Samosdelka

thumb|Excavations at Samosdelskoe settlement in 2020. Samosdelka () is a fishing village in the Astrakhan Oblast of southern Russia, approximately 40 km south-southwest of the city of Astrakhan, in the Volga River delta area of the Caspian Depression marshlands. In September 2008, Russian archaeologists excavating in Samosdelka announced their discovery of what they claimed were the remains of Atil, the capital of the medieval Khazar kingdom. The claim was considered sensational and, owing to the absence of archaeological evidence, did not meet with widespread acceptance. A 2020 assessment by the Russian Geographic Society concluded that Atil had not been found in Samosdelka, and announced that new excavations were underway at another site.

==Archaeology== Head archaeologist Dmitry Vasilyev of Astrakhan State University and his team began excavations at the site in 1999. The research was sponsored in part by the Simon Dubnow Higher Humanitarian School (called the "Jewish University in Moscow" until 2003) and by the Russian Jewish Congress, a Russian nonprofit. In 2008 Vasilyev publicly announced that his team had unearthed the foundations of a triangular fortress of fired brick and had discovered the remains of yurt-like dwellings. Vasilyev claimed that the findings were the remains of Atil. A major indication that led him to his conclusion, Vasilyev said, was the presence of kiln-fired (as opposed to dried-mud) bricks, as Khazar law restricted the use of fired bricks to the capital.