The few Khazars remaining after the unsuccessful uprising and surviving the sanguinary civil wars became known as «Khabars»; they joined the Madyars and settled together with them in Atelkuza, the country between the two rivers — the Dnieper and the Donets. The Khazar Khagan tried to use the Madyars as allies in his wars against the Pechenegs. He helped them to institute kingship under his protection, but failed in his attempts. The Madyar state had but a short life, and the end of the IXth century saw the Madyars give way under heavy attacks of the Pechenegs and Bulgars and migrate to the regions of the present-day Hungaria. The Pechenegs remaining the sole possessors of the steppes north of the Black Sea, the inner lands of Khazaria turned into hostile provinces.
Slav tribes inhabiting the country along the river Dnieper took the opportunity to throw the Khazar yoke and in the IXth century laid the foundation of an independent state of their own which began to expand and consolidate in the struggle with the Khazars and other enemies.
By this time, the whole economic structure of the Khazar state had considerably changed. A typically military empire of former days whose main concern was warfare and plunder, the Khazar empire of Jewish rulers turned to trading, profiting by its favorable geographical position across important trade-routes of Asia and Europe and also between the south and the north. Custom-dues and tithes on merchandise coming along these routes became the source of the king's income and means for supporting his magnificent court and paid army, which alone could secure him temporary power over the agglomeration of diversified and economically disconnected tribes, longing for independence, but still remaining in the Khazar state. Deprived of territories and distrusted by the population, the weakened Khazar authority existed now only by force of arms of the paid troops.
After the conversion of the Khazars to Judaism, Byzantium continued to maintain friendly relations with Khazaria for some time and even assisted in 834 in building Sarkil, a fortress on the Don. Constantine's (Syril) mission resulted in the restoration of some local churches in Khazar regions, but they never became united in anything like the abolished Gothic Eparchy. Eventually with the eclipse of the military glory of the Khazars the attitude of Byzantium underwent a quick change. In the first half of the Xth century, Byzantium organized a number of unsuccessful raids against the Khazars by their neighbours: the Ghuzz, the Pechenegs, the Asies, and the Alans. Khazaria found strength enough to defeat the intruders, but shortly afterwards, in the year 913/4 and 943/4, strong Russian-Varangian hired bodies of men at arms, dismissed by Russian princes, crossed the Khazar lands on their plunder expedition to the Caspian coast, the Khazars being unable to put up resistance.
The center of the Khazar empire of the IXth — Xth centuries was the town of Atil situated on both banks of the Volga, later, Saray-i-Butu, the first capital of the Gold Horde, was built on its site. The eastern part of the town was inhabited by merchants and craftsmen from different countries, the western — was reserved for the pure-bred Khazars, and king's paid body-guard consisting chiefly of Muslims. The Khazars remained during the winter in town. In spring they went out to the steppes and stayed there till autumn pasturing flocks. Lands formally assigned to separate clans were in fact in feudal possession of the clan and military aristocracy with all the consequent duties paid to them by the actual producers. Some of the lands were cultivated and yielded crop which was taken to town in autumn.