Siberian Route

The Siberian Route ( _ru. "Sibirsky trakt", Сибирский тракт), also known as the "Moscow Route" ( _ru. "Moskovsky trakt", Московский тракт) and "Great Route" ( _ru. "Bolshoi trakt", Большой тракт), was a historic route that connected European Russia to Siberia and China. The construction of the road was decreed by the Tsar two months after the conclusion of the Treaty of Nerchinsk, on 22 November 1689, but it did not start until 1730 and was not finished until the mid-19th century.

The route started in Moscow as the Vladimir Highway and passed through Murom, Kozmodemyansk, Kazan, Perm, Kungur, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Tobolsk, Tara, Kainsk, Tomsk, Yeniseysk, Irkutsk, Verkhneudinsk, Nerchinsk before terminating at Kyakhta, a trade post on the border with China. The camel caravans went from Kyakhta across Inner Mongolia to a Great Wall gate at Kalgan.

In the early 19th century, the route was moved to the south. From Tyumen the road proceeded through Yalutorovsk, Ishim, Omsk, Tomsk, Achinsk and Krasnoyarsk before rejoining the older route at Irkutsk. It remained a vital artery connecting Siberia with Moscow and Europe until the last decades of the 19th century, when it was superseded by the Trans-Siberian Railway and Amur Cart Road.

Tea Road

The Siberian Route was also known as the Tea Road, owing to the great quantities of tea that were transported from China to Europe through Siberia. Charles Wenyon, who passed by the "Great Postroad" in 1896, subscribed to the popular belief that "the best tea produced in China goes to Russia". [Wenyon, Charles. "Across Siberia on the Great Post-road". Ayer Publishing, 1971. Page 76.] In 1915 China exported to Siberia 70,297 tons of tea, which accounted for 65% of the country's overall tea exports. [M. I. Sladkovskii. "History of Economic Relations Between Russia & China". Transaction Publishers, 2007. ISBN 1412806399. Page 129.]

It was imported primarily in the form of hefty hard-packed tea bricks which allowed each camel to carry large quantities in a more compact manner [Mary Lou Heiss, Robert J. Heiss. "The Story of Tea: A Cultural, History and Drinking Guide". Ten Speed Press, 2007. ISBN 1580087450. Page 211.] and could also pass for units of currency. From Kyakhta tea was transported to the Irbit fair for further commercial transactions. Another popular Chinese import item was dried rhubarb root, which was sold west of St. Petersburg "for fifteen times what it cost in Kyakhta". [W. Bruce Lincoln. "The Conquest of a Continent: Siberia and the Russians". Cornell University Press, 2007. Page 146.]

References

; General
* Avery, Martha. "The Tea Road: China and Russia Meet Across the Steppe". Mandarin Books, 2003. ISBN 7508503805.; Inline

External links

* [http://www.tearoad.ru/ Tea Road and tourism in Kyakhta] ru icon