The invaders never settled in Russia proper, and never amalgamated with the native population.

So long as they retained their semi-pagan, semi-Buddhistic religion, a certain number of their notables became Christians and were absorbed by the Russian Noblesse; but as soon as the Horde adopted Islam this movement was arrested.

There was no blending of the two races such as has taken place--and is still taking place--between the Russian peasantry and the Finnish tribes of the North.

The Russians remained Christians, and the Tartars remained Mahometans; and this difference of religion raised an impassable barrier between the two nationalities.
It must, however, be admitted that the Tartar domination, though it had little influence on the life and habits of the people, had a considerable influence on the political development of the nation.
At the time of the conquest Russia was composed of a large number of independent principalities, all governed by descendants of Rurik.

As these principalities were not geographical or ethnographical units, but mere artificial, arbitrarily defined districts, which were regularly subdivided or combined according to the hereditary rights of the Princes, it is highly probable that they would in any case have been sooner or later united under one sceptre; but it is quite certain that the policy of the Khans helped to accelerate this unification and to create the autocratic power which has since been wielded by the Tsars.
If the principalities had been united without foreign interference we should probably have found in the united State some form of political organisation corresponding to that which existed in the component parts--some mixed form of government, in which the political power would have been more or less equally divided between the Tsar and the people.
The Tartar rule interrupted this normal development by extinguishing all free political life.