Merchant Fedot Kotov and his observations

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

"In 7131 (1623), by decree of the sovereign and Grand Duke of All Russia Mikhail Fedorovich and the great sovereign of the Most Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Filaret Nikitich, the Moscow merchant Fedot Afanasyevich Kotov with eight comrades was sent with royal goods overseas to Persia."

…. Passed Astrakhan.

and.. long, short eh, but they got to Terek

According to TI, the Russian kingdom under Ivan the Terrible reached the town by 1585 Terek or Graters on the river Tyumenka, or Tersk townlike on this map

Then we got to Tarkov

From Tarkov to the Shah's city Derbent three days of pack travel in a flat place between the mountains and the sea.

Perhaps there are enough objects for parsing.

1. First, consider Terek or Terki on the Tyumenka river

There is a bridge across the river, as the merchant writes, wooden, with a lifting middle part for the passage of mast vessels

Horses have long ears - obviously mules

Therefore, crossing donkeys with horses was a common thing in the 17th century.

Terek is a wooden town, small but nice, it stands on the Tyumenka River, on a low place. Bazaars, temples and houses are in the fortress,

Bazaars, temples and houses are located in the fortress, and behind it there is one monastery.

Let's look at the monastery

How do you like the monastery? In the form of a five-pointed star!

One can, of course, assume that they painted before Fyodor Kotov's visit to the Terek, but hardly. Moreover, in Smolensk the fortress-star is crossed by the Smolensk fortress wall, erected (according to the official history) during the reign of Tsars Fyodor Ioannovich and Boris Godunov in 1595-1602. on the site of an older fortress, built (as it is believed) under the Grand Duke Rostislav Mstislavovich in 1142

Whether the fortress-star in Smolensk is the fortress of the Grand Duke or not is a question. But the fact is that the fortress wall of Boris Godunov stands ON the fortress-star, crossing it from north to south and dividing it into two parts - two eastern rays of the star are inside Godunov's wall, and three western ones are outside it.

Conclusion - the star fortress was built BEFORE the fortress of Boris Godunov, i.e. long before 1595, perhaps this is the fortress of the Grand Duke Rostislav Mstislavovich from 1142 (from here)

So it turns out that Fyodor Kotov did not see the fort star in passing, considering it a monastic destiny.

2. Derbent.

Derbent walls

"Derbent is a fortified white-stone city". - The walls have darkened for today.

"It is said that thirty towers of this city were flooded by the sea and now another large, strong tower stands in the water." - I counted 15 towers from the coast and the 16th was exactly in the middle of the city. The level of the Caspian Sea today is minus 29 meters, and the middle of Derbent is 8 meters above sea level.

At this level of the Caspian, its shores will look like this:

Astrakhan, whatever its location, will be at the bottom of the sea.

"From Derbent through the mountains to the Black Sea, to the Turkish land, a stone wall was once built." - Someone wrote about this wall in LJ, remember - please leave a link.

"Near the sea, not far from Derbent, at the top, a place where forty martyrs lie is fenced off with stone slabs, and Muslims 88 and Armenians 89 say that these are Russians, 40 holy martyrs 90. All passing Russian people go to them to worship, and some serve them prayers They lie each in his own tomb, and on them is laid a large white stone with a carved inscription. No one can read this inscription: neither Muslims, nor Armenians, nor Turks. And the carved inscription is very large."

- What now?

“Forty ancient tombs, allocated in a special revered place in the Northern Muslim cemetery of Derbent, are called by the Turkic word Kirkhlyar, that is,“fortieth century”or simply“forty.”Together with the Juma Mosque, these tombs are one of the oldest and most important Islamic shrines for the Caucasus.

It is believed that Sorokovnik is the graves of the “holy martyrs”, Arab warriors, in 22 AH (642/3) or in 40 AH (661/2) who brought a new religion to Derbent and died in battle with the Khazars.

According to legend, the bodies of the dead soldiers were left to be devoured by the birds, but they miraculously remained intact, and then they decided to bury them with honor. Long inscriptions on the slabs, about which old historians and travelers write, are poorly preserved to this day. Their remains allow us to attribute the tombstones to the 7th – 9th centuries.

One way or another, the graves have always been a sacred place for all residents of Derbent, both for Arabs, and for Persians, and for Azerbaijanis."

As a pattern - the winners write something..

How long or short, and Fedor goes on with his comrades.

3. Shemakha (Shemakhan queen - remember?).

".. Shemakha stands in a shelter between high mountains. The city is stone, small and low, and its settlements are made of stone. There is a moat around the city (there is nothing left of it - a note of the roadline), the gates are lined with iron, and the townships, bazaars and caravanserais There are seven caravanserais in Shemakha - all stone, and in all there is water that flows through stone pipes from the mountains underground. Lezgi, Gilan, Bukhara and other caravanserais. Previously, Shemakha belonged to the Turkish sultan, but the shah captured it at the same time as Shabran. The old city in Shemakha, standing near the posad, and the Turkish mosques, the shah destroyed and built his own. In Shemakha there are many all kinds of goods and silks - dyed and raw. Silk is dyed in Shemakha, and raw silk is produced in the villages around it. At a distance of two and a half versts north of Shemakha there are two gardens - the garden of the Shah and the garden of the Shemakha khan; they grow various vegetables and flowers; there ka change rooms and water in stone basins. Opposite those gardens, high on the mountain, are the ruins of the stone city, which is called the city of Alexander."

Ruins of the fortress of Alexander

They looked very different 200 years ago. Left, above, on the mountain.

As you can clearly see, the ruins indicated by the arrow look better than our Khrushchevs: so when was the Macedonian one here? Better not ask.

4. In Iran.

".. From Kashan to Natenz 122 two days' journey is a plain between the mountains; Natez stands in a plain. On the way from Kashan to Natenz, in the middle of the steppe there is a round mountain, sandy on one side, rocky on the other, with a road around it. the mountains have a salt lake. They say that no one climbs this mountain now, and they do not know what is on it. Muslims say that many times people went to that mountain, but no one returned from it - there, de grief, they perished 123. The mountain is low and small, but it’s scary to drive near it. For two days, the mountain can be seen from afar, and they call it "Invisible."

Clickable

Meeting of the Shah in the capital …

".. The meeting of the Shah was arranged five miles from the main square. The road went between the gardens of the Armenian, Jewish, Avramlyan and Tabriz settlements. … We arrived at the bridge built in the Shah's gardens across the Ispoganka River. This river is small, shallow, … Built across the river a large and high stone bridge, 150 fathoms long, 40 fathoms wide. And on both sides of the bridge there are high and wide, like city walls, to the top of which there are stone stairs. On both sides of the bridge, there were two rows of women sitting on the walls, and where they could, three rows. thanks to which the voice split in two. Here, on the bridge, they sounded big trumpets, played the zurnah, beat the timpani and alarm bells. When the shah passed, all the men, women, boys and girls screamed and danced. This scream was so deafening that it was impossible with each other the word pe to say, but the tightness was such that it was impossible either to go or walk - they crushed each other, tore off their dresses, tore off the stirrups, and trampled on foot. In the Persian kingdom there was such a law: if any of the men and women from seven to eighty years old does not go to meet the Shah, they are executed - their bellies are ripped open."

The dead with pitchforks stand around - silence …

"The Avramians, who were with the Shah at the meeting, have meek faces, all have big beards, black hair. And they keep wives in two, three, and five, and seven, and as many as they want and can. They wear a wide dress, all of them have a brick color, made of camel hair, wear a turban on their heads, go barefoot, wear pants only up to the knees. Women wear a yellow dress, made of the same camel hair. They say that they believe in Abraham and are called the Abramites 146. When someone dies with them, they put him near their mosque, prop him up with a pitchfork under his throat so that he does not fall, and he stands until a bird flies in and pecks out he has an eye. If he plucked out his right eye, it means that the deceased is a righteous man; if he plucked out his left eye, it means that he did not please God. Then they are buried in the ground."

And there was no life here …

"And the Jews, men and women, wear a cherry dress, [92] in appearance similar to the surplice of Russian deacons with mantles, and there is a fringe around the hem, on the head of some turbans, others have hats like cowlings. … In Persian they are not loved in the kingdom, they are killed and embittered, they are called "chagats", and some - "Zhiguts" ".

Now the meaning of the word is clear "sometimes"

"Persian account: yak, du, se, char, pansh, shash, gaft, gashty, legs, dakh, yakzda, duvazda - so all up to twenty. And twenty - beat, betiyak, bistidu - and so on all up to thirty. And thirty - forces, silvuyak, silvudu - and so on up to forty. And forty - chichil, chichil yak, chichil du - and so on up to fifty. And fifty - penja, penju yak, penju du - and so on up to sixty. And sixty - joke, joke, bunny, shuzadu - and so on until seventy. And seventy - haftwa, haftya yak, haftwa du - and so on up to eighty. And eighty - gashtda, gashtda yak, gashtda du - and so on until ninety. And ninety - sometimes, sometimes yak, sometimes do - and so on up to a hundred. A hundred is a set, and a thousand is a min."

Sometimes - this is when ninety times and a few more))

Our gratitude to Fedor Kotov with an honest company!