Free illicit trade of Russia with China and Mongolia in the 17^th-18^th centuries

The article considers for the first time the reasons and development process of illicit trade and swap on the eastern outskirts of the Russian Empire. In the 17th century, when there were no firmly established borders and, accordingly, foreign customs posts between Russia, Mongolia and China, duty-free exchange of goods outside the control of states was quite a regular phenomenon. With the signing of The Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 the Russian-Chinese trade had become open and duty-free. Although the treaty declared free trade for everyone interested, the tsarist government immediately took control of it and unilaterally imposed imported and exported goods to Beijing with customs duties, which amounted for 10% of their commercial value. As a result, the selling price in Beijing was much higher than the prices of private merchandise. This affected the reduction in the number of merchants from the European part of Russia. In 1693 the interest in Nerchinsk "state" trade among Russians and Chinese began to decline. Even the abolition in 1698 of double and "secondhand" decimas did not correct the situation. In protest against Russia's withdrawal from the terms of The Treaty of Nerchinsk, China soon banned Russian state-owned caravans from entry into their country, brought all merchants from Beijing to Qiqihar and from there to Nerchinsk, and allowed them to trade only in the border of Tsurukaitu. The state trade was replaced by under-the-counter trade with Mongolian merchants in Maimaicheng (near Kyakhta) through intermediaries, which involved even the highest Mongolian secular and spiritual ranks. The problem of smuggling in the early period did not attract the attention of researchers to the proper extent. The archival documents describe the facts dating back to the 19th century and relating to the Kyakhta center for international trade, but it is beyond the time frame of our research. The most ancient cases of The Kyakhta Customs, established in 1728, were destroyed by the fire of 1862, or a century later by the Soviet power. Therefore, we rely on the notes of a Russian trade commissioner in Beijing L. Lang, the documents of The Collegium of Commerce and the materials of The State Archives of Mongolia. In our opinion, the description of The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' archives of by the chief archivist of that period N. N. Bantysh-Kamensky is the most valuable. It is concluded that the true flourishing of foreign trade in the East in the 19th century was the result of elimination of duties and admission of all wishing citizens of Russia to the Kyakhta international bargaining; that was recorded in diplomatic treaties between Russia and China of 1764 and 1796.

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