Fyodor Kotov is a Moscow merchant who went to Persia in 1623 on trade and government affairs. After some time, he wrote an essay about his journey, which was published in 1852 in the "Vremennik" edition.
Biography
The exact dates of the life of the merchant Kotov are unknown. There are records that he belonged to an old merchant family and that his ancestors very successfully traded with the eastern countries. There is a mention of the Moscow merchant Stepan Kotov (Fedor's probable ancestor), who collected customs duties.
The first mention of Fyodor Kotov is found in a document dated 1617, in which a merchant supported the allocation of a plot of land to the British near Vologda for sowing flax. In the records from 1619, one can find information about the repeated support of the English merchants by the merchant Kotov. This time the question was related to their request for the right to trade with Persia through Moscow.
Trade relations with Persia
In Russian history, Fyodor Kotov is famous as a merchant who traveled to Persia.
In the second half of the 16th century, diplomatic and trade relations between Persia (Iran) and the Russian state began to develop actively.
Astrakhan played a leading role in trade with the East, because as early as the 15th century, Russian merchants sent their ships to Astrakhan for salt. After a while, large trade caravans were already moving between Moscow and Astrakhan.
Trade relations with Persia were important for the Russian state. Persia, cut off from the European market due to the war with Turkey, was also interested in developing trade along the Caspian Sea and the Volga.
Persian goods were very popular in Russia. The Persians brought raw silk and various luxury goods:
- gems;
- gold and silver jewelry;
- decorative gizmos.
In Moscow, a Persian courtyard with shops was opened, and representatives of the state treasury were the first buyers of the new product.
Sables, polar foxes, squirrels and other expensive furs, flax, hemp, bone, walrus tusks, and bread were exported to Persia from Russia.
The merchant's journey to Persia
On the personal instructions of Tsar Mikhail Romanov, in the spring of 1623, Kotov, having received a considerable amount of state money and goods, accompanied by a detachment, left Moscow.
He set off on a journey on his own ship at the end of April 1613, immediately after the end of the freeze-up. This was due to the fact that the merchant wanted to return back to Moscow in the same year, before the onset of cold weather.
First, he reached Astrakhan by water along the Moscow, Oka and Volga rivers.
From Astrakhan across the Caspian Sea, a merchant with a detachment reached Shirvan, after which he reached the Persian city of Isfahan by land by the end of June.
Since Kotov was traveling with tsarist goods, this gave him a number of privileges, in particular, the absence of diplomatic obstacles on the way and the speed of movement.
Fyodor also visited the "Tours Land", the cities of Indya and Urmuz.
Kotov actually returned to his homeland at the end of the same year with Persian goods, from the sale of which he ultimately gained a lot of money.
Fedor wrote about his trip to Persia in the essay "On the journey to the Persian kingdom and from Persis to the land of Tur and to India and to Urmuz, where ships come."
The work was written from his words in the middle of the 17th century, and published more than two hundred years after the end of his trip with a miraculously preserved manuscript. It is believed that the merchant kept his notes on the direct instructions of the Ambassadorial Prikaz.
At that time, the Russian government, most often through the Ambassadorial order, collected information about neighboring peoples and states, about their system of government, education, the state of industry and trade, religion, traditions and population size.
In his story about the journey, Kotov describes in detail everything he saw:
- natural beauty and climate features;
- the architecture of the cities and mosques seen;
- traditions of local residents;
- clothing and cuisine of the Persian people;
- modes of travel and distances between cities;
- Muslim holidays and customs;
- doing trade and agriculture in Persia.
What is remarkable, the merchant really liked the oriental architecture, he was simply mesmerized by the beauty of local buildings. The man saw the multi-storey buildings for the first time.
Kotov also listed all the mountains and rivers that he met along the way.
Fyodor was very interested in how agriculture is organized among foreigners. He described in detail what time of year and in what sequence they sow, tend and harvest. The merchant noticed small tricks and innovations in agricultural work among the Persian farmers.
A special place in his writings is occupied by the description of the reception at the Persian Shah Abbas, which took place on June 26, 1624.
Interesting fact: most likely, Kotov was familiar with the spoken Persian and Turkish languages. In his "Walking" there are about fifty Turkish and Persian words, not counting the complete enumeration of letters of the alphabet and numbers. The merchant could understand the terminology of the Persians and Turks, and he meticulously wrote down the translation of foreign words into Russian.
Publications of the works of the merchant Kotov
For the first time, the work of the merchant Fyodor Kotov was published in 1852 in the XV volume of the "Vremennik" of the Moscow Imperial Society of History and Antiquities.
The publication contained a preface by the well-known historian I. D. Belyaev, which indicated the original source - a rare and little-known manuscript found in the personal library of M. P. Pogodin. The version that the original manuscript was created in the first quarter of the 17th century was also voiced by Belyaev.
In 1907 M. P. Petrovsky published another manuscript of this work, which also dates back to the 17th century. However, in this case, the publisher retained the original spelling of the early 17th century.
This manuscript already had a different name - "Walking to the East of FA Kotov in the first quarter of the 17th century."
Some scholars suspected that Petrovsky had falsified the text, very skillfully stylizing it to look like a 17th century manuscript. But no evidence of a forgery by him was found.
Later, another old manuscript of the composition was found, dating back to the 18th century.
In 1958, a translation of the manuscript (originally published by M. P. Petrovsky) into modern Russian, provided with detailed comments, was published.
