Sarai (also transcribed as Saraj or Saray) was the name of two cities, which were successively capital cities of the Golden Horde, the Mongol kingdom which ruled much of Central Asia and part of Eastern Europe, in the 13th and 14th centuries. Located in present-day Russia, they were among the largest cities of the medieval world, with a population estimated by the 2005 Britannica at 600,000. Sarai is Persian for "palace" and Russian for "shed". There is also a variation meaning home (Saraa), similar to Sarajevo in the Balkan peninsula.