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The Great Horde (اولوغ اوردا, Uluğ Orda) was the rump state of the Golden Horde that existed from the mid-15th century to 1502. It was centered at the core of the former Golden Horde at Sarai on the lower Volga.
Both the Khanate of Astrakhan and the Khanate of Crimea broke away from the Great Horde throughout its existence, and were hostile to the Great Horde. According to later Russian tradition, the retreat of the forces of the Great Horde at the Great Stand on the Ugra River opposed by Ivan III of Russia marked the end of the "Tatar yoke" over Russia.
The Great Horde was originally simply referred to as the Orda, or Horde, but it became increasingly important for the disparate hordes in the region to be distinguished from each other, which in sources of the 1430s led to the first mentions of the "Great Horde" ( or in Russian; or in Old Tatar). The name "Great Horde" might have been used to directly link the (now greatly reduced) administrative center of the Horde to the original greatness of the Golden Horde.
Throughout the rules of Küchük Muhammad and Sayid Ahmad I, the Tatars tried to force their Russian subjects to pay taxes, invading them in 1449, 1450, 1451 and 1452. These attacks led to retaliation from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, who allied with the Crimean Khanate. At the same time, envoys from Lithuanian nobles who were unhappy being under a Polish-dominant Commonwealth brought gifts to Sayid Ahmad, who invaded Poland-Lithuania in 1453. In 1455, the Crimeans again attacked Sarai, forcing Sayid Ahmad to flee to Kiev. However, a force led by Andrzej Odrowąż marched upon Kiev and captured him, leading him to die in prison. Further raids include a Tatar raid on Podolia in 1457 (ending in victory for the Tatars) and one in 1459 on Muscovy (ending in a victory for the Muscovites).
In 1469, Ahmed attacked and killed the Uzbeks Abu'l-Khayr Khan. In the summer of 1470, Ahmed organized an attack against Moldavia, the Kingdom of Poland, and Lithuania. The Moldavian forces under Stephen the Great defeated the Tatars at the battle of Lipnic (20 August 1470).
By the 1470s, Muscovy had stopped paying tribute to Sarai, but continued to maintain diplomatic relations with them. In 1474 and 1476, Ahmed insisted that Ivan III of Russia recognize the khan as his overlord. In 1480, Ahmed organized a military campaign against Moscow, resulting in a face off between two opposing armies known as the Great Stand on the Ugra River. Ahmed judged the conditions unfavorable and retreated. This incident formally ended the "Tatar yoke" over Russia. On 6 January 1481, Ahmed was killed by Ibak Khan, the prince of the Khanate of Sibir, and Nogays at the mouth of the Donets River.
From 1500 to 1502, the same two alliances fought a war after several Lithuanian princes defected to Muscovy, and Ivan III declared war on Alexander under the pretext that his daughter Helena had been forcibly converted to Catholicism despite the 1494 marital agreement that she could keep her Orthodox faith. Meanwhile, the Crimean Khanate subjugated what remained of the Great Horde, sacking Sarai in 1502. The Great Horde finally dissipated, and Lithuania thus lost its ally against Moscow. Lithuania and Muscovy agreed to a truce in 1503, bringing more territorial gains for the latter. After seeking refuge in Lithuania, Sheikh Ahmed, the last khan of the Horde, died in prison in Kaunas some time after 1504. According to other sources, he was released from the Lithuanian prison in 1527.
Tverian merchant Afanasy Nikitin recounted in his famous travelogue A Journey Beyond the Three Seas how he had no troubles sailing the Volga downstream from Tver in 1466–1468, until his group of merchants was attacked and robbed by bandits near Astrakhan. Returning from Persia, Venetian diplomat Ambrogio Contarini had his property confiscated at Astrakhan when he passed through in 1475–1476; he was compelled to pay a large ransom to get it back. Contarini described 'the country between Astrakhan and Muscovy... as a continual desert.' There were no Layover, no places to buy provisions, and fresh water was hard to come by. He spotted some camels and horses that were apparently abandoned or lost by a previous caravan that presumably had suffered an ill fate as well.
Ahmad Khan made it a policy to raid merchant caravans carrying valuable goods across his territory, in order to make up for these losses in revenue, but thus destabilising commerce in the region even further. Moreover, the Great Horde raided the territory of its neighbouring states for extra spoils, including the Oka river border with its nominal vassal Muscovy from the late 1440s onwards. A 1460 attack on Ryazan by the Sarai khan served the same purpose. In 1472, by which time Ahmad Khan was allied with Lithuania, which urged him to raid territory of their mutual Muscovite enemy, the Great Horde burnt down the town of Aleksin and crossed the Oka, but was then repelled.
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