This Armenian town, seated on the banks of the Don, in the heart of a country occupied by the Cossacks, is still one of those singularities which are only to be met with in Russia. One cannot help asking what can have been the cause why these children of the East have transplanted themselves into a region, where nothing is in harmony with their manner of being; where the language, habits, and wants of the inhabitants are diametrically opposite to their own, and where nature herself reminds them, by stern tokens, that their presence there is but an accident. It is true that the Armenians are essentially cosmopolitan, and accommodate themselves to all climates and governments, when their pecuniary interests require it. Industrious, intelligent, and frugal, they thrive everywhere, and commerce springs up with their presence, in every place where they settle. Thus it was that Nakhitchevane, the town of traffic par excellence, to which purchasers resort from the distance of twenty-five leagues all round it, arose amidst the wilderness of the Don. It was only Armenians who could have effected such a prodigy, and found the means of prosperity in a retail trade. But nothing has escaped their keen sagacity; every source of profit is largely employed by them. They do not confine themselves to the local trade; on the contrary, there is not a fair in all Southern Russia that is not attended by dealers from Nakhitchevane. The supply of dress and arms to the inhabitants of the Caucasus, still forms one of the principal branches of commerce for these Armenians. They maintain a pretty close correspondence with the mountaineers, and are even accused of serving them as spies. As to their social habits, the Armenians are in Nakhitchevane what they are everywhere else; they may change their country and their garb, but their manners and their usages never undergo any alteration. Their race is like a tree whose trunk is almost destroyed, but which throws up at every point new shoots, invariable in their nature, and differing from each other only in some outward particulars.
The colony of Nakhitchevane dates from the year 1780, when Catherine II. had the greater part of the Armenians of the Crimea transported to the banks of the Don. The colonists are divided into agriculturists and shopkeepers. The former inhabit five villages, containing a population of 4600; the others reside exclusively in the town, which is the chief place of their establishment, and contains about 6000 souls. These Armenians enjoy the same privileges as the Greeks of Marioupol, already mentioned. They are under the control of functionaries chosen by themselves, and it happens very rarely that they are obliged to have recourse to the Russian tribunals.
The following was the decision adopted by the Council of the Empire, in 1841, relatively to the Armenians of New Russia. "The descendants of the Armenians settled at the invitation of the government, in the towns of Karasson Bazar, Starikrim in the Crimea, Nakhitchevane, and Gregorioupol, in the government of Kherson, will continue to pay, not the poll-tax, but the land-tax, and that on houses, according to the privileges granted to their fathers by an ukase of October 28, 1799; whilst those who have settled since that time, as well as all Armenians generally, shall be liable to the poll-tax, in pursuance of an ukase of May 21, 1836; in addition to which they shall pay from January 1, 1841; viz., townspeople and artisans, seven rubles per house, and agriculturists seventeen and a half kopeks per deciatine of land."
[7] As the plan of the present work does not allow of our entering on the subject in this place, we reserve it for our "Travels in the Principalities of the Danube," to be hereafter published.
[8] The construction of a canal or a railroad between the Don and the Volga has long been talked of. Peter I. began a canal, but the works were soon abandoned. A new project was laid before the government in 1820, the expense of which was estimated at 7,500,000., but it remains still to be realised.