RUSSIAN EMPIRE IN ASIA. Ui 



mouth of the river Ochota, on a gulph of the Eastern Ocean, called 

 the sea of Ochotsk. 



Bolchetskoiostrog, which has the title of capital of Kamtschatka, 

 and is the residence of the governor, contains about 500 houses pretty- 

 regularly built. 



Manufactures, commerce. ...There are manufactures of leather 

 and isinglass at Astracan ; and a considerable trade is carried on there 

 m salt, produced in great quantities from the salt lakes and marshes 

 in the vicinity of the Caspian sea : as also in fish pi-ocured from the 

 same sea. The principal trade of Siberia is in sables and other furs, 

 which are purchased with avidity by the Chinese, who in return bring 

 tea, silk, and other commodities. The trade of the Kirguses and 

 Bucharians with Orenburg and Omsk has been mentioned in the ac- 

 count of Independent Tartary. 



Religion. ...Some of the Tartars since the Russians have been 

 settled in their country have become converts to Christianity ; but 

 the greater part of them still remain attached to their old supersti- 

 tions. 



Tobolsk is a Greek archbishopric; Irkutsk and Nershinsk are 

 bishop's sees. 



Antiquities. ...In the environs of Astracan the ruins of ancient As= 

 tracan are very visible : and the rubbish and ramparts of another re- 

 spectable town still exist near Tzaritzin, on the left shore of the Volga, 

 A little below the mouth of the Kama, which empties itself into the 

 £»bove mentioned river, are many superb monuments of the ancient 

 city Bulgari, consisting of towers, mosques, houses, and sepulchres, 

 all built of stone or brick. The oldest epitaphs have been there more 

 than eleven centuries, and the most modern at least four hundred 

 years. Not far from hence, on the Tscheremtscham, a little river 

 that runs into the Volga, are found ruins somewhat more injured by 

 the depredations of time : they are those of Boulmer, an ancient and 

 very considerable city of the Bulgarians. The Tartars have erected 

 upon its ruins the small town of Bilyairsk. In the fortress of Cazan 

 is a monument of the ancient Tartarian kingdom of that name. Its 

 lofty walls are so broad, that they serve at present for ramparts ; the 

 turrets of which, as well as the old palace of the khan, are built of 

 hewn stone. Ascending the river Kazanha, we meet with epitaphs, 

 and the strong ramparts of the old city of Kazan. Near the Uiaare 

 cemeteries full of innumerable inscriptions, and several sepulchral 

 vaults. The ramparts of Sibir, the ancient capital of Tartary, are 

 still seen near Tobolsk, upon the Irtish. The lofty wails of Tontoura 

 appear yet in the Baraba, a little gulph in the river Om ; and near the 

 mouth of the Ural are the ditches of the city Saratschik. 



In many parts of Siberia, particularly near the river Jenissei, are 

 stone tombs with rude sculptures of human faces, camels, horsemen 

 with lances, &c. In these tombs are found human bones, as also the 

 bones of horses and oxen, fragments of earthen-ware, and various 

 ornaments and trinkets. 



History. ...The Russians, though they had made some incursions 

 into the interior parts of Asia as early as the middle of the fifteenth 

 century, under the reign of John Basilides, or Ivan Vassilievitch, had 

 no fixed establishments there till nearly the middle of the sixteenth ; 

 when Trogoncff or Strogonoff, a Russian merchant of Archangel, hav- 

 ing found mean* to open a trade for furs with Siberia, the czar thqp 



