The Khanate of Astrakhan (Xacitarxan Khanate) was a Tatar feudal state that appeared after the collapse of the Golden Horde. The Khanate existed in the 15th and 16th centuries in the area adjacent to the mouth of the Volga river, where the contemporary city of Astrakhan/Hajji Tarkhan is now located. Its khans were the patrilineal descendants of Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan.

The Khanate was established in the 1460s by Mäxmüd of Astrakhan. The capital was the city of Xacítarxan, also known Astrakhan in Russian chronicles. Its territory included the Lower Volga valley and the Volga Delta, including most of what is now Astrakhan Oblast and the steppeland on the right bank of Volga in what is now Kalmykia. The North-Western Caspian seaside was a southern boundary and the Crimean Khanate bounded Astrakhan on the west.

The area surrounding the lower Volga was populated by various Turkic tribes since the 6th century AD. There were, for example, the Khazars. Following the invasion of Mongol tribes from the east and the splintering of their empire, the area came under the rule of the Golden Horde. This empire, too, was wracked by civil war, and the semi-independent Astrakhan Khanate was established by Qasim I around 1466. Its location at the mouth of the Volga, straddling important trade routes, allowed it to accumulate significant wealth, but also attracted the attention of neighbouring states and nomadic tribes, subjecting the khanate to numerous invasions. Meñli I Giray, the khan of the Crimea who had destroyed the Big Horde's capital of Sarai-al-Jadid caused significant destruction to the khanate.

Astrakhan (Russian: Астрахань, tr. Astrakhanʹ; IPA: [ˈastrəxənʲ]) is a major city in southern European Russia and the administrative center of Astrakhan Oblast. The city lies on the left bank of the Volga River, close to where it discharges into the Caspian Sea at an altitude of 28 meters (92 ft) below sea level. Population: 520,662 (2010 Census preliminary results); 504,501 (2002 Census); 509,210 (1989 Census).

Astrakhan is situated in the Volga Delta, rich in sturgeon and exotic plants. The fertile area formerly contained the capitals of Khazaria and the Golden Horde. Astrakhan' itself was first mentioned by travellers in the early 13th century as Xacitarxan. Tamerlane burnt it to the ground in 1395. From 1459 to 1556, Xacitarxan was the capital of Astrakhan Khanate. The ruins of this medieval settlement were found by archaeologists 12 km upstream from the modern-day city.

In 1556, the khanate was conquered by Ivan the Terrible, who had a new fortress, or kremlin, built on a steep hill overlooking the Volga. In 1569, Astrakhan was besieged by the Cossack Ottoman army, which had to retreat in disarray. A year later, the Sultan renounced his claims to Astrakhan, thus opening the entire Volga River to Russian traffic. In the 17th century, the city was developed as a Russian gate to the Orient. Many merchants from Armenia, Persia, India and Khiva settled in the town, giving it a multinational and variegated character.

Batu Khan (/ˈbɑːtuː ˈkɑːn/; Mongolian: Бат хан, Russian: хан Батый; c. 1207–1255) was a Mongol ruler and founder of the Ulus of Jochi (or Golden Horde), the sub-khanate of the Mongol Empire. Batu was a son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan. His ulus was the chief state of the Golden Horde (or Kipchak Khanate), which ruled Rus and the Caucasus for around 250 years, after also destroying the armies of Poland and Hungary. "Batu" or "Bat" literally means "firm" in the Mongolian language. After the deaths of Genghis Khan's sons, he became the most respected prince called agha (elder brother) in the Mongol Empire.

After his son Jochi's death, Genghis assigned the latter's appanages to his sons. But the Great Khan installed Batu as Khan of the Ulus of Jochi. He had an elder brother Orda Khan who agreed that Batu should succeed his father. Genghis Khan's youngest brother Temuge attended the coronation ceremony as an official representative of Genghis. When Genghis Khan died in 1227, he left 4,000 Mongol men to Jochi's family. Jochi's lands were divided between Batu and his older brother Orda. Orda's White Horde ruled the lands roughly between the Volga river and Lake Balkhash, while Batu's Horde ruled the lands west of the Volga.

Ivan IV Vasilyevich (Russian:  Ива́н Четвёртый, Васи́льевич​ (help·info), Ivan Chetvyorty, Vasilyevich; 25 August 1530 – 28 March [O.S. 18 March] 1584), known in English as Ivan the Terrible (Russian:  Ива́н Гро́зный​ (help·info), Ivan Grozny; lit. Fearsome), was Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 until his death. His long reign saw the conquest of the Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and Siberia, transforming Russia into a multiethnic and multiconfessional state spanning almost one billion acres, approximately 4,046,856 km² (1,562,500 sq mi). Ivan managed countless changes in the progression from a medieval state to an empire and emerging regional power, and became the first ruler to be crowned as Tsar of all Russia.

Historic sources present disparate accounts of Ivan's complex personality: he was described as intelligent and devout, yet given to rages and prone to episodic outbreaks of mental illness. On one such outburst Tsar beat and unpremeditatedly killed his groomed and chosen heir Ivan Ivanovich. This led Tsardom to be passed to Tsar's younger son: the weak and intellectually disabledFeodor I of Russia. Ivan's legacy is complex: he was an able diplomat, a patron of arts and trade, founder of the Russia's first Print Yard, but he is also remembered for his paranoiac suspiciousness and cruel persecution of nobility.

Crimean Tatars (sg. Qırımtatar, pl. Qırımtatarlar) or Crimeans (sg. Qırım, Qırımlı, pl. Qırımlar, Qırımlılar) are a Turkic ethnic group that originally resided in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language. They are not to be confused with the Volga Tatars.

In modern times, in addition to living in Crimea, Ukraine, there is a large diaspora of Crimean Tatars in Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Western Europe, the Middle East and North America, as well as small communities in Finland, Lithuania, Russia, Belarus and Poland. (See Crimean Tatar diaspora)

Today, more than 240,000 Crimean Tatars live in Crimea and about 150,000 remain in exile in Central Asia, mainly in Uzbekistan. There is an unspecified number of people of Crimean Tatar origin living in Turkey, descendants of those who emigrated in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the Dobruja region straddling Romania and Bulgaria, there are more than 27,000 Crimean Tatars: 24,000 on the Romanian side, and 3,000 on the Bulgarian side^{[citation needed]}.