Tartaria

Was Tartaria an advanced global empire deliberately erased from the history books, or did an old geographical name evolve, in the digital age, into one of the world's most widely circulated conspiracy theories?

This book begins with historical maps bearing the name Tartaria and traces the term's journey from the atlases of past centuries to modern online videos, where it has become associated with buried storeys, mud floods, the White City, energy-generating domes, Nikola Tesla's experiments, and tales of lost civilisations.

Blending literary narrative with historical investigation, the book examines maps, photographs, and architectural and scientific sources, separating documented facts from interpretations added later. It also brings the real history of the Tatar peoples and the Muslim khanates of the Volga, Crimea, and Central Asia back into focus, rather than reducing them to a single imaginary empire.

The book neither mocks those who believe such narratives nor treats official accounts as immune from criticism. Instead, it advocates a form of scepticism that demands evidence and remains willing to revise its conclusions.

A journey through history, architecture, and science, revealing how algorithms transform authentic images, facts removed from their context, and unanswered questions into new digital myths.