From Central Asia Bukharan merchants reached Astrakhan by several routes:
traveling across the plains between the Aral and Caspian Seas along the Kazakh
steppes, or sailing across the Caspian from Karagan and Kabakly, after the 1630s in
barges provided and armed by the Russian government (see Map 3.1). With the
conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan, Bukharan merchants traded in several Volga
towns, including Tsaritsyn, Saratov, Samara, Kazan, and Moscow; in the late
sixteenth century they were excluded from trade in Moscow, but the policy was
relaxed after the Time of Troubles to allow the most important Bukharan mer-
chants with large shipments of valuable goods into the capital.
In addition to bringing goods for the Volga route from Astrakhan, Bukharan
traders also developed routes through western Siberia. To encourage the trade, in
the 1590s Russia awarded them freedom from customs duties; the same privilege
was given to the Nogais, great breeders of steppe ponies who, along with Kazakhs,
Kalmyks, Bashkirs, and other steppe groups, sold thousands of horses annually for
the Russian, Indian, and Chinese armies. Even when the state was cutting back on
such privileges, in 1622 Bukharan merchants were still paying only half the rates
imposed on foreigners elsewhere in the empire. This route took them directly north
from Bukhara along the Irtysh and Ilim Rivers. Bukharan merchants brought
Chinese goods, spices, tea, rhubarb (valued in Europe for medicinal purposes),
and gems; in the markets of Tiumen and Tobolsk they bought the familiar basket
of Russian exports—furs, and some textiles and European re-exports.
In the seventeenth century Tobolsk was the key center for Central Asian trade,
followed by Tara farther up the Irtysh and Tiumen. By the early seventeenth
century Bukharans had not only agostinnyi dvorin Tobolsk but a neighborhood
and settled population from which they set out on caravans to China to gather
goods. Tobolsk Bukharans were also given trade privileges to travel to Kazan,
Astrakhan, and Arkhangelsk and by the end of the seventeenth century they had
a trade center in Krasnoiarsk in the Altais and had set up in trade in Irkutsk in
eastern Siberia as well.
When the traditional“Silk Road”caravan trade was disrupted at mid-century by
turbulence in northwestern China, Uyghuristan, and Central Asia, Siberia offered a
more secure route and the Bukharans were in place to manage that trade. By this
time, Russia had established a line of fortresses across the southern edge of western
and eastern Siberia. At mid-century Bukharan merchants bought a lucrative mon-
opoly (1644, renewed in 1686) on the China trade for Russia that allowed them to
bring goods all the way to Moscow and trade at centers in between. Their caravans
from China went north from Beijing to Nerchinsk (Figure 8.2), then followed the
Amur west to Lake Baikal and Irkutsk and on to Tobolsk; in 1652 the Russian
government declaredfirst right of purchase for these Chinese goods. Going in the
opposite direction, Russian merchants from Moscow and Ustiug readily brought
goods as far as Nerchinsk, traveling from Verkhotur’e across the Urals to Tobolsk,
from there overland to Eniseisk and via the Yenisei River to Irkutsk, then across
Lake Baikal to Selinginsk and on to Nerchinsk.
The Bukharans enabled Russia to play a significant role in overland global trade,
but Russia also strove to win treaties for direct trade. Russia sent missions to China
Trade, Tax, and Production 195