Afanasy Nikitin: Journey Beyond Three Seas

A Tver merchant sets out on an ordinary trading trip: down the Volga to the Caspian lands and as far as Shirvan. Scholars still argue about the year, 1466 or 1468. Tver remembers him with a bronze monument on the Volga bank, made by sculptor Sergei Orlov in 1955. A folk legend says it went up in a hurry after Khrushchev told Nehru that Russia already had a statue of Nikitin, when in fact it did not.

Location precision: The pin marks the embankment that bears Nikitin's name; the monument stands on the Volga bank.

Visitor guidance: The monument stands on the bank of the Volga in Tver.

Near Astrakhan the trip goes wrong: Nogais rob his party, then Kaitags do it again on the Caspian coast. Nikitin pushes on to Derbent, a market he already knew, and then to Baku. Derbent's old citadel, Naryn-Kala, is part of a fortress whose double walls once ran down to the sea to block the Caspian gates to Persia. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Location precision: Nikitin names the town, not a building; the pin marks the Naryn-Kala citadel.

Following a known trade route through Persia, with prolonged stops in market towns, Nikitin reaches Hormuz, a port living off sea trade, whose ruler had moved to the island around 1300. Here he hears from Muslim merchants about the riches of India and decides to go. In the spring of 1471 he sails from Hormuz, bound for India.

Location precision: In his day the trading town stood on this island; the pin marks the island, not a single building.

Six weeks after leaving Hormuz he comes ashore at the port of Chaul. Today the site of the medieval Chaul harbour is the village of Revdanda, 120 km south of Mumbai. A black obelisk raised there in 2000 honours Nikitin as the probable place where he first set foot in India. A Russian delegation attended the ceremony on 23 November 2000.

Location precision: Chaul's exact landing spot is not known; the pin marks Revdanda, the probable location.

In India Nikitin spends two months at Junnar through the monsoon. He writes that for four months there was "water and mud everywhere, both by day and at night", and of the season of ploughing and sowing wheat, rice and pulse. Junnar sits on the trade route linking the Konkan ports with the Deccan interior.

Location precision: The text names the town only; the pin marks Junnar's centre.

Nikitin watches the Bahmani court at its capital, Bidar: royal processions and ceremonies, and the markets and courts of the Bahmani Sultanate. Bidar became capital when Ahmad Shah I moved it from Gulbarga in 1427 and built his fort, which holds over 30 monuments. Nikitin does not describe the fort itself, but its walls frame the city he saw.

Location precision: The book describes the city, not the fort; the pin marks Bidar Fort as the seat of the Bahmani court.

Visitor guidance: Bidar Fort is open to visitors in the old city; over 30 monuments stand inside.

On the way home, in November 1474, he sails from Trebizond to Caffa, now Feodosia, where there was a large Russian settlement. Caffa was a Genoese trading port. He most likely wrote the Journey here from his notes and memories. He longed for Russia: "May God protect the Russian land! There is no land in the world like it." He died near Smolensk in spring 1475, and merchants brought his papers to Vasily Mamyrev, secretary to Ivan III.

Location precision: The Journey was most likely composed in Caffa; the pin marks the city of Feodosia, the old Caffa.