A hundred years after the taking of Constantinople, Ivan the Terrible planted his victorious banner on the shores of the Caspian, and the old city of the Tatars of the Golden Horde fell under the Muscovite sway. Ever since that event, historians have had to record but a long series of disasters, mistakes, and decadence. It appears, however, that under the reign of Ivan the Terrible and his next successors, Astrakhan still continued to supply Russia with the productions of Persia, and with some of those of Central Asia. An English company even attempted, about the year 1560, to open up a commercial intercourse with Persia and Turcomania by way of the Caspian, but failed completely; and subsequently the appearance of the Dutch and British flags in the Persian Gulf, and the immense development of the maritime commerce with India, for ever extinguished, for Astrakhan, the hope of recovering its former position. The navigation of the Caspian was completely abandoned, and the few Asiatic goods which Russia could not dispense with were conveyed to that country by expensive and perilous overland routes. Accordingly, when Alexis Michaelovitz ascended the throne about the middle of the seventeenth century, how to arrive at Persia by sea was almost become an unsolved problem. To this prince belongs, however, the honour of the first effort made by Russia to re-establish the commerce of the Caspian. A maritime expedition was undertaken from Astrakhan in 1660, under the direction of Dutch seamen; but it failed completely, in consequence of the revolt of the Cossacks, and the successes achieved by their leader, Stenko Razin. After this ineffectual attempt, things reverted to their old state, and the commercial history of this part of the empire presents nothing remarkable until the accession of Peter the Great.
The trade with Asia was not forgotten under that illustrious regenerator of the Muscovite nation, who bent all the force of his genius upon the affairs of the East. Filled with the grand design of making the merchandise of Asia pass through his dominions, he repaired in person to Astrakhan, inspected the mouths of the Volga, selected a site for a quarantine establishment, and set Dutchmen to work to turn the shores of the Caspian to profitable account, until such time as political circumstances should enable him to found establishments by force of arms on the Russian coast. But the brilliant expeditions beyond the Caucasus subsequently made by Russia led to no commercial result. Central Asia continued as of old to communicate with Europe by way of Smyrna and the Indian Ocean; and after Peter's death Russia gave up all her pretensions to the southern shores of the Caspian, over which she had entertained strong hopes of establishing her dominion.
Eventually the extension of the Russian possessions southward to the Kouban and the Terek, and eastward to the Ural, was not without its fruits. The safety secured to travellers caused the trade with Persia by way of Georgia to revive in some degree. Astrakhan was again visited by Persian and Hindu merchants, and by caravans from Khiva and Bokhara; the western and eastern shores of the Caspian were again frequented by vessels, and the numerous nomade hordes, of Asiatic habits, that then occupied the steppes of the Volga and the Kouma, contributed not a little to give animation to the commercial interchange between Russia and the Transcaucasian regions.[21]
In the reign of Catherine II. the Russians reappeared once more beyond the Caucasus on the Caspian shores; but it was not until Alexander's time that their sway was definitively established in those Asiatic regions. Once mistress of a vast country conterminous with Persia and Turkey, and washed both by the Caspian and the Black Sea, Russia evidently commanded every possible means for developing to her own advantage a trade between Europe and most of the western regions of Asia. By way of the Caspian and the Volga she could supply all her central provinces with Persian silks and cottons, dye-stuffs, and drugs; besides which she could monopolise the profit on the transit of goods to the fairs of Germany and down the Danube.