Sabirs

The Sabirs ('Savirs, Suars, ', Sawar, Sawirk among others; Greek: Σάβιροι) were numerous Turkic tribes who lived in the north of the Caucasus, on the eastern shores of the Black Sea, in the Kuban area, and possibly came from Western Siberia. They were skilled in warfare, used siege machinery, had a large army (in which fought women as well) and were boat-builders. They switched sides in the Byzantine–Sasanian wars. As they favored the Byzantines, it laid the basis for the later Khazars-Byzantine alliance.

Gyula Németh and Paul Pelliot for the Sabir/Sabar/Sapar/Savar considered Turkic etymology for "to go astray", i.e. the "wanderers, nomads", placed in a group of semantically similar names Qazar, Qazaq, Yazar, Qačar.Al-Masudi recorded that the Khazars name is in Persian, while in Turkic it is Sabir, implying the same semantic meaning, and related ethnogenesis.

Walter Bruno Henning considered to have found them in the Sogdian Nafnamak (near Turpan) long after the 5th century. Some scholars related their name to the name of Siberia, with the far Eastern Xianbei, and Finno-Ugric origin. The ancient historians related and differed them from the Huns, implying their mixed descent.

Byzantine documents normally refer to Sabirs as Sabiroi, although the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (908-959) writes in his De Administrando Imperio that he was told by a Hungarian delegation visiting his court that the Tourkoi (the Byzantine name for the Hungarians) used to be called "sabartoi asphaloi", generally considered to mean "steadfast Sabirs", and still regularly sent delegations to those who stayed behind in the Caucasus region near Persia. Possibly some Hungarian group derived from the Sabirs as their name is reflected in Szavard, and personal clan name Zuard.

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