Afanasy Nikitin’s Journey Beyond the Three Seas
The Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin traveled through the Volga region, the Caucasus and Persia to India and lived for several years in the Bahmani Sultanate; his travel notes are the first Russian description of India.
- Date
- between 1466 and 1468 – between 1472 and 1474exact date unknown: an interval is given · duration: ≈ 6 years
- Place
- Bidartoday: Bidar, India · South Asia
- Route
- Tver → Nizhny Novgorod → Kazan → Astrakhan → Derbent → Baku → Sari (Mazandaran) → Rey → Kashan → Yazd → Lar → Hormuz → Muscat → Chaul → Junnar → Bidar → Dabhol → Muscat → Hormuz → Lar → Shiraz → Isfahan → Tabriz → Erzincan → Trebizond → Caffa → Kyiv → Orsha → Smolensk
- Participants
- Afanasy Nikitin, Bahmani Sultanate
- Threads
- Muscovy, Asia and Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries
- Also known as
- Хождение за три моря
Robbed on the lower Volga, Nikitin did not dare to return home in debt and traveled on — through Derbent, Baku and Persia to Hormuz, and from there by sea to India. He visited Chaul, Junnar and the Bahmani capital, Bidar; on the way back, through Persia, Trebizond and Caffa, he died near Smolensk, and his notes reached Moscow in 1475.
The dating is disputed: according to I. I. Sreznevsky the journey took place in 1466–1472, according to L. S. Semyonov (whose dating is now accepted) in 1468–1474. The route is shown by its main stops.
Connections
Related events
- Battle of Otlukbeli11 August 1473 · Balkans and Anatoliaon his way back from India, Nikitin spent ten days at the camp (the “horde”) of Uzun Hasan and recorded his campaign against the Ottomans, in which Sivas and Tokat were taken
- Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut20 May 1498 · South AsiaNikitin was in India about a quarter of a century before the Portuguese reached it by sea
Adjacent events in the thread
- Accession of Ivan III27 March 1462 · Eastern Europe
- Marriage of Ivan III and Sophia Palaiologina12 November 1472 · Eastern Europe
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Wars of the Roses22 May 1455 – between 1485 and 1487
Eastern Europe
- Marriage of Ivan III and Sophia Palaiologina12 November 1472
- Construction of the Kremlin’s Dormition Cathedral1475 – August 1479
Balkans and Anatolia
- Battle of Otlukbeli11 August 1473
Africa
- Sonni Ali takes Timbuktubetween 1468 and 1469
Central and Northern Asia
- Founding of the Kazakh Khanatebetween 1465 and 1471
East Asia
- Ōnin War1467–1477
Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Đại Việt crushes Champa: the fall of VijayaNovember 1470 – March 1471