http://faculty.colostate-pueblo.edu/beatrice.spade/seminar97/seminar97.html - собрание описаний путешествий/паломничеств в Иерусалим
http://faculty.colostate-pueblo.edu/beatrice.spade/seminar97/tafur.htm - путешествие испанца Перо Тафура 1435-39 гг.
Based on Pero Tafur: Travels and Adventures, 1435-1439. eds., E. Denison Ross and Eileen Power. London: George Routlege & Sons, 1926.
http://faculty.colostate-pueblo.edu/beatrice.spade/seminar97/tafur/tafur3.htm - из главы 16 о Каффе и Тартарии. Очень странная география получается c т.зр. ТИ + описание нравов тех времен.

CHAPTER XVI
(Trebizond. - The Usurper.) - Kaffa. - The slave-market. - Tafur purchases three slaves. -The Don. - The trade in caviare. - The Grand Khan. - The Tartars.

…
I then departed, and sailed for Kaffa which is part of the Empire of Tartary, but the city is held by the Genoese who have licence to inhabit there, only the Tartars did not think that they would settle there in such numbers. We anchored in the harbour and came to the inn where the captain had his lodging, and stayed there. The next day I went to see the monastery of St. Francis, which is a very pleasant house, and heard Mass, and later I went to see the podesta who received me very well: He asked me of what things I had need, and told me that he would gladly supply my wants, for he felt great love and duty towards our nation, since when he was in Seville he was excellently treated. I thanked him heartily, and before nightfall I went about the city admiring many things which were strange to me.

The city is very large, as large as Seville, or larger, with twice as many inhabitants, Christians and Catholics as well as Greeks, and all the nations of the world. They say that the Emperor of Tartary would have taken and destroyed it many times, except that the lords and common people of the surrounding countries would not consent to it, for they use the place for their evil doings and thefts, and their great wickedness, such as fathers selling their children, and brother selling brother. These things, and worse, are done there by all the nations of Persia, and when they leave the city they turn their faces to it, and drawing a bow they shoot an arrow against the wall, saying that they go thus absolved from the sins they have committed. They say, further, that the selling of children is no sin, for they are a fruit given by God for them to use for profit, and that God will show the children more favour in the places whither they go than with their parents. In this city they sell more slaves, both male and female, than anywhere else in the world, and the Sultan of Egypt has his agents here, and they buy the slaves and send them to Cairo, and they are called Mamelukes. The Christians have a Bull from the Pope, authorizing them to buy and keep as slaves the Christians of other nations, to prevent their falling into the hands of the Moors and renouncing the Faith. These are Russians, Mingrelians, Caucasians, Circasians, Bulgarians, Armenians and divers other people of the Christian world. I bought there two female slaves and a male, whom I still have in Cordova with their children. The selling takes place as follows. The sellers make the slaves strip to the skin, males as well as females, and they put on them a cloak of felt, and the price is named. Afterwards they throw off their coverings, and make them walk up and down to show whether they have any bodily defect. The seller has to oblige himself, that if a slave dies of the pestilence within sixty days, he will return the price paid. When slaves of different nationalities are sold, if there is a Tartar man or woman among them, the price is a third more, since it may be taken as a certainty that no Tartar ever betrayed a master.

The city of Kaffa is indifferently walled and surrounded by a very small ditch, but it is well provided with cross-bows, bombards, cannon, muskets and culverins, and all manner of defensive artillery. They turn these even upon unarmed people although they have little wish to do them injury, since they derive great profit from them. A few days earlier those of the city marched out with troops and artillery trains to take the city of Corcate, which is the chief city of Tartary, but the Tartars were advised of it, and overcame the Genoese, and took their artillery and their colours, and killed and captured so many that the Tartars thought that day to take Kaffa itself. They approached the walls and tried to scale them, but many were killed, and the Genoese there realized that their people were stronger by sea than by land. Kaffa is bounded on the side towards Persia and India by land, and on the others by the Sea of Tana, the Sea of Ryxabaque and the Sea of Bacu. They bring there much merchandise, spices, gold, pearls, and precious stones, and above all, from the countries round, come the furs of the whole world and at the cheapest rates. Certainly if it were not for the Genoese who are there, it would not appear that the people have any lot with us, since there are so many different nationalities, so many ways of dressing and eating, and such diversity in the usage of women. In the tavern where we lodged they brought us young virgins for a measure of wine, of which there is great scarcity, as also of all kinds of fruit and bread. These can all be had in the town, but there they are sold by the merchants at a high price, and for this reason thefts are common. The Tartars are a warlike people and they work much, both they and their horses, and they require little to sustain them. They say that when they are moving about, or at war, they carry their meat between the horse's side and the seat of the saddle, and they do not cook it any more than it is cooked by that process. They make war on the neighbouring Christians, and take them and sell them in Kaffa, especially since the death of the lord of Vitoldo, who ruled over Lithuania and Russia, and was brother of the King of Poland, and he died without heirs. When the King of Poland succeeded to his lands, since they were far removed from Poland, the people did not desire him for ruler, and the country was divided up and thus lost. If, the Tartars come under our rule as slaves, it is only because they are stolen or sold, as I have related, by their parents. So great is the multitude of men, and of so many different nationalities, that it is a marvel that Kaffa is free from plague. While I was there I went to see the Don, a great river, and they say that this is the other stream which flows from the terrestrial paradise, and the Sea of Tana, the Sea of Ryxabaque and the Sea of Bacu are all fed by that water which comes from the Tanais, and runs through all Persia and Greater India, and, as with the Nile, the water carries much merchandise which enters the Black Sea close to Kaffa. On this coast are two castles, one belonging to the Genoese and the other to the Venetians, where they store much merchandise. In this river there are many fish which they load on ships, especially great quantities of sturgeon, which we call here sollos, a very good fish, both fresh and salted, and they can be met with in Castile and even in Flanders, whither they are carried. By this route the ambassadors of King Enrique travelled when they went to the court of Timur-Beg I was told by Don Alfonso Fernandez de Mesa that from there to the farthest point they reached was as far as from Kaffa to Castile, but that they went straight there and back and saw many strange things by the way, and at the court of Timur-Beg, as they assert. The river Don is a strange sight, as are also the people who dwell on its banks. They kill there certain fish which they call merona. These, they say, are very large, and they put the eggs into casks and carry them all over the world, especially to Greece and Turkey, and they call them caviare. The eggs look at first like black soap, and they take them when they are soft and they press them with a knife, as we do soap in our country, and put them into braziers, which makes them hard, and they look like the eggs of fish. This caviare is very salt. The women and the majority of the men wear the delicate silk of those parts, very elaborately worked, like the Moriscas here. The men wear felt cloaks, as fine as cloth, which are pressed into shape and have no seams, Their arms are scimitars, bows and arrows, and clubs. I did what I could to make plans to go to Tartary, but I was advised against it, since it would be unsafe to venture among people who are constantly moving and live without restraint, owing obedience to no ruler. I went, however, to see the city of Corcate, and from there I wished to see the great bazaar of the Grand Khan (that is lordo basar: lordo, a host, and basar, a square which they call his court. And I informed myself as to it, and it is on this wise. There is a place like a great city where they have their market, as they call it, and there the Grand Cadir is stationed who is charged with governing the people. On the other side, on the left hand, is another place for the same purpose, and another Grand Cadir rules there. The houses are portable, some of linen, some of rods, and it happens at times that, because the soil is exhausted, they change their ground and settle in another district, and when they go they place all their goods in carts, and then set them down in the same order, as if they could not bring themselves to alter it. They eat no bread, which is not to be had, only a mixture of rice and camels' milk, and horse-flesh. They know nothing of wine, for they are of the Mohammedan religion. The Grand Khan is ruler over much country, but cities and towns are unknown. The people live always in the open country. Those who cannot find Christians with whom to fight, make war among themselves, and they steal when they can without fear of justice, for they do not regard it as wrong. They are commonly small in stature and broad-shouldered. Their foreheads are wide and their eyes are small. It is said that the most deformed are of the nobles birth. It is said also that when they meet the Turks they always have the better of them, and that the Turks, as a consequence, beat the Greeks, and the Greeks the Tartars.

But the Greeks are now altogether undone, for at this time Constantinople was the only fortified place they had left, and some still called them lord, but now all the Christian nations distributed throughout the world are serfs to the Moors, as the mudejares are with us, and are completely ruined and subject and scattered. The Turks have, indeed, avenged the taking of Troy. Even before I arrived, and before Constantinople had been taken, the Greeks were as subject as they now are, and if the Turks did not lay hands upon the city, it was for fear of the Christian peoples of the West, lest they should take up arms. But it well appears from the great neglect of Christian princes and people, now that Constantinople is lost, how vain was that fear, for if God had allowed it, and the Turks had dared more, they could have succeeded in all that they attempted, seeing that Christendom has made no effort to avenge the wrong. It is plain, indeed, that cities are better defended by the miraculous power of God than by the industry and strength of men.

I desired greatly to remain in that country, but the people were bestial, and the food did not agree with me. The country is almost as inaccessible as Greater India, where it is impossible to go, and there is little to see in other parts of the country, except those Christians I spoke of as miserable and ruined by the ill neighbourhood of the Tartars, and their want of a ruler to govern them; and so they will continue to suffer until God takes pity on them. The city of Kaffa is so cold in winter that the ships freeze in the harbour. Such is the bestiality and deformity of the people that I was glad to give up the desire I had to see more, and to return to Greece. I therefore collected my goods and departed from Kaffa.