Arkhangelsk Oblast the main shipyard for the Russian Navy. Among the oldest populated places of the oblast are Kholmogory, Kargopol, and Solvychegodsk; there are a number of Russian Orthodox monasteries, including the Antoniev Siysky Monastery and the World Heritage Site of the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea. Plesetsk Cosmodrome is one of three spaceports in Russia (the other two are Kapustin Yar in Astrakhan Oblast and Yasny in Orenburg Oblast). Arkhangelsk Oblast, which includes Nenets Autonomous Okrug, borders Kirov Oblast, Vologda Oblast, the Republic of Karelia, the Komi Republic, and the White, Pechora, Barents and Kara seas. Cape Fligely in Franz
Astrakhan Khanate the Mongol conquest the western steppe broke off and became the Golden Horde (c1240-1502). In the fifteenth century parts of the Horde broke off as follows: 1438: Khanate of Kazan, 1449: Khanate of Crimea, 1466: Astrakhan, 1480: Russia. The steppe remnant ended in 1502 and steppe peoples around Astrakhan became the Nogai Horde. Most of the population of the Astrakhan khanate were Astrakhan Tatars and Nogays. Merchants carried on a transit trade between Muscovy, Kazan, Crimea, Central Asia, and the Transcaucasus region. The nobility consisted of feudal ranks, which were, from highest to lowest: the khan, sultans, begs and morzalar.