41 K. N. Serbina, 'Iz istorii vozniknoveniia gorodov v Rossii XVI v.', in Goroda feodal'noi Rossii (Moscow: Nauka, I966), pp. I35-8.
42 French, 'The Urban Network', p. 46.
had been eclipsed by competition from Moscow and new organising centres for the trade had become significant, such as Velikii Ustiug, Vologda,[97] and Tobol'sk in western Siberia.[98] Likewise the salt trade played an important part in the life of many northern centres as well as others towards the Urals and further south along the Volga.[99] Iron ore, fish or important agricultural products like flax and hemp helped define the characters of other centres. For towns in central Russia the looming presence of Moscow and the many demands of its marketplace were significant and helped mould the economies of towns across a wide area.
Long-distance and international trade
Referring to Europe's regional economies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Kristof Glamann has written that 'it is isolation, not interaction, that leaps to the eye'.[100] Everywhere the costs and risks of long-distance trade militated against its easy development. Travel by land was particularly problematic. Only where the sea penetrated deeply into the European land mass, as it did most notably in the cases of the Mediterranean and the Baltic and their associated gulfs and bays, or where the land was crossed by great and easily navigable rivers, as was the case on the East European plain, was communication somewhat easier. In the Baltic the rise of the Hanseatic League of north German cities had fostered commercial relations with the Russian principalities of Novgorod and Pskov in particular. Hanseatic dealings with the Russians were facilitated by their factories in such centres as Novgorod, Riga, Vitebsk, Polotsk and Dorpat.[101] But Russia's commercial relations were not only with the West. It also had extensive dealings with the East, whose importance for Russia had been enhanced by the latter's dependence on the Golden Horde for two and a half centuries. Communications in this direction were eased by the possibility of using navigable rivers like the Don, the Dnieper and, especially later, the Volga. In the opinion of Fekhner, Russia's commercial links with the East were more significant than its Western ones in the sixteenth century.[102]
Russia's trade with the West, and its policies with respect to that trade, were moulded by two major factors in this period. One was the opportunities for trade and development presented by the more dynamic European economies, particularly from the fifteenth century. The other, and not unrelated to the first, was the growing political instability along Russia's western borders and the eastern Baltic as various powers began to compete for both territory and commercial advantage. Traditionally the German Hanse with its principal centre at Lubeckhad dominated the Baltic trade in such goods as grain, salt and salt fish, woollen cloth, furs, timber and forest products. Baltic products like furs, hides, honey, flax, hemp and wax were in constant demand in Central and Western Europe. From the early fifteenth century, however, the Hanse monopoly was increasingly challenged as the cities of the eastern Baltic attempted to bypass the dominance of Liibeck and its associates. A complicating factor was Moscow's annexation of Novgorod (1478) followed by Tver' (1485) and Pskov (1510). This appeared to threaten the balance of power in the region, especially when Ivan III's founding of Ivangorod opposite Narva in 1492 signalled Muscovy's commercial ambitions in the Baltic in no uncertain manner. Two years later, however, Ivan closed down the Hanse's major factory at Novgorod which proved a severe blow to those ambitions, hardly compensated for by Ivangorod and the opening up of Russian trade to other foreign merchants. Nevertheless the Muscovite state found itself in increasing need of Western goods as well as of Western technical expertise whilst Russian goods continued to find a market there. The situation therefore encouraged further contacts. In addition to the Baltic, Russia had links to the West via the traditional overland route through Lithuania and Poland though commerce was frequently interrupted by difficult political relations and border changes.[103]Smolensk, taken by the Russians in 1514, was an important trading centre in this direction.
The beginning of the Livonian war in 1558 proved an important milestone in Russia's commercial relationships with the West. The capture of Narva by Russian forces in that year meant that Russia now had a secure port on the Baltic which proved attractive to merchant vessels from many parts of northern and western Europe. In Kirchner's view, within ten years Narva had developed into one of the Baltic's wealthiest ports as well as one of its most significant political focal points.[104] Kirchner argues that, had the Russians retained Narva for longer than they did, it might have proved a most potent instrument in the country's Westernisation and that its loss to the Swedes in 1581 was a serious setback which was only rectified by Peter the Great. But this argument appears to give too much weight to the importance of a single port - compared to the disasters of the Livonian war, the oprichnina and the other calamities which befell Russia in the late sixteenth century Narva's loss appears a relatively minor affair. Nevertheless the loss did mean that Russia now lacked its own Baltic port, becoming dependent on Sweden for its Baltic trade links via Revel' and Narva. This fact severely restricted the country's Baltic connections down to Peter the Great's time.
It is in this context that the arrival of an English merchant fleet under Richard Chancellor at the mouth of the Northern Dvina on the White Sea in 1553 assumes significance. The English had participated to some degree in the Baltic trade but their northern venture had been directed more at discovering a north-east passage to Asia than at finding a new route to Russia. Nevertheless within two years an English Muscovy Company had been established to exploit this new commercial opportunity. The English were soon joined by the Dutch, the French and others. At first the trade involved a rather difficult transhipment and transit of goods to Kholmogory, situated some way up the river at a point which could not be reached by larger vessels. In 1583-4, however, the government, possibly responding to the loss of Narva, decided to build the new port of Archangel close to the river's mouth and accessible to the large sea-going ships used by the English and Dutch to negotiate the difficult passage around the North Cape. Within a few years, it seems, Archangel had become Russia's most important port.[105] According to Bushkovitch, the importance of Archangel lies not so much in the kinds of goods traded there but in the fact that Russia now had direct contact with West European states, bypassing the Swedish middleman. Statistics for the early years of trade at Archangel are almost completely missing, but some for the English Muscovy Company in the mid-1580s seem to show that agricultural products (flax and hempen cordage, tallow) were more important exports than the traditional forest products by this stage.[106] This may reflect some of the ways in which the Russian economy had changed during the course of the sixteenth century. Archangel, though remote, was destined to play an important role in Russian commerce down to the eighteenth century. Its communications links with central Russia via the Northern Dvina and Sukhona routes and then via Vologda and Iaroslavl' to Moscow, and its link to Siberia via Velikii Ustiug, Viatka and Perm', brought the benefits of long-distance trade to a significant number of northern centres.
97
J. Martin,
98
O. N. Vilkov, 'Tobol'sk - tsentr tamozhennoi sluzhby Sibiri XVII v.', in
99
E. I. Zaozerskaia,
101
Walther Kirchner,
106
T. S. Willan,