Tunic

The long-sleeved chalat with pocket openings used to belong to a Crimean Tatar mullah. Islamic clergymen and/or scholars were recognizable by this gallant silk garment.The peninsula, mostly populated by Russians since the end of the 18th century, had been a khanate vassal state of the Ottoman Empire from 1475, before becoming a Russian protectorate in 1774, and ultimately part of the Tsarist Empire in 1783. The culture of the Crimean Tatars absorbed Ottoman influences and reached its height in the 16th and 17th centuries.