¹ See Zagorodnyaya, Irina, “Gifts from the Ottoman Empire and Persia,” in Gifts to the Tsars 1500–1700, ed. Shifman, Barry and Walton, Guy (New York, 2001), 178Google Scholar; Matthee, Rudi, “Russian–Iranian Relations in the Mid-Seventeenth Century,” in The Tsars and the East: Gifts from Turkey and Iran in the Moscow Kremlin (Washington, DC, 2009), 15–17, 136Google Scholar; and the (few) references to Russo-Iranian gift exchange in early modern time in Komaroff, Linda, ed., Gifts of the Sultan: The Art of Giving at the Islamic Courts (Los Angeles, New Haven and London, 2011).Google Scholar

² See the two important studies by Bushev, P.P., Istoriia posol'stv i diplomaticheskikh otnoshenii v 1586–1612 gg. (Moscow, 1976)Google Scholar; and Istoriia posol'stv i diplomaticheskikh otnoshenii v 1613–1621 gg. (Moscow, 1987).Google Scholar

³ Richard, Francis, ed., Raphaël du Mans, missionnaire en Perse au XVII ^e s., 2 vols. (Paris, 1995), 2: 151.Google Scholar Du Mans' observation is echoed by Kaempfer, Engelbert, Am Hofe des persischen Grosskönigs 1684–1685 (Tübingen and Basel, 1977), 66–68Google Scholar, who claims that any presents not made of gold or silver failed to attract the shah's attention and were thrown into a dank storage room to gather dust and rust.

⁴ Aubin, Jean, “La politique iranienne d'Ormuz (1515–1540),” Studia (Lisbon) 53 (1994): 27.Google Scholar

⁵ Edward Said, Orientalism (London, 1979).

⁶ See de Meaux, Lorraine, La Russie et la tentation de l'Orient (Paris, 2010)Google Scholar; and, equally informative, van der Oye, David Schimmelpenninck, Russian Orientalism. Asia in the Russian Mind from Peter the Great to the Emigration (New Haven, CT and London, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ For this, see Matthee, Rudi, “Facing a Rude and Barbarous Neighbor: Iranian Perceptions of Russia and the Russians from the Safavids and the Qajars,” in Iran Facing Others: Identity Boundaries in a Historical Perspective, ed. Amanat, Abbas and Vejdani, Farzin (New York, 2012), 99–124.Google Scholar

⁸ Bushev, Istoriia posol'stv i diplomaticheskikh otnoshenii russkogo iranskogo gosudarstv v 1586–1612 gg., 36, 39.

⁹ Shah ᶜAbbas' armies, for instance, are said to have been responsible for the killing and enslavement of 170,000 people in the southern Caucasus. See Munshi, Iskandar, The History of Shah Abbas the Great, ed. and trans. Savory, Roger, 3 vols. paginated as one (Boulder, CO, 1978–86), 634Google Scholar, 1082–92.

¹⁰ For the interaction in the sixteenth century, see Murat Yasar, “The North Caucasus in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century: Imperial Entanglements and Shifting Loyalties” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2011).

¹¹ See Matthee, Rudi, “Anti-Ottoman Concerns and Caucasian Interests: Diplomatic Relations between Iran and Russia under Shah ᶜAbbas I (1587–1629),” in Safavid Iran and Her Neighbors, ed. Mazzaoui, Michael (Salt Lake City, 2003), 101–28.Google Scholar

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¹⁴ See Matthee, “Anti-Ottoman Concerns and Caucasian Interests”; and, more recently, with greater attention to the Ottoman role in the triangular relationship, Kortepeter, Carl Max, “Complex Goals of the Ottomans, Persians, and Muscovites in the Caucasus, 1578–1640,” in New Perspectives on Safavid Iran. Empire and Society, ed. Mitchell, Colin P. (Abingdon, UK and New York, 2011), 59–83.Google Scholar

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¹⁶ Herbert, Thomas, Travels in Persia 1627–1629, ed. Denis Ross, E. Sir (New York, 1928; repr. 2005), 212.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Bushev, Istoriia posol'stv i diplomaticheskikh otnoshenii russkogo iranskogo gosudarstv v 1586–1612 gg., 19; and Svanidze, M., “Une ambassadrice géorgienne (sur l'histoire du traité de paix turco-persan de 1612),” Revue des Etudes Géorgiennes et Caucasiennes 4 (1988): 122.Google Scholar The year 1615 saw the beginning of a new round of Safavid–Ottoman hostilities.

¹⁸ Veselovskii, N.I., Pamiatniki diplomaticheskikh i torgovykh snoshenii moskovskoi Rusi s Persiei, 3 vols., in Trudy Vostochnogo Otedeleniia Imperatorskogo Russkogo Archeologicheskogo Obshchestva (St. Petersburg, 1890–98).Google Scholar

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²⁰ For this, see Matthee, Rudi, Persia in Crisis: Safavid Decline and the Fall of Isfahan (London, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 5.

²¹ Lang, David Marshall, The Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy 1658–1832 (New York, 1957), 15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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²³ Dutch National Archives, The Hague (NA), VOC 1115, Overschie, Isfahan to Heren XVII, 27 October 1634, fol. 102.

²⁴ al-Hoseyn Nava'i, ᶜAbd, Ravabet-e siyasi-ye Iran va Urupa dar ᶜasr-e Safavi (Tehran, 1372/1993), 217.Google Scholar This may have been the same Russian envoy who received an audience by Shah Safi in 1045/1635, as reported by Seyyed Hasan b. Mortaza Hoseyni Astarabadi, Az Sheykh Safi ta Shah Safi. Az tarikh-e soltani, ed. Eshraqi, Ehsan (Tehran, 1364/1985), 254.Google Scholar

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²⁶ Olearius, Adam, Vermehrte newe Beschreibung der muscowitischen und persischen Reyse sodurch gelegenheit einer holsteinischen Gesandschaft an den Russischen Zaar und König in Persien geschehen (Schleswig, 1656; facs. repr., ed. Lohmeier, D., Tübingen, 1971), 506Google Scholar, 510, 513, 534; Torkaman, Eskandar Beg and Esfahani, Valeh, Zeyl-e tarikh-e ᶜalam-ara-ye ᶜAbbasi, ed. Soheyli Kh^vansari (Tehran, 1317/1938), 188.Google Scholar

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²⁸ See Rudi (Rudolph), Matthee, The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600–1730 (Cambridge, 1999), 119ff.Google Scholar

²⁹ The term Drang nach Süden for the Russian advance into the Caucasus occurs in Beradze, Grigol and Kutsia, Karlo, “Toward the Interrelations of Iran and Georgia in the 16th–18th Centuries,” in Caucasia between the Ottoman Empire and Iran 1555–1914, ed. Motika, Raoul and Ursinus, Michael (Wiesbaden, 2000), 121.Google Scholar

³⁰ For an overview, see Suny, Ronald Grigor, The Making of the Georgian Nation (Bloomington, IN and Stanford, CA, 1988), 51–52.Google Scholar The Armenians at this point were far more ambivalent about seeking Russian protection, afraid as they were that such solicitations might come with pressure to adopt the Greek-Orthodox variant of Christianity. See Johannissjan, Aschot, Israel Ory und die Armenische Befreiungsidee (Munich, 1913), 86.Google Scholar

³¹ The so-called Chingissid model, taken from the Mongols, whereby once a leader was coopted the entire clan would go over and become loyal to the new master, which was applied by Russia in Central Asia, did not work in the fragmented and anarchic Caucasus. For this, see Lemercier-Quelquejay, Chantal, “Cooptation of the Elites of Kabarda and Daghestan in the Sixteenth Century,” in The North Caucasus Barrier. The Russian Advance toward the Muslim World, ed. Broxup, Marie Bennigsen (New York, 1992), 18–44.Google Scholar

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³³ Nava'i, Ravabet-e siyasi-ye Iran, 218.

³⁴ NA, VOC 1162, Daghregister Verburgh, 22 March 1647, fol. 205 and 31 March 1647, fol. 209. See Andersen, Jürgen and Iversen, Volquard. Orientalische Reise-Beschreibungen (Schleswig, 1669; repr., ed. Lohmeier, Dieter, Tübingen, 1980), 153.Google Scholar

³⁵ NA, VOC 1162, Verburgh, Gamron to Heren XVII, 4 May 1647, fol. 181. The same report mentions the presence in Isfahan of a Mughal delegation. It, too, had been sent to plead with the shah not to lend assistance to the Uzbeks.

³⁶ The issue of fortress building and suspicions about Russian intentions would continue to be a sensitive point for the Iranians for centuries to come. It emerged as a major issue with the Artemii Volynskii mission that Peter the Great sent to Isfahan in 1717; it bedeviled Russo-Iranian relations under Nader Shah; and it would extend all the way into the early nineteenth century, when Russian expansionism resulted in the definitive conquest of the northern Caucasus.

³⁷ Wolfgang Sartor, “Die Wolga als internationaler Handelsweg für persische Rohseide im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert” (PhD diss., Free University Berlin, 1993), 82, fn. 40.

³⁸ Zevakin, E.S., “Konflikt Rossii s Persiei v serednie XVII stoletiia,” in Azerbaidzhan v nachale XVIII veka 8/iv (Baku, 1929), 24.Google Scholar

³⁹ Ibid.; and Vali Qoli Shamlu, “Qesas al-khaqani,” British Library, Ms. Or. 7656, fol. 324.

⁴⁰ Qazvini Esfahani, Mohammad Yusof Valeh, Iran dar zaman-e Shah Safi va Shah ᶜAbbas-e devvom (1038–1071 h.q.), ed. Nasiri, Mohammad Reza (Tehran, 1380/2001), 509–10.Google Scholar The year 1063/1653 appears in Qazvini, Abu'l Hasan, Fava'ed-e Safaviyeh. Tarikh-e salatin va omara-ye Safavi pas az soqut-e dowlat-e Safaviyeh, ed. Ahmadi, Maryam Mir (Tehran, 1367/1988), 67.Google Scholar

⁴¹ What may be labeled an attempt to acquire an “insurance policy” is seen in the trade mission organized by the wealthy Jolfan entrepreneur Sarhat Shahrimanian in 1659, when he sent his son Zakharia to Moscow. Zakharia, who also served as a royal merchant for Shah Soleyman as well as for the latter's long-serving grand vizier, Sheykh ᶜAli Khan, took the so-called diamond throne with him as a gift. He presented this valuable object, made of silver and studded with diamonds and other precious stones, and valued at 80,000 gold ducats, to Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich in hopes of gaining trade privileges, notably an exclusive Armenian right to travel through his domain, but also to strengthen political ties between the New Jolfan merchants and the Russian crown with the obvious intent of buying some potential protection against the Safavid regime. See Baibourtian, Vahan, International Trade and the Armenian Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (Delhi, 2004), 152–53Google Scholar; Bellingeri, Giampiero, “Sugli Sceriman rimasti a Giulfa: devozione agli ultimi Safavidi?,” in Gli Armeni e Venezia. Dagli Scereman a Mechitar: il momento culminante di una consuetudine millenaria, ed. Zekiyan, G.L. and Ferrari, A. (Venice, 2004), 109Google Scholar; and Aslanian, Sebouh David, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean; The Global Trade Network of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa (Berkeley, CA, 2011), 150–51.Google Scholar

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⁴³ This is probably the Russian envoy mentioned by Valeh Qazvini Esfahani, Iran dar zaman-e Shah Safi, 511.

⁴⁴ Zevakin, “Konflikt Rossii s Persiei,” 24.

⁴⁵ NA, VOC 1203, Sarcerius, Gamron to Batavia, 16 May 1654, fol. 815.

⁴⁶ Valeh Qazvini Esfahani, Iran dar zaman-e Shah Safi, 530.

⁴⁷ Zevakin, “Konflikt Rossii s Persiei,” 29.

⁴⁸ Vahid Qazvini, Mirza Mohammad Taher, Tarikh-e jahan-ara-ye ᶜAbbasi, ed. Sadeq, Sayyed Saᶜid Mohammad (Tehran, 1383/2004), 732Google Scholar; Mawliyani, Saᶜid, Jaygah-e Gorjiha dar tarikh va farhang va tamaddon-e Iran (Isfahan, 1379/2000), 161.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Archives des Missions Etrangères, Paris, vol. 353, Père Jacques, Isfahan to Paris, 1 March 1680, fols. 7–8.

⁵⁰ See Vali Qoli Shamlu, “Qesas al-khaqani,” fol. 147v.

⁵¹ Antonova, K.A., Gol'dberg, N.M. and Lavrenkov, T.D., eds., Russko-indiiskie otnosheniia v XVII v. Sbornik dokumentov (Moscow, 1958), 137.Google Scholar

⁵² Shorin's ventures mixed success with failure, though. His first mission apparently ended in disaster. Having suffered extortion, harassment, arrest and even torture, he is said to have lost 17,000 rubles in the process. In subsequent years, Shorin imported some silk, 303 puds (ca. 50 bales), valued at 11,300 rubles, in 1654, and 126 puds in 1655. See Baron, Samuel H., “Vasilii Shorin: Seventeenth-Century Russian Merchant Extraordinary,” Canadian –American Slavic Studies 6 (1972): 503–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ermolaeva, L.K., “Krupnoe kupechestvo Rossii v XVII-pervoi chetverti XVIII v.” (po materialam astrakhanskoi torgovli),” Istoricheskie Zapiski 114 (1986): 309.Google Scholar

⁵³ Thévenot, Jean, Relation d'un voyage fait au Levant, vol. 2, Suite du voyage de Levant (Paris, 1674), 202–4.Google Scholar For Thévenot's arrival date, see Richard, , Raphaël du Mans, 1: 60–61.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste, Les six voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier… en Turquie, en Perse, et aux Indes, 2 vols. (Paris, 1678).Google Scholar Tavernier (ibid., 1: 464) states that he arrived in Isfahan on 20 December 1664.

⁵⁵ Ibid., 479.

⁵⁶ Chardin, Jean, Voyages du chevalier Chardin, en Perse, et autres lieux de l'Orient, ed. Langlès, L., 10 vols. and map (Paris, 1810–11), 10: 112ff.Google Scholar The Frenchman Daulier Deslandes, who accompanied Thévenot, presumably refers to the same embassy in a letter he wrote from Isfahan in early 1665. Daulier Deslandes mentions mechanical organs as gifts offered to the shah by the Russians. See Deslandes, André Daulier, “Isfahan 15 February 1665,” in Nouvelles d'Ispahan 1665–1695, ed. Kroell, Anne (Paris, 1979), 18.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Chardin, Voyages, 3: 112–13. Marten fur imported from Muscovy was highly prized in Safavid Iran, where one skin might fetch 5, 6 or 7 tumans. See Richard, Raphaël du Mans, 2: 151.

⁵⁸ Quoted in Attmann, Artur, The Russian and Polish Markets in World Trade (Gotenburg, 1973), 190–91.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Thévenot, Relation d'un voyage, 203.

⁶⁰ NA, VOC 1245, Van Wijck, Gamron to Heren XVII, 9 January 1665; fols. 365v–66.

⁶¹ Ibid.; and Thévenot, Relation d'un voyage, 203.

⁶² Tavernier, Les six voyages, 479–80. Various other contemporary observers confirm that wheeled traffic was virtually non-existent in Iran. See Juan, Don, Don Juan of Persia. A Shi'ah Catholic 1560–1604 (London, 1926; repr. 2005), 50Google Scholar; della Valle, Pietro, Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, 2 vols., ed. Gancia, G. (Brighton, 1843), 2: 35Google Scholar; Chardin, Voyages, 3: 433; Kaempfer, Am Hofe, 121; and Krusinski, Judasz Tadeusz, The History of the Late Revolutions of Persia, 2 vols. (London, 1733), 1: 114.Google Scholar The absence of wheeled traffic was not absolute, though; in the lowlands of the Caucasus, for instance, wheeled carts seem to have been used. Carts drawn by buffaloes also appear to have existed. See Efendi, Evliya, Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa in the Seventeenth Century, trans. von Hammer, Joseph, 2 vols. (London, 1834; repr. New York and London, 1968), 2: 167Google Scholar; and Stodard, Robert, The Journal of Robert Stodard, ed. Denison Ross, E. Sir (London, 1935), 52.Google Scholar

⁶³ Vali Qazvini Isfahani, Khold-e barin, 114.

⁶⁴ Hanway, Jonas, An Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea. With a Journal of Travels through Russia into Persia … to which are added, The Revolutions of Persia during the Present Century, with the Particular History of the Great Usurper Nadir Kouli, 4 vols. (London, 1753), 1: 166.Google Scholar

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⁶⁷ For examples, see Matthee, “Anti-Ottoman Concerns.”

⁶⁸ van Donzel, E., Foreign Relations of Ethiopia, 1642–1700. Documents Relating to the Journeys of Khodja Murād (Istanbul, 1979), 36Google Scholar; cited in Rota, Giorgio, “Safavids and Kalmyks in the 17th Century: A Preliminary Assessment,” in Proceedings of the 5th Conference of the Societas Iranologica Europaea, ed. Panaino, Antonio and Zipoli, Ricardo, 2 vols. (Milan, 2006), 201.Google Scholar

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⁷⁵ Ibid., 269–70; and Kleimola, Ann M., “Good Breeding, Muscovite Style: ‘Horse Culture’ in Early Modern Rus',” Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte 50 (1995): 221–22.Google Scholar See Iuzefovich, L.A., “Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia…” Russkii posol'skii obychai kontsa XV-nachala XVII v. (Moscow, 1988), 111.Google Scholar

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⁷⁹ Chardin, Voyages, 10: 113–14.

⁸⁰ de Thévenot, Jean, Relation d'un voyage fait au Levant, vol. 2, Suite du voyage de Levant (Paris, 1674), 202–4.Google Scholar

⁸¹ NA, VOC 1245, Van Wijck, Gamron to Heren XVII, 9 January 1665, fol. 366r; ibid., 8 March 1665, fol. 468v; ibid., 29 April 1665, fol. 514v.

⁸² Chardin, Voyages, 10: 114.

⁸³ See Matthee, The Politics of Trade, 192–97.

⁸⁴ Bayburdyan, Vahan, Naqsh-e Aramaneh-ye irani dar tejarat-e beyn al-melali ta payan-e sadeh-ye 17 miladi, trans. Baghdasariyan, Adik (Tehran, 1375/1996), 142.Google Scholar

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⁸⁷ Della Valle, Viaggi, 1: 613.

⁸⁸ Matthee, “Facing a Rude and Barbarous Neighbor.”

⁸⁹ Bély, Lucien, L'art de la paix en Europe. Naissance de la diplomatie moderne XVI ^e-XVIII ^e siècle (Paris, 2007), 41Google Scholar, 69ff. For the presumed hidden motive of foreign envoys in a Persianate setting, see al-Mulk, Nizam, The Book of Government or Rules for Kings. The Siyar al-Muluk or Siyasat-nama, trans. Darke, Hubert (Richmond, Surrey, 1960, repr. 2002), 95–96.Google Scholar