What is known about A. Nikitin
Afanasy Nikitin (born unknown, death possibly 1475) - navigator, trader, merchant. The first of the Europeans to visit India. He discovered India 25 years before Vasco da Gama and other Portuguese sailors. Traveled in 1468-1474. across Persia, India and the Turkish state. In his travel notes "Voyage across the Three Seas", he describes in detail the life and political structure of the Eastern countries.
The mysterious identity of the merchant
There are many mysterious personalities in Russian history. And, perhaps, the most mysterious of them is the personality of the Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin. And was he a merchant? And who, if not a merchant? The fact that he was a traveler and a writer is understandable: he made his "Voyage across the Three Seas" and described it, so much so that to this day, more than 500 years later, it is interesting to read. But what this merchant was selling is unknown. Why did he travel on one ship himself, and carried the goods on another? And why did he take books with him - a whole chest? There are more questions …
Traveler's Notes
The notes of Afanasy Nikitin were acquired in 1475 by Vasily Mamyrev, a clerk of the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III, from some merchants who came to Moscow. "I got the spelling of Ofonas tveritin of a merchant, who was in Ynday for 4 years, and went, they say, with Vasily Papin" - this is how the meticulous official wrote the acquired "tetrati" of the traveler, specifying that the above-named ambassador then went to Shirvan Shah (that is to the ruler of Azerbaijan) with a party of gyrfalcons (famous hunting birds of the Russian North), which were intended as a gift to the eastern ruler, and later took part in the Kazan campaign, where he was killed by a Tatar arrow. This preface already speaks of the keen interest of the highest Kremlin official in this document (a clerk is a position corresponding to the status of a minister).
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Journey of Afanasy Nikitin
And the document is actually curious. Here is what follows from it. When in 1466 the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III sent his ambassador Vasily Papin to the court of the Shah of the country of Shirvan, a merchant from Tver Afanasy Nikitin, who was going on a trade trip to the East, decided to join this embassy. He prepared himself thoroughly: he got travel letters from the Grand Duke of Moscow and from the Prince of Tver, letters of protection from Bishop Gennady and voivode Boris Zakharievich, stocked up letters of recommendation to the Nizhny Novgorod governor and the customs authorities.
In Nizhny Novgorod, Afanasy learned that Ambassador Papin had already passed the city to the lower Volga. Then the traveler decided to wait for the Shirvan ambassador, Hasan-bek, who was returning to the court of his sovereign with 90 gyrfalcones - a gift from Ivan III. Nikitin placed his goods and belongings on a small ship, and he himself, with his traveling library, settled on a large ship with other merchants. More than 20 Russians - Muscovites and Tverichs - traveled to the Shirvan kingdom with the retinue of Khasan-bek, the merlin and Afanasy Nikitin. What Afanasy wanted to trade, he does not specify anywhere.
Afanasy Nikitin's journey to India
In the lower reaches of the Volga, the caravan of the Shirvan ambassador ran aground. There he was attacked by the dashing people of the Astrakhan Khan Kasim. The travelers were robbed, one of the Russians was killed and a small ship was taken from them, on which were all the goods and property of Athanasius. At the mouth of the Volga, the Tatars captured another ship. When the sailors moved along the western coast of the Caspian Sea to Derbent, a storm flew in - and another ship crashed near the Dagestan fortress of Tarki. Kaitaks, the local population, plundered the goods, and the Muscovites and Tverites were taken with them to the full …
The only surviving ship continued to sail. When, in the end, they arrived in Derbent, Nikitin, finding Vasily Papin, asked him and the Shirvan ambassador to help in the release of the Russians, hijacked by the kaytaks. They listened to him and sent a runner to the headquarters of the sovereign Shirvan, and he sent an ambassador to the leader of the kaitaks. Soon Nikitin met the liberated countrymen in Derbent.
Shirvanshah Farrukh-Yasar received precious Russian gyrfalcones, but he regretted a few gold coins to help the naked and hungry people return to Russia. Nikitin's comrades were saddened "and the koi went kuda." Those who had no debts for goods taken in Russia wandered home, others went to work in Baku, and some remained in Shemakha. Where did Afanasy Nikitin go, robbed, without goods, money and books? “And I went to Derbent, and from Derbent to Baku, and from Baku went across the sea …” Why did I go, why, with what means? This is not mentioned …
1468 - he ended up in Persia. Where and how he spent the whole year - again not a word. The traveler has very few impressions of Persia, where he lived for another year: “from Rhey I went to Kashan and there was a month. And from Kashan to Nayin, then to Yezd, and there he lived for a month …”After leaving Yezd, the Tver merchant reached the city of Lara, inhabited by merchant sailors, whose rulers depended on the sovereign of the mighty Belobarannaya Turkmen state. "From Sirjan to Tarum, where the cattle are fed with dates …"
“And here there is the Gurmyzskoe refuge and here there is the Indian Sea,” the traveler wrote in the spring of 1469 in his “tetrati”. Here, in Hormuz on the shores of the Persian Gulf, the robbed Athanasius suddenly turned out to be the owner of a thoroughbred stallion, which he was going to sell profitably in India. Soon Nikitin, along with his horse, was already on a sailing ship without an upper deck, carrying live cargo across the sea. Six weeks later, the ship dropped anchor in Chaul harbor on the Malabar coast, in western India. The transportation cost 100 rubles.
India occupies a significant place in Nikitin's diaries. “And here there is an Indian country, and people are all naked, and their heads are not covered, and their breasts are bare, and their hairs are braided in one braid, and everyone is paunchy, and children will be born every year, and they have many children. And the men and women are all naked, and all are black. Yaz where I go, but there are many people behind me, but they marvel at the white man …”- the wanderer wrote in surprise.
Nikitin's travel map
For about a month Afanasy Nikitin rode on his horse to the city of Dzhunnar (Dzhunir), making, apparently, frequent stops along the way. He indicated in his diary the distance between cities and large villages. Junir, who was possibly part of a Muslim state, was ruled by the governor Assad Khan, who, as Athanasius wrote, having many elephants and horses, nevertheless "rode on people."
The merchant continued his journey. Arriving in the city of Bidar, the capital of the Muslim state of the Deccan, where they traded in slaves, horses, and golden fabrics. “There are no goods on the Russian land,” the navigator wrote with chagrin. As it turned out, India is not as rich as the Europeans thought of it. Examining Bidar, he described the war elephants of the Dean Sultan, his cavalry and infantry, trumpeters and dancers, horses in gold harnesses and tame monkeys. He was struck by the luxurious life of the Indian "boyars" and the poverty of rural workers. Getting acquainted with the Indians, the traveler did not hide that he was Russian.
What language could Nikitin communicate with the local population? He was fluent in Persian and Tatar. As you can see, the local dialects were also easy for him. The Indians themselves volunteered to accompany Nikitin to the temples of Sriparvata, where he was struck by the huge images of the god Shiva and the sacred bull Nandi. Conversations with those praying at the idols of Sriparvata gave Athanasius the opportunity to describe in detail the life and rituals of worshipers of the god Shiva.
At this time, a guidebook appeared in Nikitin's diary indicating the distances to Calicut, Ceylon, the kingdom of Pegu (Burma) and China. Nikitin wrote down what goods were exported through the Indian ports of Kambay, Dabul, Calicut. Gems, fabrics, salt, spices, crystal and rubies of Ceylon, Burma yachts were listed.
Monument to Afanasy Nikitin (in Tver and Feodosia)
Return trip
… 1472, spring - the merchant firmly decided, by all means, to return to Russia. He spent 5 months in the city of Kulur, where famous diamond mines were located and hundreds of jewelery masters worked. He also visited Golconda, which at that time was already famous throughout the world for its treasures, in the former capital of the Dean, Gulbarge, and went to the seashore in Dabula. The captain of the undecked sailboat, setting off for Hormuz, took two gold pieces from the traveler. A month later, Afanasy Nikitin went ashore. This was Ethiopia. The wanderer stayed here for about a week, he spent another three weeks on the island of Hormuz, and then went to Shiraz, Ispagan, Sultania and Tabriz.
In Tabriz, Athanasius visited the headquarters of Uzun-Hasan, the sovereign of the White-Baranny Turkmen State, who then ruled over almost all of Iran, Mesopotamia, Armenia and part of Azerbaijan. What could connect the powerful eastern ruler with the Tver traveler, what Uzun-Hasan talked about with him, the diaries are silent. He stayed with the Turkmen king for 10 days. He set off for Russia in a new way, through the Black Sea.
New tests awaited Afanasy Nikitin from the Turks. They shook up all his belongings and carried them to the fortress, to the governor and commandant of Trebizond. Rummaging in the things of the navigator, the Turks were looking for some kind of letters, perhaps mistaking the Tver merchant for the Moscow ambassador to the court of Uzun-Khasan. It is not known, by the way, where, when and how the above-mentioned letters, received by him in Moscow and Tver before being sent to Shirvan, could have disappeared.
Where did he die?
Through the third sea, the wanderer set out for the city of Cafe (now Feodosia), a colony of Genoese merchants, where he landed in November 1472. However, the end of Afanasy Nikitin's travels is not very clear. “They say that he didn’t reach Smolensk, he died,” says the preface to “Walking Beyond the Three Seas”, acquired by clerk Mamyrev.
It is also unclear what the curious merchant was doing after staying 4 years in India. And why, in the end, some of the lines and pages of the diary are not written in Russian, although in Russian letters. Even a version was put forward that these are some encrypted texts. But translations from Persian and Tatar languages showed that Athanasius' reflections about God, about fasting and prayers were written in these languages …
One thing is certain: whoever Afanasy Nikitin was - a merchant, an intelligence officer, a preacher, an ambassador, or just a very inquisitive wanderer - but he was a talented writer and a man, no doubt, charming. Otherwise, how could he cross the three seas?
We recommend the documentary: The Journey of Afanasy Nikitin.
N. Dorozhkin