text: The Magyars, led by Árpád, were the leading clan in a ten tribe confederacy. They settled at the end of the 9th century in the Carpathian Basin. There they encountered a predominantly Slavic populace and Avar remnants. The Magyars were a Uralic people, originating from west of the Ural Mountains. They learned the art of horseback warfare from Turkic people. They then migrated further west around 400AD, settling in the Don-Dnieper area. Here they were subjects of the Khazar Khaganate. They were neighboured by the Bulgars and Alans. They sided with 3 rebel Khazar tribes against the ruling factions. Their loss in this civil war, and ongoing battles with the Pechenegs, was probably the catalyst for them to move further west into Europe.
  First Bulgarian Empire
  In the 7th century, the First Bulgarian Empire was established by Khan Asparuh. It greatly increased in strength in the coming centuries stretching from Dnieper to Budapest and the Mediterranean. Bulgaria dominated the Balkans for the next four centuries and was instrumental in the adoption of Christianity in the region and among other Slavs. Bulgarian Tsar Simeon I the Great, following the cultural and political course of his father Boris I, ordered the creation of the Bulgarian Alphabet, which was later spread by missionaries to the north reaching modern Russia.