The lack of cultural blending may be reflected in the relatively small number of Tartar words in the Russian language - and tellingly, many of them have to do with accounting, e.g., the word for money, "dengi."
I'm sorry to say I know nothing of Russian etymology, but your observation raises an interesting point. Some historians view the evolution of language as a useful measurement of how one culture influenced another.
The total vocabulary of modern English is overwhelmingly Latin in derivation (as high as 90% by some analyses), with much of it coming in through French. But the words most frequently used in everyday life are predominantly Germanic in origin, as are the syntax and structure of the language.
For instance, the English words for house, door, man, husband, wife, cheese, milk, bread, bed, bath, jacket, hair,
etc., are derived from the Germanic. But when you move toward things that touched on upper-class life, you see the French influence exerting itself. English is unusual in having two names for many things, and it almost always occurs with words that reflected the intersection of Norman and Saxon life. For instance, in the capital-intensive parts of animal husbandry or hunting, you can detect the native English tending the affairs of their Norman overlords and developing dual vocabulary: cow and beef, swine and pork, hound and dog.
In government, the terms for the lower officials tend to be Old English in derivation (sheriff) while the terms for nobility tend to be French in derivation (count, duke).
This reflects a vastly greater influence on the affairs of everyday people deriving from the Norman invasion of England than was derived from the Mongol invasion of Russia. I understand that Norman culture was more similar to Saxon culture in some ways than Mongol culture was to Russian culture. But the point is that Mongol culture actually touched Russian culture but little . . . and this makes it hard for me to blame the Mongol invasion for so much of what happened in subsequent Russian history.
But my overall impression is that the Norman Conquest was not even remotely as traumatic as the Mongol conquest of Russia.
First of all, the Mongol invasion was extremely violent - they levelled entire cities, burned libraries, killed most of the inhabitants and dragged the rest off into slavery.
This is true, but I think another comparison is relevant. Western Europe was as traumatized by the Black Death as Russians were by the Mongols. And they felt themselves to be as much under attack by unseen forces as the Russians felt themselves to be attacked by raging horsemen. Vast stretches of Europe were depopulated by as much as half. Studies of maps and land records before and after the peak of the Black Death indicate the complete abandonment of countless villages and even entire towns. The European economy was dislocated for almost a century by the shortage of labor to produce crops, craft production plummeted for decades, and inflation and unemployment precipitated one financial crisis after another.
Today the most visible heritage of these 14th-century events is games like ring-around-the-rosy and some colorful terms relating to death and desolation. Despite the Black Death, the High Middle Ages moved on to the Renaissance and from there to the Enlightenment, the concepts reflected in
Magna Carta continued to evolve toward constitutional government, the Reformation addressed fundamental questions about the role of the Church in the spiritual affairs of the individual.
It has been implied, if not asserted, that the Mongol invasion caused Russia to miss out on the High Middle Ages and the Renaissance and all the good that flowed from them. But did it really? Might Russia have chosen anyway not to take those paths for reasons entirely her own? In fact, is that perhaps exactly what happened?
