Sarai (city)

Sarai (city)

Sarai (also transcribed as Saraj or Saray) was the name of two cities, which were successively capital cities of the Golden Horde, the Mongol kingdom which ruled Russia and much of central Asia in the 13th and 14th centuries. They were among the largest cities of the medieval world, with a population estimated by the 2005 Britannica at 600,000.

Sarai is Persian for "palace". There is also a variation meaning home (Saraa), similar to Sarajevo in the Balkan peninsula.