Chapter 12.
Western Europe of the XIV-XVI century as part of the Great = "Mongolian" Empire.
4. The gilded domes of Russia. What was Russia’s source of silver, given that it owned no silver mines in that epoch?
4.1. Were the Ottomans (Atamans) the only recipients of the tribute paid in silver by the mediaeval Western Europe?
And so, the Western Europe was paying tribute to the Turks, or the Atamans, qv above. One of the most regular means for such transactions was the silver Tahler – a special heavyweight silver coin (closer to bullion than to actual coinage, in fact, weighing between 28.5 and 32 g – see [807], page 6).
I. G. Spasskiy, a prominent scientist and a specialist in the history of numismatics describes the silver Tahlers (known as yefimki in Russian) as follows: “A collective name used for all Western silver coins of high purity weighing around 28.5-29 g, occasionally up to 32 g. They were known as Tahlers in the West” ([807], page 6).
According to our conception, one might well expect that similar amounts of Tahlers were also received by Russia around that time – possibly, by proxy of the Ataman Turks, but most likely directly. Let us see whether there is any factual information to confirm this theoretical presumption of ours.
There is indeed, and the examples we have are very vivid. Apparently, up until the XVII century there was a great abundance of Western silver coinage in Russia, which is a widely known historical fact. Russia was virtually drenched in silver and gold, despite the total lack of silver mines of its own in that epoch ([807], page 5). This must be the very tribute paid to the Great = “Mongolian” Russian Empire by the Western Europe.
Incidentally, it must be for this reason that Russians had no need to mine for silver until the XVIII century – there was plenty to be had while the tribute was being paid.
When the payments stopped, Russians started to look for their own sources of this precious metal. Indeed, at the turn of the XVIII century the first silver mine opened in Nerchinsk, which was the only one in Russia back then ([807], page 5). However, even this mine “hardly yielded two puds [1 pud = 16 kg] a year” ([807], page 5). The remnants of the Western silver must have held for quite a while.
In the XIV-XVI century the tribute to Russia, or the Horde, was paid directly. However, the form of payment eventually altered to become “more civilised” and intricate – perfectly modern, in fact. This occurred in the XVI-XVII century as follows. According to I. G. Spasskiy, the monetary exchange between Russia and the West was based on the following two factors.
First factor. All the transactions inside Russia were conducted in kopeks exclusively ([807], pages 7-10). What did it mean in that epoch? Simply that all trade between the East and the West was in kopeks. Why would that be?
The reason is simple – all the trade routes between the West and the East went through Russia. Westerners knew of no others before the discovery of the route to the modern India. It was only since the beginning of the XVI century – namely, 1510 ([1447], page 404) that European traders have discovered the maritime route to the modern India. However, this route required a complete circumnavigation of Africa, which made it costly and uncomfortable. It was much easier to trade through Russia.
The trade was conducted at the Yaroslavl Market – the very famous Market of Novgorod known to us from ancient Russian chronicles. It was located near Yaroslavl on the Volga – in the estuary of River Mologa, as we discussed at length in CHRON4. What were the goods bought and sold there? Many – the Oriental wares included spices and silt in particular.
Going back to the beginning, let us emphasise that all transactions were in Russian kopeks. Furthermore, it was against the law to transport the Western Tahlers to the Orient via Russia ([807], page 11). This put it right out of the question for the Western traders to make direct payments foregoing the Russian tax.
The second factor. Western traders could not use their silver Tahlers for any transactions – they were under obligation to sell them and to buy Russian kopeks at a rigidly fixed rate devised by the Russian government ([807], pages 8 and 9).
Thus, the Western traders were forced to leave about fifteen per cent of the silver they used for transactions in Russia, qv below. It was the de facto taxation withheld from the total trade volume between the West and the East – and nearly all such trade was conducted by proxy of Russia in those times.
This order of trade, which had obviously cut down the profits of the West European traders considerably, could apparently be based on nothing else but the military power of the Russian (“Mongolian”) Empire. This was one of the most recent forms of tribute collected from the West.
Russian government was controlling all purchases of Tahlers, or yefimki, very strictly. “State-appointed inspectors elected from the ranks of the trader estates were supervising the purchase of silver in Arkhangelsk as well as the buying and selling thereof in the specialised sections of Muscovite markets” ([807], page 12). Only high-quality Tahlers were allowed for import in Russia – according to I. G. Spasskiy, “lower grade Tahlers remained unheard of at the Muscovite marketplaces” up until the middle of the XVII century ([807], page 12). As we can see, nobody risked to submit any substandard currency into the treasury of the Horde.
State control was extremely exacting – the Tahlers submitted by the Westerners were meticulously compared to the reference specimens, the so-called “eagled Tahlers”, which bore “small engraved two-headed eagle symbols” ([807], page 12).
The few timid attempts to submit lower-grade silver into the Imperial treasury were nipped in the bud very strictly by the Russian officials. For instance, “in 1678 Stathalter Wilhelm IV was trying to protest against the ‘slander in re the quality of his Tahlers from the Spanish Netherlands’, but to no avail” ([807], pages 12 and 6). Muscovite administration remained unperturbed. Apparently, thirty years before, in 1649, the Spanish Netherlands were exposed as exporters of low-quality Tahlers with added copper ([807], page 12). Indeed, Russian “bank officials” of the XVII century had elephant memory.
It would be interesting to calculate the percentage of a European trader’s silver that was left in Russia as the indirect tax described above?
Let us use the data of I. G. Spasskiy, which allow for making an estimate for the beginning of the XVII century. The percentage could naturally alter over the passage of time. The weight of a Tahler was between 28.5 and 29 g ([807], page 6). A kopek weighed around 0.66 – 0.68 g. Tahlers could not be sold for more than 36 kopeks by the Westerners in the beginning of the XVII century; objectively, a Tahler equalled 42 to 44 kopeks. Therefore, Western traders paid a tax of 6-8 kopeks per Tahler to the Russian treasury – some 15-18 per cent, that is.
4.2. Mediaeval trade between the West and the East. The West grew poorer and the East got richer.
Documents demonstrate that the trade with the East was a matter of paramount importance for the Western Europe. It is also known that the trade with the Orient was conducted throughout the entire “ancient” epoch, including the ancient Rome. Up to the XIX century this trade remained one of the sorest spots in the foreign policy of the Western Europe. This is why: “The Roman author Pliny the Elder [presumably “ancient” – Auth.] . . . writes that every year around 100 million sesterces left Rome in this direction [the Orient – Auth.], fifty million of which went to India, and the second half accounted for the trade with China and Arabia” ([653], page 60).
As we understand today, the epoch in question is highly unlikely to be as “ancient” as it is commonly believed, and most probably identifiable as the XIV-XVII century of the new era. “India” and “China” of the epoch are but aliases of Russia, or the Horde, whereas “Arabia” must be Turkey, or the Ataman Empire. This is where the “ancient Roman” sesterces really went in such tremendous amounts.
Historians report: “The displeasure of the Roman statesmen at the high cost and the constant leakage of precious metals is an almost constant leitmotif of the reports that concern the Chinese, Indian and Arabic wares” ([653], page 62).
Virtually the same complaints are voiced out loud in the XVII century, presumably “resurrected” many centuries later:
“For example, François Bernier, a French traveller of the XVII century, was comparing Hindustan to a vortex that swallowed a large part of the world’s supplies of silver and gold, which, as he wrote, ‘found a great many ways of getting there from all across the world, and hardly any at all for leaving’” ([653], page 60).
Edward Misselden, the English economist, wrote the following in the beginning of the XVII century: “The amount of money is reduced as a result of trade with the godless lands, Turkey, Persia and East India . . . The funds exported to said countries for trade with their heathen denizens are always spent and never returned” (quoting according to [653], page 64). This is easy to understand – the imperial centre never returned the tribute it received.
“There is a tremendous amount of such written evidence and statistics” – writes A. M. Petrov. “It was just in the XIX century that the European industrial revolutions changed the entire picture of goods manufacture, raising the quality and reducing the costs dramatically, thus effectively stopping this flow [of Western European gold to the Orient – Auth.], which made the Western goods more than competitive on the Eastern markets – for the first time in history” ([653], page 64).
Ever since the Middle Ages, “whole ships carried coins towards the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean . . . from the European countries of the Middle Ages, whence they were taken further along the trade routes by the traders . . . all across Asia. Tommaso Mocenigo, the Venetian Doge whose reign is dated to 1414-1423 A. D. wrote in his testament that Venice minted 1.2 million of golden and 800 thousand of silver ducats, some 300 thousand of which went to Syria [or, apparently, Russia, which was also called Syria when the name of the country was read in reverse – Auth.] and Egypt [under the rule of the Ottomans = Atamans – Auth].
Sometimes the figure got even higher. For instance, in 1433 a total of 460 thousand ducats was delivered to Alexandria and Beirut . . . Apparently, the coinage in question was golden for the most part . . . The French, the English, and virtually every other European nation paid good money for the Oriental wares” ([653], page 64).
And so, the money was paid by the Western European nations, and received by Turkey and Russia, as we have already witnessed.
“The flow [of gold and silver from the Western Europe to the Orient – Auth.] hasn’t ceased after the epoch of the Great Discoveries, either. Martin Luther . . . wrote about it with much vitriol in 1524” ([653], page 64).
We feel obliged to add that after the epoch of the Great Discoveries some part of the silver flow took a new direction, foregoing Russia, which is when the Russians started to search for silver mines of their own. Such mines were indeed found – the first Russian silver mine in Nerchinsk, brought into service at the turn of the XVIII century – the only one of its kind in Russia (see [807], page 5). Still it hardly managed to produce more that 60 pounds of silver within a year, as we wrote earlier.
Bear in mind that before this first and rather meagre silver mine opened, Russia was all but buried under heaps of silver and gold, notwithstanding the total absence of domestic silver mines ([807], page 5).
Little wonder – according to A. M. Petrov, ever since the “antiquity”, all trade “between the two extremes – the Roman Empire and China [Scythia – Auth.] was conducted by proxy of Persian middlemen and some others, with red hair and blue eyes . . . often mistaken for the Chinese by the Romans. They were the monopolists” ([653], page 40).
“According to Pliny, the cost of Indian wares on the Roman market exceeded the original by a factor of 100” ([653], page 62).
However, we remember that under China mediaeval Europeans understood Scythia, or the Russian Horde (see more about it in Part 6 of the present book). This is why the red-haired and blue-eyed middlemen were often “mistaken” for the Chinese, especially seeing as how they were most likely encountered at the markets of the Volga and the Don; later also in Kitay-Gorod, Moscow.
A. M. Petrov makes the perfectly justified remark: “The fact that the Westerners used precious metals in order to pay the Oriental traders testifies to the poverty of the former, and can by no means be regarded as a sign of wealth” ([653], page 65). Westerners were doing everything they could in order to stop the constant flow of their gold and silver to the Orient. They still had to part with whole ships of gold, qv above. However, the loading of such ships implied economy of every penny: “There were bans and restrictions concerning the export of coinage and bullion, a taboo for silk clothing etc.
However, the effects were minimal. One needed goods in order to alter the passive nature of such trade, yet Europe was hardly capable of offering anything – the items made by its craftsmen were coarse, and their quality, very low; there was no demand for them in the Orient, which could satisfy its own needs all by itself” ([653], page 62).
Such unilateral trade might be one of the reasons why the mediaeval West had ended up in a dire economical situation, which prevailed for a long time.
“Lucan [an “ancient” author – apparently, a writer of the XV-XVI century A. D. – Auth.] describes a typical Roman consul of the epoch as follows: ‘He is covered in mud, and barely managed to leave his Etruscan plough’” ([653], pages 65-66).
According to A. M. Petrov, “Western Europe in the early Middle Ages, needed to curb its trade with Asia dramatically due to the pitiful state of its resources, which can only be described as beggarly, if we’re to call a spade a spade . . . V. Zombart emphasises the following circumstance as he describes the underdevelopment of the European society in that epoch: “The enormous empire of the Frankish king [in the XIV-XVI century, as we realise today – Auth.] didn’t have so much as a single city – there was no urban life at all”. I. M. Kulisher, also an authority on the history of the Western Europe in the Middle Ages, gives us the following characteristic: a European’s needs were limited to “simple and rough food and a primitive place of residence, complemented with a few basic garments and utensils resembling . . . those used by the savage nations in their simplicity. Landowners, up to the dukes and the kings, weren’t much better off” ([653], page 66).
A. M. Petrov continues: “The West shall eventually make a tremendous effort in order to eliminate this supremacy via the scientific and industrial revolution, an enormous interconnected system of inventions and the introduction of principally novel industries – but for the meantime, the mediaeval Western European society was hardly capable of finding any products that would be of interest to the Orient at all – rough materials for the most part: some copper, some tin, a few other metals; some Asian goods were procured from the Middle Eastern rulers in exchange for ship timber . . .
The discovery of America and the influx of gold and silver therefrom made it somewhat easier for the Europeans to pay for their Oriental imports” ([653], page 68).
4.3. The Silk Road.
One of the primary wares that the West was buying from the East for centuries was silk, which was very expensive indeed.
A. M. Petrov reports: “One can talk endlessly about the goods that passed along the trade routes of the Silk Road; providing an exhaustive list of such goods is altogether impossible. They included china, furs, slaves (especially women), ironmongery, spices, incense, drugs, ivory, purebred horses and gemstones. But there was one item valued above all others, and it was this item that the trade route in question received its name from” ([653], page 47).
Further on, A. M. Petrov writes the following about silk: “One must answer the following question: why . . . was there so much song and dance about silk in general – in the antiquity and in the Middle Ages; why was it so expensive?
Of course, it’s a seemly, firm, light and comfortable fabric. . . But it has another trait . . . which is much more important – its disinfesting properties. Silkworm thread has a unique . . . property – it repels lice, fleas and other arthropods, precluding them from nesting in the folds of the clothing. Considering the ubiquitous and sometimes horrendous lack of hygiene in the past, this quality was truly a salvation for the owner of a silk garment.
The above is by no means an exaggeration. Consider the following quotations from the works of two most eminent researchers of the history of economics in mediaeval Europe – Iosif Mikhailovich Kulisher and Fernand Brodel. Kulisher writes: ‘People were dirty, houses were dirty, streets were covered in dirt. All sorts of insects nested in rooms, favouring the valances, which were hard to clean. Valances were installed over beds with the specific purpose of providing protection against the insects that fell from ceilings – but insects were also infesting garments and human bodies’. Fernand Brodel adds: ‘Fleas, lice and ticks swarmed London as well as Paris, rich and poor households alike’ ([653], page 58).
This is why silk was so vital. Its high cost made it affordable to no one but the rich.
<<“May thread never be worth its weight in gold!” – was the reply of Aurelian, the Roman Emperor [who must have lived in the XIV or the XV century, as we realise – Auth.], to his wife’s request of buying her a crimson silk cape. The matter is, according to Flavius Vopiscus of Syracuse, who has preserved this conversation for us [which must have already occurred in the XVI or the XVII century – Auth.] that a pound of silk was sold for a pound of gold in that epoch>> ([653], page 47). And so, the great emperor refused to make this purchase.
What about the Orient, then? “Travellers in the days of yore constantly mentioned the most incredible contrasts in the everyday life of the nomads: horrifying dirt and lack of hygiene versus the fact that even the poorest of their ilk wore silk garments” ([653], page 59).
However, we already know the identity of the mediaeval “nomads”, portrayed by the Westerners as barbarians – they were the Russian army, or the Horde, on the march. Obviously enough, the Horde Cossacks were afflicted by lice during long marches, especially before the invention of soap – however, the problem remained; let us recollect the large-scale wars of the XX century, when soap had long been invented, but the trenches were still infested with lice.
But a military campaign is a military campaign. What about domestic conditions? It is widely known that the Russians did not have any lice under normal circumstances due to the use of steam baths, which did not exist in the West. It is easy enough to wash oneself clean in a steam bath, even without soap. However, when the Horde was on the march, every Cossack warrior, even the poorest, had a silk shirt handy, qv above.
It is known that lice started to disappear from the Western Europe only after the invention of soap, which is a relatively recent event.
Furthermore – some may have grown accustomed to the artificial concept that the luxurious “ancient” and mediaeval West spent fortunes on expensive Oriental spices in order to please the refined tastes of the picky Western European aristocrats. Indeed, apart from silk, the traders also imported spices from the Orient. However, their primary scope of use wasn’t culinary, but rather medicinal. “The ancient medics were already perfectly aware of the pharmacological properties of spices and fragrant resins” ([653], page 78). Cinnamon, pepper, cardamom, ginger, spikenard and tropical aloe are mentioned in the works of the famous “ancient” scientist Hippocrates and another prominent authority of the “ancient” medicine – Claudius Galen ([653], page 78).
“The furious debate in the early XVII century England between the proponents and the opponents of the trade with Asia (which was claiming enormous amounts of precious metals in return for the Oriental wares, including spices) was largely concluded in favour of continuing the trade after the argumentation presented by Thomas Mun, the great English economist. He wrote that spices were . . . necessary for maintaining one’s health and for the treatment of diseases” ([653], page 78).
Thus, the West was most likely buying spices out of sheer necessity, and not as a luxury item – once again, paying with silver and gold.
4.4. When was the custom of washing hands before meals introduced in the Western Europe?
The likely reply to the question formulated in the header is “ages ago”, ever since the “antiquity”. Indeed, according to Scaligerian history, “the ancient writer and historian Pliny reports that soap was already familiar to his contemporaries in the I century A. D. quite well, and manufactured in industrial amounts out of cinders and animal fat . . . The mediaeval feudal rulers would immerse themselves into a tub of hot water, heated and filled in advance, first thing upon awakening . . . The castle-dwellers also washed their hands and faces before sitting down to breakfast. The slogan “One must wash one’s hands to be clean before the meal” . . . It was a perfectly justified one, since forks had not been too common. Hands were wiped with napkins during meals, and then washed once again at the fountain. The castle-dwellers also washed their feet before going to bed” ([457:1], page 215).
A propos, let us point out the following oddity. We are being told that the mathematical methods used in astronomy were invented in this very “deep antiquity” – the scientists calculated the diameter of the Earth, the distance between the Earth and the Sun and so on. Gigantic buildings and pyramids have been erected and still stand proud. However, as simple an object as a fork took ages to invent, and so people ate with their bare hands for centuries and even millennia on end. Only by the end of the Middle Ages technological advances brought forks to the tables of the rich. Obviously enough, the estimation of the distance between the Earth and the Sun is a great deal easier than the invention of a fork.
However, let us return to the custom of washing hands. G. Kutsenko and Y. Novikov tell us further: “Such were the habits of the rich. What about peasants? We know less about their lifestyle than we do about that of their masters – however, among the few surviving household utensils we find water jugs, basins and tubs.
The townsfolk were also hygiene-conscious. In 1292 Paris had 26 public baths, which only closed on Sundays. The wealthier bourgeoisie preferred to wash at home. There was no water supply in Paris, and a modestly priced service of street water-carriers was used” ([457:1], page 216).
Thus, everything seems to be all right with the washing of hands in the XIII century Paris. The lack of running water is compensated by delivery services and public baths, and all hands are duly washed before each meal – we see a high level of personal hygiene.
Yet the reader raised on Scaligerian history is astonished to learn the following unexpected fact. It turns out that starting with the end of the XIV century, West Europeans abandon the custom of washing their hands before sitting down a meal. Soap disappears – not just from the peasant households, but the wealthier ones as well. The “revival” of personal hygiene in the West is dated to the XVIII century, no less!
Historians tell us precisely the following: “Some 100 years later [than the year of 1292 as mentioned above – Auth.] the custom of washing hands before meals became a thing of the past” ([457:1], page 216). One mist think that the advancing enlightenment in the Western Europe had led the Westerners to the idea that washing one’s hands was a futile activity and a waste of time to boot (see more on the “harm from exposure to water” below). They must have thought their ancestors, presumably accustomed to washing their hands three times a day and remaining at it for many centuries ever since the “antiquity” were unenlightened and ignorant following the barbaric custom.
Indeed, let us proceed towards the epoch of the XIV-XVI century according to the way it is related in [475:1]. What do we see? Apparently, “there was a tradition of putting bowls of water on the table, the households of the nobility and the bourgeoisie, so that the guests could dip their fingertips into it as a token of respect for the owner of the household” ([457:1], page 216). The authors of the book ([457:1]), sensing some incongruence with the “highly evolved ancient hygiene” instantly proceed to “explain” that the rate of urban growth in the Western Europe got so high that water became a scarce commodity, which is why the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, or the richest strata of society only dipped their fingertips in the precious liquid symbolically, possibly using it several times. However, as we shall see below, “urban growth” isn’t a good enough explanation, since it turns out that even the French monarchs of the XIV-XVI century “stopped” washing their hands.
“And so, the price of water became truly exorbitant in Paris come the Renaissance epoch. There was a total of 40 wells and 40 primitive water pumps with constant flow that served the whole city” ([457:1], page 216). No sight of the public baths.
Let us quote further. “Most households, as it is known to us from utensil inventories, didn’t even have possess so much as a single basin. Only a single citizen in 1000-1200 had a tub. It was a luxury affordable to no one but the most distinguished members of society, but even they treated it as a status symbol for the most part, and didn’t use it often” ([457:1], page 216). One must assume that whenever the residents of such affluent households entertained guests, they would point in the direction of the cast iron tub and proudly proclaim the place where it stood their bathroom. Many of the visitors must have felt envious deep inside.
What about the French kings of the XIV-XVI century? Apparently, they were affected by the shortages of water as well. We find out that Louis XVI <<only took a bath when he was ill; his usual morning toilet amounted to having a servant drop a few drops of alcohol on the king’s hands. Some doctors even claimed water to be “harmful for the skin” , and that it was much better to “use diluted alcohol or vinegar” >> ([457:1], page 216).
Nothing surprising about this – while water was scarce in the cities, their inhabitants would be told authoritatively that it was bad for one’s health.
Our reconstruction explains the picture we describe above perfectly well – it only looks absurd from the Scaligerian viewpoint, whereas according to the New Chronology, the Western Europe entered the XIV century as a loosely populated territory swept across by a wave of the Great = “Mongolian” conquest. Steam baths, basins and soap remain a mystery for the local populace – they will only appear after the colonization of the Western Europe, when the Great Empire creates a system of cities here, organising the local infrastructure, among other things. The industrial manufacture of soap shall be introduced as well, but not any earlier than the XVII-XVIII century – according to our reconstruction, this is the very epoch that the “ancient” writer Pliny relates to when he mentions soap, qv above.
G. Kutsenko and Y. Novikov sum up as follows: “in the urban Western Europe the revival of personal hygiene only took place in the XVIII century” ([457:1], page 217). Thus, the Western Europeans have only been washing their hands en masse since the XVIII century, and not any earlier.
One might enquire about the famous painting of Albrecht Dürer, which is presumed to date from 1496. He portrays women washing in a classical Russian steam bath, birch whisks and all. In particular, on the background we see a typical Russian furnace. The expert estimate of this famous work’s price is 10 million dollars, according to the BBC. The answer is known to us perfectly well – either Dürer, as the imperial artist, painted the Russian women washing in a Russian steam bath located somewhere in the centre of the Empire, or the Russian steam baths were introduced all across the Western Europe in the epoch of the Great = “Mongolian” Empire. The steam baths must have become a thing of the past after the dissolution of the Empire and a mandatory change of customs. Also, as we demonstrate above, water became a much scarcer commodity in the cities when the Imperial water supply system became defunct.
4.5. What the Russians used the Western silver and gold for.
What was the further destiny of the flow of Western European gold and silver as described above – in particular, the silver Thalers, or yefimki? Apparently, “a tremendous amount of them [Thalers – Auth.] have left European circulation for Russia over the last 100 years [the author is referring to the middle of the XVII century – Auth.] in order to be recast into wire that later served for the manufacture of the Russian kopeks”, no less ([807], page 6).
The Western European currency was therefore used in Russia as a raw source of silver. According to I. G. Spasskiy, “inside Russia, the Thaler played an altogether different role, becoming a silver resource . . . the government decided that Thalers were the optimal kind of coin silver” ([807], page 7). Before the Thalers, silver came to Russia in bullion – whole shiploads, qv above.
“The Thaler, so popular to the South and the West of the European border of Russia, was completely unknown to the wider circles of the Russians, since whole batches of Thalers were sent to the mint almost instantly” ([807], page 11). Russians used their own native kopeks, which were minted by the Imperial Mint from Western silver.
We believe this to imply that Russia was de facto collecting tribute from the Western Europe – in silver and gold bullion.
“Some of the silver brought to Russia every year was used up by the jewellers and entered possession of some Russian church, the royal treasury or a rich household of a boyar or a trader . . . Hoardings of coins are a famous feature of the ancient Russia” ([807], page 11). Moreover, “the abundance of coin hoardings in Russia and the USSR is truly mind-boggling”, according to I. G. Spasskiy ([807], page 13).
Unlike silver mines, Russia did have gold mines of its own (Ural and Kazakhstan). It is also possible that some of the tribute was collected in gold as well. Only in Russia were the domes of churches covered in gold – not only in the capital, but every other city as well. We have grown accustomed to this fact, and there’s nothing surprising about it to us (see figs. 12.1 and 12.2, for example). However, travellers from the Western Europe were impressed most deeply. One must point out that even the dome of St. Peter’s cathedral in Vatican, the most important Roman Catholic cathedral, wasn’t covered with any precious metal (fig. 12.3). Most likely, due to deficit.
European travellers of the XVII-XIX century were amazed by the abundance of gold in Russia, where it was exhibited – especially in the decorum of the churches (golden domes, iconostases, icons and holy books set in gold and so on).
However, no travellers of the XVII-XIX century mention India on the modern Hindustan Peninsula to be abundant with gold, unlike their precursors of the XIV-XVI century, who were greatly impressed by the great amounts of exhibited gold in the faraway and fable-like India, qv in the reports about the Kingdom of Presbyter Johannes above.
On the other hand, we hear nothing about any gold in Russia – nor indeed a word about Russia itself back in the day. This fact can be interpreted in a variety of ways. We shall merely point out that it corresponds well to our conception, according to which “India” (or “Faraway Land”) was the Western name of Russia until the end of the XVI century.
Some of our readers might become irritated about the fat that every mediaeval reference to an “Eastern land” should necessarily be a reference to Russia in our books – India, China and so on.
How could it be any different, though? Let us take a look at the map. Any traveller from the Western Europe would end up in Russia, or the Great = “Mongolian” Empire, setting forth Eastwards. It would span the vast territories between Equatorial Africa and the Arctic Ocean, and even vaster ones if regarded longitudinally. One could not have travelled past it.
Therefore, the mere fact that some Western traveller like Marco Polo could have noticed absolutely nothing in Russia en route to China is enough to make us suspect things – such as the possibility that his “China” might be identified as Russia, or the Horde.
A more in-depth analysis of such mediaeval journeys reveals that most such travellers never really got to venture any further than the Volga, qv below.
