to formalize trade relations repeatedly— 1618 – 19, 1653, 1658, 1666, 1675, 1684/5—
succeeding only in 1689 with the Treaty of Nerchinsk, to which China agreed in
return for stopping Russian settlement into the Amur valley basin. The treaty
forced Russia to yield settlements south of the Amur, but establishing durable terms
of Russo-China trade. State caravans of monopoly goods and private merchant
caravans were permitted to travel annually to Beijing. China guarded its trade even
more jealously than Russia did, and this treaty established a single town of entry
(initially Nerchinsk, Khiatka in the 1720s) through the eighteenth century and
maintained a policy of limited caravans.
TRADE POLICY
Before the eighteenth century, Russian trade policy did not follow a formal
philosophy such as mercantilism; rather, it skillfully toed a line between sometimes
conflicting goals. The state wanted, on the one hand, to bring in income and specie
(customs duties, state monopolies, or selling lucrative monopolies on sales or
production to foreigners and natives) and, on the other, to protect domestic
merchants and production. Foreign specie was crucial to underwrite military
reform and state building, but acquiring it risked turning Russia into a de facto
Figure 8.2 The Angara River, the only river that exits the immense Lake Baikal in Siberia, is
visible beyond this village wooden chapel; nearby are Nerchinsk (1689) and Kiakhta (1727),
sites of treaties and busy entrepôts for trade with China. Photo: Jack Kollmann.
196 The Russian Empire 1450– 1801