The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who established a major commercial empire in the late 6th century CE spanning the south of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, and western Kazakhstan. It was the most powerful polity to emerge from the break-up of the Western Turkic Khaganate. Astride a major artery of commerce between Eastern Europe and West Asia, Khazaria became one of the foremost trading empires of the early medieval world, commanding the western marches of the Silk Road and playing a key commercial role as a crossroad between China, West Asia, and Kievan Rus'. For some three centuries, the Khazars dominated the vast area extending from the Volga-Don steppes to the eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus.