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Abstract. The discussion about the role of nomads in history today has a noticeably politicized character. Nowadays, due to various circumstances, in the domestic and world nomadology an apologetic direction begins to prevail. Its adherents on the one hand follow the path of trivializing the negative aspects of the nomad history, and on the other try to expand the list of their achievements to maximum A number of authors see as one of the important historical missions of the “civilization of the Eurasian nomads” the intercultural communication, a peculiar channel of communication between the East and the West. More often such a priori estimations are found in broadcast publications, more propagandistic than scientific. However, in some works, claiming to be scientific, the authors tried to argue such views. In particular, this can be said about the work of E.S. Kulpin, dedicated to the history of the Golden Horde. In this article, an attempt is made to elucidate the validity of such concepts by considering a number of particular questions regarding the real contribution of nomads to the cultural exchange between the West and the East, the importance of the Great Silk Road as a single trade route that nurtured the power of nomadic empires and the socio-economic potential of nomadic cattle-breeding societies from the trade transit point of view.
Keywords: nomadism, historical mythology, cultural transit, the Great Silk Road, nomadic empires, settled-nomadic communities.