Narbekovs

Not a small number of genealogies compiled by Russian elites at the end of the 17th century include legends that their ancestors came from the Golden Horde. However, many of such legends seem to be forged, and don't reflect historical facts. On the other hand, in the same period, in the 1680s, the Russian government issued many decrees to confiscate the property of Muslim elites one after another. Why did Russian elites want to trace their own families back to Tatar elites even at the end of the 17th century, when the Russian government clearly showed a negative attitude to Tatars?
The analysis of the genealogy of the Narbekov family makes possible to assume that at the end of the 17th century a social class was the decisive element, and Russian aristocrats preferred Muslim aristocrats to Russian commoners as ancestors. And we can point to tolerance in Russian aristocratic society to recent converts, that is, tolerance to different ethnic groups with the condition of the Russian Orthodox Church as a background of compiling genealogies with Tatar-origins at the end of the 17th century. However, the genealogical source, especially the genealogy of the Narbekov family, shows that tolerance of non-Russian families accepted by the Russian Orthodox Church was not lost even in this period.