th centuries, Jewish merchants, sometimes called Radhanites, were a major force in the slave trade continent-wide.
Jews were one of the few groups who could move and trade between the Christian and Islamic worlds. Ibn Khordadbeh observed and recorded routes of Jewish merchants in his Book of Roads and Kingdoms from the South of France to Spain, carrying (amongst other things) female slaves, eunuchs, and young slave boys. He also notes Jews purchasing Slavic slaves in Prague. Letters of Agobard, archbishop of Lyons (816–840), acts of the emperor Louis the Pious, and the seventy-fifth canon of the Council of Meaux–Paris of 845 confirms the existence of a route used by Jewish traders with Slavic slaves through the Alps to Lyon, to Southern France, to Spain. Toll records from Walenstadt in 842–843 indicate another trade route, through Switzerland, the Septimer and Splügen passes, to Venice, and from there to North Africa.
As German rulers of Saxon dynasties took over the enslavement (and slave trade) of Slavs in the 10th century, Jewish merchants bought slaves at the Elbe, sending caravans into the valley of the Rhine. Many of these slaves were taken to Verdun (whose location is disputed, though most read it as Verdun on the Meuse, with some scholars seeing Verdun-sur-le-Doubs as a better candidate) which had close trade relations with Spain. Many would be castrated and sold as eunuchs as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radhanite
These merchants speak Arabic, Persian, Roman, the Frank, Spanish, and Slav languages. They journey from West to East, from East to West, partly on land, partly by sea. They transport from the West eunuchs, female slaves, boys, brocade, castor, marten and other furs, and swords. They take ship from Firanja (France), on the Western Sea, and make for Farama (Pelusium). There they load their goods on camel-back and go by land to al-Kolzum (Suez), a distance of twenty-five farsakhs. They embark in the East Sea and sail from al-Kolzum to al-Jar and al-Jeddah, then they go to Sind, India, and China. On their return from China they carry back musk, aloes, camphor, cinnamon, and other products of the Eastern countries to al-Kolzum and bring them back to Farama, where they again embark on the Western Sea. Some make sail for Constantinople to sell their goods to the Romans; others go to the palace of the King of the Franks to place their goods. Sometimes these Jew merchants, when embarking from the land of the Franks, on the Western Sea, make for Antioch (at the head of the Orontes River); thence by land to al-Jabia (al-Hanaya on the bank of the Euphrates), where they arrive after three days’ march. There they embark on the Euphrates and reach Baghdad, whence they sail down the Tigris, to al-Obolla. From al-Obolla they sail for Oman, Sindh, Hind, and China.
These different journeys can also be made by land. The merchants that start from Spain or France go to Sus al-Aksa (in Morocco) and then to Tangier, whence they walk to Kairouan and the capital of Egypt. Thence they go to ar-Ramla, visit Damascus, al-Kufa, Baghdad, and al-Basra, cross Ahvaz, Fars, Kerman, Sind, Hind, and arrive in China.
Sometimes, also, they take the route behind Rome and, passing through the country of the Slavs, arrive at Khamlidj, the capital of the Khazars. They embark on the Jorjan Sea, arrive at Balkh, betake themselves from there across the Oxus, and continue their journey toward Yurt, Toghuzghuz, and from there to China.
>Sometimes they take the route behind Rome and passing through the country of the Slavs, arrive at Khamlidj, the capital of the Khazars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atil
Atil, literally meaning "Big River", was the capital of Khazaria from the middle of the 8th century until the end of the 10th century. The word is also a Turkic name for the Volga River.
Atil was located along the Volga delta at the northwestern corner of the Caspian Sea. Following the defeat of the Khazars in the Second Arab-Khazar War, Atil became the capital of Khazaria. The city is referred to as Khamlij in 9th-century Arab sources, and the name Atil appears in the 10th century. At its height, the city was a major center of trade, and consisted of three parts separated by the Volga. The western part contained the administrative center of the city, with a court house and a large military garrison. The eastern part of the city was built later and acted as the commercial center of the Atil, and had many public baths and shops. Between them was an island on which stood the palaces of the Khazar Khagan and Bek. The island was connected to one of the other parts of the city by a pontoon bridge. According to Arab sources, one half of the city was referred to as Atil, while the other was named Khazaran.
Atil was a multi-ethnic and religiously diverse city, inhabited by Jews, Christians, Muslims, Shamanists, and Pagans, many of them traders from foreign countries. All of the religious groups had their own places of worship in the city, and there were seven judges appointed to settle disputes (two Christian, two Jewish, and two Muslim judges, with a single judge for all of the Shamanists and other Pagans).
Svyatoslav I of Kiev sacked Atil in 968 or 969 CE. Ibn Hawqal and al-Muqaddasi refer to Atil after 969, indicating that it may have been rebuilt. Al-Biruni (mid-11th century) reported that Atil was again in ruins, and did not mention the later city of Saqsin which was built nearby, so it is possible that this new Atil was only destroyed in the middle of the 11th century.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41035790
THE KHAZAR KINGDOM'S CONVERSION TO JUDAISM
OMELJAN PRITSAK
Harvard Ukrainian Studies
Vol. 2, No. 3 (September 1978), pp. 261-281 (21 pages)
Published By: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
https://www.jstor.org/stable/i40046137
Khazars, like their contemporaries, the Uyğurs, were introduced and converted to these universalistic faiths (Judaism and Manichaeanism respectively) by long-distance merchants.
>Cross reference
>been shootin' thermo AGM-114N's since 2005 yo.