NIKITIN, ATHANASIUS

This article appears in Volume V19, Page 690 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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NIKITIN, ATHANASIUS , of Tver (fl. 1468-1474), Russian merchant, traveller and writer, the earliest known Russian visitor to India. He started in 1468 on his " wanderings beyond the Three Seas " (Caspian, Euxine and Indian Ocean), and descended the

Volga

VOLGA (known to the
Tatars
- TATARS (the common form Tartars is less correct)
as Etil, Jill or Atel; to the Finnish tribes as Rau, and to the ancients as Rha and Oarus)

, passing by Uglich, Kostroma, Nizhniy

Novgorod

, Kazan, Sarai and Astrakhan. Near the latter he was attacked and robbed by

Tatars

TATARS (the common form Tartars is less correct)

; but he succeeded in reaching Derbent, where he joined Vasili Papin, the

envoy

ENVOY (Fr. envoye, " sent ")

of Ivan III. of Moscow to the shah of Shirvan; from Nizhniy

Novgorod

he had travelled with Hasan Bey, the Shirvan shah's

ambassador

AMBASSADOR (also EMBASSADOR, the form sometimes still used in America; from the Fr. ambassadeur, with which compare Ital. ambasciatore and Span. embajador, all variants of the Med. Lat. ambassiator, ambassiator, ambasator, &c., derived from Med. Lat. amba

, returning to his master with a present of falcons from Ivan. At Derbent Nikitin vainly endeavoured to get means of returning to Russia; failing in this, he went on to Batu, where he notices the " eternal fires," and thence over the Caspian to Bokhara. Here he stayed six months, after which he made his way southward, with several prolonged stoppages, to the Persian Gulf, through Mazandaran province and the towns of Amul, Demavend, Ray (near Tehran),' Kashan, Nain, Yezd, Sirjan, Tarun, Lar and Bandar, opposite New (or insular) Hormuz. From Hormuz he sailed by Muscat to Gujarat, Cambay and Chaul in western India. Landing at Chaul, he seems to have travelled to Umrut in Aurangabad province, south-east of Surat, and thence to Beder, the modern Ahmedabad. Here, and in adjacent regions, Nikitin spent nearly four years; from the little he tells us, he appears to have made his living by horse-dealing. From Beder he visited the Hindu sanctuary (" their Jerusalem ") of Perwattum. He returned to Russia byway of Calicut, Dabul, Muscat, Hormuz, Lar, Shiraz, Yezd, Isfahan, Kashan, Sultanieh, Tabriz,

Trebizond

TREBIZOND (Gr. Trapezus)

and Kaffa (Theodosia) in the Crimea. He has left us descriptions of western Indian manners, customs, religion, court-ceremonies, festivals, warfare and trade, of some value; but the text is corrupt, and the narrative at its best is confused and meagre. His remarks on the trade of Hormuz, Cambay, Calicut, Dabul, Ceylon,

Pegu

PEGU

and China; on royal progresses and other functions, both ecclesiastical and civil, at Beder; and on the wonders of the great

fair

FAIR

at Perwattumas well as his comparisons of things Russian and Indiandeserve

special

SPECIAL

notice.
Two MSS. are known: (I) in the library of the cathedral of St

Sophia

SOPHIA (1630-1714)

in Novgorod; (2) in the library of the TroItsa Monastery (Troitsko-Sergievskaya Lavra) near Moscow. See also the edition by Pavel Mikhailovich Stroev in Sofiiskii Vremennik (A.D. 862-1534), pt. ii. pp. 145-164 (Moscow, 182o-1821) ; and the English version in India in the 15th Century, pp. lxxiv.-lxxx.; 1-32 (separately paged, Nikitin's being the third narrative in the volume, translated and edited by Count Wielhorski; London, Hakluyt Society, 1857). (C. R. B.)

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