TERRITORY WITHOUT BORDERS is a widely used way of imagining the lands located in the steppe and forest/ steppe climate zones. The metaphor I use does not aim to confuse readers about the territorial boundaries of historical Podillya; to my mind, it is, rather, a convenient method to describe the region. Such conditionality, along with the geographical features of that part of Europe, caused the emergence of contested territories that were the subject of dispute between the settled population and nomads. It also formed the great frontier between the farmers inhabiting the forest/ steppe area and the nomads of the steppe, between the military units defending the frontier and the Tatar units penetrating it. The great frontier at the contested territories existed until the 1790s (until the Treaty of Jassy, signed in 1791 between the Russian and the Ottoman Empires), when these lands were ceded to the Russian Empire. It was a very specific edge of Europe in the east. In this context, Podillya did not have its own border, because its border— the frontier— belonged to the whole European continent.

When early modern cartographers knew nothing about a territory, they used to mark it with the phrase Hic sunt leones, implying that it consisted of unknown and apparently dangerous lands inhabited by lions. One might use similar words to describe the territory that Podillya bordered on the east and the southeast. Over the centuries this territory has been called “Tataria” or, even more apocalyptically, “Tartaria.” Therefore, “Podolia,” notwithstanding the variations in its name, became the last European province in the east of Europe. It is noteworthy that the end of Podillya on the old maps overlapped with the end of cities: further east no traces of urban life were marked.

The region with a new name began to form at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in response to the processes taking place in the Ulus of Jochi, the western part of the Genghisid Empire. The disintegration of the empire saw Mengu-Timur Khan (1266– 1280), the ruler of the Ulus, refuse to send a tribute to Karakorum, the capital of the empire, and mint his own coin.