produce the commodity they most desired for export. They also bought tallow,flax,
wax, and other items essential to Britain’s growing navy. The English enjoyed
virtual monopoly of northern trade until 1581, when Russia lost Narva and could
no longer afford to restrict European trade. Dutch merchants were allowed into
White Sea trade and by the end of the century their shipments to Amsterdam
(sometimes to ports as far as Italy) had surpassed British trade to London in
volume. In 1584 Russia founded the port of Arkhangelsk directly on the shore
(Kholmogory was some 47 miles or 75 km down the Northern Dvina) to facilitate
trade. With shipping possible through the White Sea for a brief window every
summer, Russia and its north European partners built Arkhangelsk into Russia’s
most active trading port by the end of the sixteenth century.
Throughout the seventeenth century the Dutch petitioned for the tax-free privil-
eges that the British enjoyed, but the Russian government shrewdly never gave in. As
Romaniello notes, by selling (at lucrative income) the tax-free privilege to the
Muscovy Company, Russia forfeited sales tax income. The state stood to profit
from the lucrative sale of monopoly rights to certain commodities, for which the
British and Dutch vied throughout the century. In the northern arena, these were
notably tar, potash, and caviar; Russia constantly raised prices of the last. By awarding
such monopolies to the Dutch, Russia reaped both sales tax and the premium paid
for the monopoly itself. By 1649 the British had lost tax-free status with increasingly
protectionist Russian policy and were outpaced by the Dutch in volume of White Sea
trade in the seventeenth century. As Kees Boterboem notes, the seventeenth century
was the apex of Dutch global importance, its“moment”in history.
The dominant goods in the Arkhangelsk trade hailed from the Northern Dvina
basin. Five goods, produced by or collected from state peasants in the north,
constituted about two-thirds to three-quarters of its exports in the mid-seventeenth
century: furs, prepared leather (iuft’), potash, tallow, and grain. Other products,
shipped from Siberia and regions accessed by the Volga, included caviar, wax, linen
and wool, Persian silk, hats, and rhubarb. The state also systematically moved trade
around the realm in the seventeenth century, directing shipments of goods to the
Baltic or Arkhangelsk based on shifting price and demand, despite the distance and
costs involved. Hemp andflax from northwestern regions, for example, were
shipped to Arkhangelsk through a network of rivers and lakes when prices or
circumstances were advantageous.
At Arkhangelsk Russian merchants imported European cloth (from Flanders,
England, and central Europe), arms and munitions, paper, pins, herring, and wine.
By the seventeenth century colonial products from Dutch and English African and
Asian possessions also arrived, including gems, fruit, dyes, pepper, and spices, and
above all silver in payment for a favorable balance of trade. Timothy Brook argued
that it was the seventeenth century when Europe fully became a partner in global
trade, adding maritime empires to Eurasian overland trade that had linked much of
the globe for centuries, and“possessing”new lands through colonial, economic,
and cultural control.
Arkhangelsk thrived as one of Russia’s most important emporia from the mid-
sixteenth through the seventeenth century, despite its challenges. The journey there
Trade, Tax, and Production 189