Museum complex

Charter to guest Peter Nikiforovich Mikliaev “for a travel” to Prussian and Kurlandian Lands for trade

Posolskiy prikaz (Ambassador’s Chancery ) (?)
1657
The Great State affixed Seal under a paper custodia
Paper, ink, melted gold, red wax. Cursive
54 х 42 cm
From: the Uvarovs’ collection
Showcase 5

A Novgorodian merchant “guest” Peter Mikliaev more than once traveled to European countries with orders of the board of Treasury. In the 1640s – early 1660s, he was selling state-owned raw silk and buying armor, weapons, and copper for casting guns. In 1660 Mikliaev went to Lübeck, Hamburg and the Netherlands. During the trade trip, he bought ten thousand pounds of copper, signed an agreement with the Dutch merchant Johann von Gorny to make 300 cannons modeled after a sample sent from Moscow, and by order of the tsar he bought books about cannon and firearms and gold and silver ore.
"Gosti"(Guests) – in Russia of XVI – XVII centuries is a Higher Trading Corporation. In addition to numerous privileges – tax concession, land ownership, the right to be judged by the tsar and to travel abroad freely for trading matters, they were obliged to bear burdensome services. "Guests" managed tsar’s crafts and state-owned enterprises, served as financial advisers to the tsar. The government entrusted them embassy affairs, conducting trade operations on behalf of the board of Treasury and purchasing strategic goods. The charter “for a travel”, certified by the Great State Seal, was given to show to foreign landowners and unimpeded movement in the countries where the merchant went.

More information...

The necessity of getting travel charters for departure from the Moscow state for trade or other matters is mentioned in Chapter VI of the Council Code of 1649. According to the text of the Code, travel charters were given to the merchant who was going abroad after his presenting of a petition to the Tsar in Moscow, and in other cities to voivods (governors of provinces or towns). Departures abroad without travel charters triggered investigations after coming back (it was necessary to “search for everything”). Even if it turned out that there were no signs of treason and reasons for travelling included only commercial interest, the guilty of violating the law was punished with a whip as a warning others.
The traveler, secretary of the Schleswig-Holstein embassy Adam Olearius mentions several times the name of P.N. Mikliaev in the book "Description of the trip to Muscovy." According to him, being an embassador at the Holstein court, "Novgorodian merchant Peter Mikliaev, an intelligent and reasonable person," wanted to entrust him "to teach his son German and Latin," but "could not get a permission from neither the patriarch, nor the Grand Duke."

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