The Mongols (later popularly known as "Tatars") were a nomadic people who, led by Genghis Khan (r. 1206–27), swept out of Mongolia in the early 13th century and a century later had conquered China and Central and West Asia. One of Genghis's grandsons led what was known as the Golden Horde against eastern and central Europe, laying waste Kievan Rus' and the princedoms of central Russia. The Horde controlled Russia for two centuries, exacting tribute from the vassal princedoms, and isolating its territories from the rest of Europe. Although conquest was an often brutal business, in its aftermath the creation of a unified empire brought many hitherto isolated peoples into contact with other cultures through resettlement and service to the Mongol khans.

United by the Islamic faith in the 1320s, the various individual khanates soon afterward tore the empire apart with internal strife. Instead of Asians dominating Russia, late in the 15th century Slavic Russia broke the hold of the Golden Horde. Russia then pushed its sphere of control eastward and southward, moving Muscovy much closer to West Asia.