This book is very revealing...if possible read the whole book. Chapter 2 is about Russia & the khazars.
John Beaty
The author of The Iron Curtain Over America has written, or collaborated on, a dozen books. His texts have been used in more than seven hundred colleges and universities, and his historical novel, Swords in the Dawn, published originally in New York, had London and Australian editions, and was adopted for state-wide use in the public schools of Texas.
His education (M.A., University of Virginia; Ph.D., Columbia University; post-graduate study, University of Montpellier, France), his travel in Europe and Asia, and his five years with the
Military Intelligence Service in World War II rounded out the background for the reading and research (1946-1951) which resulted in The Iron Curtain Over America. http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2004/11/106746.shtmlIsrael's surprising best seller contradicts founding ideology Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 8 October 2008
Centuries later, the people of the Khazar kingdom in what is today south Russia, would convert en masse to Judaism, becoming the genesis of the αѕнкenαzι Jєωs of central and eastern Europe.
Sand pointed to the strange state of denial in which most Israelis live, noting that papers offered extensive coverage recently to the discovery of the capital of the Khazar kingdom next to the Caspian Sea.
Ynet, the website of Israel's most popular newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, headlined the story: "Russian archaeologists find long-lost Jєωιѕн capital." And yet none of the papers, he added, had considered the significance of this find to standard accounts of Jєωιѕн history.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9884.shtmlJєωιѕн city feared by Stalin is rediscovered By Ben Leach Last Updated: 10:10AM BST 24 Sep 2008
The city, Itil, was the capital of the Khazars, a powerful nation that adopted Judaism as its official religion more than 1,000 years ago, only to disappear, leaving little trace of its culture.
One of the archeologists, Dmitry Vasilyev, said: "This is a hugely important discovery. We can now shed light on one of the most intriguing mysteries of that period - how the Khazars actually lived.
"We know very little about the Khazars - about their traditions, their funerary rites, their culture."
At their height, the Khazars, a semi-nomadic Turkic people, controlled much of what is now southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan and large parts of Russia's North Caucasus region.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/3072167/Jєωιѕн-city-feared-by-Stalin-is-rediscovered.html