Kalmius Sakma

(sakma is the Tatar word for “well-wornroad”), the route from the Crimean Khanate to Russia. Beginning in the south in the upper reaches of the Molochnye VodyRiver (now the Molochnaia River) in the basin of the Sea of Azov, the Kal’mius Sakma proceeded across the Kal’mius River and further on across the Severskii Donets River along the watershed of the Oskol and Don rivers, near the cities of Valuikiand Staryi Oskol. At the Bol’shaia Sosna River it merged withthe Murava Road. In the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century the Kal’mius Sakma was one of the main routesalong which the Crimean and Nogai Tatars carried out plundering raids on the southern regions of Russia.