The conquest of Russian principalities in the first half of the thirteenth century by the Mongol Empire necessitated the creation of special services for maintaining all the contacts between winners and losers. These interactions were of various nature: the reception of Horde ambassadors, the visits of princes to the khan’s headquarters, and the transport of collected tribute. Nothing had changed when the Khan of the Golden Horde became the supreme sovereign of the Russian lands after the Empire’s collapse. The elements of these services (hereinafter, they will be called embassy services) that ensure uninterrupted contacts between the Khan and the Grand Dukes had been preserved and further developed. It is logical to presume that the Horde terminology was adopted in the Russian lands to designate the people who carried out these contacts. Here, some customs of the conquerors, such as the full provisioning of incoming embassies, had also been borrowed. Horde official practice,Footnote 1 visits of Russian princes to khans,Footnote 2 some elements of structures engaged in the organization of contacts with the Steppe,Footnote 3 and embassy roadsFootnote 4 have already been an object of study. However, the ambassadorial service as a stable and evolving system has almost not been studied from the thirteenth century until the Ambassadorial Prikaz was created. The only exception was the temporary Boyar Duma’s “commissions” created to conduct some negotiations or others.Footnote 5 We have an extremely limited range of sourcesFootnote 6 that make it possible to ascertain how the institution of foreign relations was formed on Russian lands in the pre-tsarist period and what people were engaged in it and what functions they performed. Nevertheless, the available archival evidence makes it possible to describe the ambassadorial service of the thirteen through sixteenth centuries in general outline. This period includes the time interval from the Horde conquest to the creation of the Ambassadorial Prikaz.

The contractual (dokonchalnaya) paper of 1270 (1268–1269) of Novgorod the Great with the Grand Duke of Vladimir and Tver Yaroslav Yaroslavovich has a record, which was contemporary to this monument itself and made on its backside by canon: “These are the ambassadors coming from the Tsar Mengou-Temir to appoint Yaroslav with the paper from Chevgou with baishis.”Footnote 7 L.V. Cherepnin came to the conclusion that this record was apparently made in Tver. The researcher understood the word baishi to mean the second ambassador’s name. However, we tend to consider it as a reference to his status of bakshi or bakshei. To gain control over Novgorod, the prince asked Tatars for help. The ambassadors seem to have come specifically for this purpose. Let us consider what the baksheis were.

At one time, V.V. Bartold gave a succinct explanation of this term:

Bakhshi is a borrowed word (probably from Sanskrit, bhikshu) that appeared in the Eastern Turkic and Persian languages in the Mongol era; it means, first of all, Buddhist clergy and, in this sense, corresponds to a Chinese ho-shan, Tibetan lama, and Uyghur toin. The scribes of Turkic origin, who must compile documents intended for the Turkic and Mongolian population in Uyghur script, were also called bakhshi. In the state of Indian Baburids, a bakhshi was a major official who was in charge of accounting for individual military units and paid them salaries. Currently, this word denotes a high spiritual rank among the Kalmyks, Mongols, and Manchus, a sorcerer and soothsayer who heals the sick with spells among the Kirghiz (dialect forms of bucks and bucks), a folk singer among the Turkmens (among the Kirghiz, bucks accompany their spells with the sounds of a musical instrument, such as a kobuz).Footnote 8

There also exists another etymological explanation of this notion. K. Reichl believes that it came from the ancient Chinese word pak-shi (in modern Chinese, bo-shi), which means a master or a teacher.Footnote 9Baksheis of Uyghur origin have long been a prominent part in the Horde chancelleries. In the state of Hulaguids (Persia), they were responsible for diplomatic correspondence and relations with foreign states.Footnote 10 In other sources, it is noted that the scribes who compiled documents in Uyghur script were denoted by this word there. The scribes specializing in the preparation of documents in Arabic graphics were called katibs or munshis.Footnote 11

People in this position or people with a generic nickname derived from the name of their ancestors' profession (Baksheevs) can often be encountered in the Russian documents of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, although they should have appeared a little earlier. Apparently, these people were responsible for the organization of contacts between the Russian princes and the Horde khans. They also seem to be in charge of all the correspondence with the Horde. Let us pay attention to the fact that the Russian term dyak (a clerk, a person associated with singing, a representative of cult) is practically the borrowed translation of bakshis. Originally, baksheis in the Russian lands seem to have been of Uyghur origin. Later, with the transition to Orthodoxy, they were Russified or replaced by Russian experts in Uyghur graphics. The people in such positions disappeared from the Moscow Grand Ducal Chancery with time. In parallel, they are steadily observed in the entourage of appanage princes or their heirs, who had lost this position by that time. At the same time, baksheis act as unfree servants with a high status. From the end of the fifteenth century to the end of the sixteenth century, high-quality translators of Oriental languages were started to be called baksheis in Moscow. They were distinguished by extremely significant monetary and local salaries among the specialists in foreign languages and, apparently, by confidence from the Grand Duke/tsar. At the very least, they were entrusted with the most important translations and were not sent on embassy trips because it was preferred for them to be always at hand.Footnote 12

In this case, the arrival of baksheis from the Horde at the end of the thirteenth century as part of embassies to the Russian princes was not accidental. Their official duties seem to include the translation and compilation of documents. However, this raises another question. It is regularly noted in the literature and sources that the Horde chancellery corresponded with the people who were a part of the empire in their native languages. However, the documents sent to the Russian lands were in the Turkic language of Uyghur graphics.Footnote 13 This phenomenon is still awaiting explanation. Meanwhile, it is possible to say that baksheis were transformed in the Russian principalities from scribes into the organizers of all official contacts with the Horde. Let us also point out that baksheis were also in the Kazan, Astrakhan, and Crimean khanates and the Nogai Horde. There are some indirect mentions of them in Turkey and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Lithuania had no special embassy service, and the functions of Russian baksheis seem to be fulfilled by Tatar scribes, but this word was also known there.Footnote 14

Bakshi were not exclusive people ensuring the stability of communications with the Horde khans and their officials in the Russian lands. In the granted Tarkhan unjudicial letter from the Yaroslavl Prince Vasilii Davidovich (Grozny) to the Yaroslavl St. Savior Monastery (approx. 1320), we read: “I grant the peoples from the Holy Savior in the city and in the villages to be given them two rubles for a year, and they do not need any tribute, yams, carts, tamgas, carpenters, or beavers. They are admitted to have neither stands in the St. Savior villages nor yards or other things. No stanovshchik is allowed to enter, no anything. No people are allowed to receive by my begoulis either a lodge or a stern.”Footnote 15 At the present time, the term begouli is translated as “bailiff.”Footnote 16 In the Mongol Empire, bokevyuls (bökevül) were courtiers and military officials. They could perform various functions related to the palace kitchen (cook, kitchen overseer, taster, protocol chief, etc.). In the army, this was the name for the people who stood immediately behind the emirs and were in charge of army supply. According to one version, this is a derivative from the Chinese borrowing, i.e., bokesun (bökesün), i.e., an official engaged exclusively in forage. This was also the term for bailiffs. Bokevyul is translated as “a servant who bends down.”Footnote 17 This suggests that these employees could perform the functions of presenting something to the monarch. These are the immediate duties of bailiffs, including the duties at various embassies. It is illustrative that begoulis are mentioned only in the Yaroslavl documents. The fact of the matter is that Vasilii Davidovich’s grandmother Princess Anna (the second wife of Fyodor Rostislavich Chernyi) was a Horde princess.Footnote 18 It is logical to assume that this term could have been borrowed from the local Grand ducal chancery exclusively due to this fact.Footnote 19

Begoulis are mentioned only once in a role close to the bailiffs at embassies. However, tolmaches were repeatedly mentioned in the charter papers in the same position during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The earliest of them, the charter dated to 1467–1474 from the Grand Duke Ivan III Vasilyevich to the Trinity St. Sergius Monastery contains a similar text: “for the people living in that village and rural settlements, and not my princes, and voivodes, and children of boyars, it is appointed, and for all sorts of travelers, they have no fodder, carts, or guides, and my bailiffs and tolmaches must not appoint Tartars or have any fodder and guides.”Footnote 20 It is important for us that tolmaches are consistently mentioned in conjunction with Tatars and mentioned in the same type of documents with begouls. It should be noted that, in the first half of the sixteenth century, the sovereign’s grooms were sent as bailiffs to meet Polish–Lithuanian ambassadors.Footnote 21 However, here it should be taken into account that the Polish and Russian languages were still quite close to each other and their native speakers could communicate without intermediaries. In addition to Tatars, some persons with clearly Russian names are also mentioned as tolmaches inclusively from the Tatar language. This fact is not so important in the framework of the problem considered, although it should still be pointed out.

The word “tolmach” (tylmač) is of Turkic (Kypchak) origin.Footnote 22 In the Russian language, its use started quite late, only at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in connection with the trip of Archimandrite Mitya to Tsargrad in 1379.Footnote 23 However, the earliest mention of this term identified to the present dates back to 1261. This is the communication from the Ipatiev chronicle: “And the ambassador (of Burandai Khan, A.B.) with Vasikl and three Tatars… and besides, a tolmach understanding Russian.”Footnote 24 However, it should be taken into account here that the copy of this manuscript dates back to the 1420s. In the Old Russian language, another word “tolk” was used for an interpreter (tolmach).Footnote 25 In the Novgorod lands, it was used as early as in the first half of the fifteenth century,Footnote 26 whence the same meaning was borrowed in the German (talk), Lithuanian (tulkas), Latvian (talks), and Estonian (tulk) languages.Footnote 27 It can be assumed that the replacement of “tolk” with “tolmach” in the western part of the Russian lands occurred around the middle of the fifteenth century. In Moscow, this transition seems to have taken place a little earlier. This term was used here throughout the fifteenth century. However, we should speak very cautiously about the XIV century. For example, this term is not used in the Laurentian Chronicle. There is another indirect proof of the late penetration of the word “tolmach” into the Russian language. It is not mentioned in the epics of the Kiev cycle. However, the later epics are already familiar with this word. Although we managed to encounter it only once (the epic “Luke, Snake, and Nastasia”).Footnote 28

In the Lithuanian metric, tolmaches are regularly encountered, starting with the reign of Grand Duke Casimir IV Jagiellonchik (1440–1492). With rare exceptions, the documents of this period are not dated. However, some indirect evidence including a mention of the Crimean Khan Mengli Giray allows them to be dated to the 1470s–1480s.Footnote 29

It is important to understand what these tolmaches represented. In the Russian principalities, some groups of service Tatars, whose function was to accompany princes and tribute to the Horde (Hordians, deluis, chislyaks), began to form at least from the fourteenth century. Their number (the number of people receiving the Grand ducal salary) was fixed. Therefore, sometimes documents call such Tatars chislenny persons (chislyaks).Footnote 30 According to the information from the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they were divided into groups of 100 and 50 people each, which in turn consisted of stanitsas of 3–7 Tatars led by a stanitsa head. A stanitsa was the minimal unit capable of carrying out its own missions. Depending on certain set goals, the number of stani-tsas in each parcel was strongly varied. In the second half of the sixteenth century, there were no hundreds and fifties. The stanitsas were known as early as in the seventeenth century. Service Tatars were observed in Moscow, Ryazan, Tver, and a number of apanage principalities. In A.A. Gorsky’s opinion, such service people were called delyuis in the domain of Vladimir Andreevich of Serpukhov and his descendants. When new territories were joined to the Moscow principality, such units were transferred to Moscow or lost their specialization. Their service, as a rule, had a family and hereditary character. There are currently some known families, whose continuous service as stanichniks (grand-princely Tatars) is documented for a century and a half. They were placed quite compactly and close to the capital cities. At the same time, they were apparently among the first to be transferred to the local system of salary for service. It is important to note that, in a number of cases in the sixteenth century, a tolmach is understood as a synonym of stanitsa head. For this reason, the tolmaches from the charter papers granted to the monasteries seem to have the most direct relation to the grand-princely service Tatars. When the Ambassadorial Prikaz was formed, they were included into it in the status of stanichniks (service Tatars of the Ambassadorial Prikaz) and tolmaches. At the same time, at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the notions of stanichnik (a service Tatar) of the Ambassadorial Prikaz and tolmach could not always be distinguished. In some cases, they were complementary to each other.Footnote 31

Let us also point to the fact that the term “tolmach” has long been a universal definition for specialists in interpretation and translation in the Russian lands. The word “translator” (a specialist in written translation) is encountered only from the last third of the sixteenth century. However, a term such as “kilichei” was used for some time, apparently, in addition to baksheis and tolmaches in an earlier period to designate a special category of specialists in Oriental languages. In the Horde offices, kilicheis (kelemechis, kelemeči) were translators and, possibly, a diplomatic representative inferior to an ambassador.Footnote 32 In the Russian tradition, this term seems to have been slightly transformed. Kilichei were known in Moscow and Tver in the second half of the fourteenth century. Their status was clearly higher there. This could have been the name for people, often boyars, who performed ambassadorial functions and, at the same time, had a good command of Oriental languages.Footnote 33

The problem of the language used by the Russian princes and the representatives of the khan’s administration to communicate to each other is not so simple. M.V. Moiseev showed that the language of communication with the eastern peoples at the end of the fifteenth and sixteenth century was Turkic.Footnote 34 In an earlier period, the situation seems to be similar. However, the khan’s official correspondence was initially conducted in Uyghur graphics and started to be replaced by Arabic graphics only later. The baksheis of the early period must have known the Uyghur script. In particular, this is indicated by the Uyghur postscript on the grand ducal documents, as well as by the fashion for vertical monograms among Russian clerks.Footnote 35 However, in the second half of the sixteenth century, there was not already anybody who would understand the Uyghur script in Moscow. This is clearly evidenced by a record from the inventory list of the tsar’s archive: “Box 148, and old defters from Batu and other tsars in it; there is no translation for them, and nobody can translate.Footnote 36

Thus, it is currently possible to talk about the following people who participated in the organization of contacts with the Horde in different periods: baksheis, kilicheis, begoulis, service Tatars (Hordians, delyuis, chislenny people), tolmaches. At the same time, similar structures seem to exist in all the grand principalities. They can be most clearly traced in Moscow and Ryazan.

In addition, a special service engaged in embassies was known in the Ulus of Jochi. William of Rubruck states:

We lived there together with other ambassadors, and, at the Batu court, ambassadors are generally treated differently than at the Mangu court. This is the court of Batu that has one Yam on the western side, which received all arrivals from the west, as well as from the other world countries. On the contrary, at the court of Mangu, all together are under the rule of one Yam together and can visit each other and see each other. At the Batu court, they are not familiar with each other, and one does not know about the other, whether he is an ambassador, as they do not know each other’s premises and see each other only at court. When one is called, the other may not be called, because they go to court only when called.

This system was managed by an official called a “yam’yam.”Footnote 37 This communication is interesting for us from several viewpoints at once. First, the system described is extremely close to the rules applicable to the foreign missions in Moscow of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Here, special inns were also allocated to embassies to ensure the envoys from different sovereigns did not communicate with each other. Second, this communication forces us to look for an analogue of such an institution in the Russian principalities. Perhaps, “kladezhny people…who fed ambassadors” as mentioned in 1496 in the Ryazan Principality are in the most direct relation to them.Footnote 38

The Ambassadorial Prikaz performing the functions inherent in the diplomatic division of the khan’s chancery and the Yam were mentioned for the first time only in 1549. This is what was previously unclear. However, it is possible to put forward several hypotheses. The yam service was also organized on the Russia lands on the initiative of khans.Footnote 39 However, this innovation was economically justified only if there was significant and relatively regular movement between yam stations. Under the conditions of sparse population and a peripheral location of Russian lands in relation to the other centers of the Golden Horde, this innovation might be clearly unprofitable, if it did not imply the transportation of tribute and other payments through the yams to the steppe in addition to the delivery of correspondence. Assuming that a significant part of funds sent to the Horde were transported not in relatively compact silver, but in the form of food stuffs and products (primarily bread and furs), which were counted as money, such a service became relevant. The yams must oversee a significant number of facilities for travelling people, horses, and food for them, as well as goods sent to the steppe.

However, we encounter an extreme lack of sources here, and this does not allow us to reconstruct such a service in detail. The available information can be interpreted within more than a significant range. M.M. Bentsianov considers the activities of yam clerks in situ as a temporary and not very honorable service given for feeding. The status of a feeder was supposed to make the service on organizing the yam service more attractive for the representatives of the local service community. At the same time, the researcher creates a picture, according to which the yam system represented a very branched network inherited in part from the Horde time as early as in the period from the fifteenth century to the first half of the XVI century.Footnote 40 When analyzing the information about yam clerks of the XVI century, D.V. Liseitsev comes to the well-founded conclusion that they belonged in fact to the department of the Grand Palace. A yam represents a storehouse of food supplies belonging to the Grand Duke.Footnote 41 However, the researcher associates the yams only with the Sytny Yard. In actual fact, not only drinks should be stored by the yams, which were widely spread throughout the state territory. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why the embassies had to travel from yam to yam. At the end of the sixteenth century, in particular, the bread grain collected for the sovereign from a one-tenth of the tilth could be stored here.Footnote 42 In an earlier period, it could be the grain sent to the Horde as a tribute. Apparently, the practice observed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the taxable population not only paid natural taxes (grain, fur, honey) for the sovereign, but also had to bring them to a designated place at their own expense or pay certain money for delivery, also had Horde roots. It should be pointed out that the provision of both Russian and foreign embassies travelling from the border to Moscow and back has many aspects, which include the interaction with authorities and society in situ and require particular research.Footnote 43

Hence, we come very close to the problem of identifying the ways in which the embassies travelled. It is logical to assume that many of them were more than conservative and were actively used as early as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In those days, it was possible to travel by land, on horseback or carts, or by water. River transport was especially convenient for large volumes of cargo, although it was also used for travel by embassies. I.Ya. Gurland has established several such routes by using the embassy books. His observations are interesting for us primarily because the road of embassies is marked as a trip from yam to yam.Footnote 44 The case of the arrival Siberian Khan Kuchum’s wives and children in Moscow captured in August 1598 allows us to reconstruct in part the path from Yaroslavl to Moscow. With significant gaps, it appeared as follows: Yaroslavl–Rostov–Pereslavl Zalessky–Radonezh–village of Tonino (Taininskoe)–village of Rastokino–Moscow.Footnote 45

Another road, along which the Horde embassies could move, passed from Moscow through Kolomna. V.L. Egorov suggested that, in the thirteenth century, the city was under the direct control of the Golden Horde and was transferred as a hereditary possession to a large Golden Horde family until the time of Ivan Kalita.Footnote 46 However, his conclusions were based on the very free interpretation of information from the spiritual and contractual letters of Moscow princes.Footnote 47 However, the presence of a certain ambassador in the city in 1390 is mentioned.Footnote 48 If the Horde’s representative was accommodated in the city, then we can suggest that there was a certain infrastructure for servicing such people (people providing security and material maintenance, translators, special courtyards for standing). Let us point out the fact that a significant fraction of grand-princely (tsarist) service Tatars providing contacts with the Golden Horde further with its successor states traditionally lived in Kolomna and Kolomna uyezd.Footnote 49 A bakshei lived in the city in the middle of the sixteenth century. His yard was in the immediate proximity of the grand ducal palace.Footnote 50

The road from Crimea to Vladimir is partially reconstructed by A.V. Azovtsev. In its steppe region, it was necessary to rely not on a well-developed road, but on the properly selected direction. However, for the long period of peace in the region, some base stations like caravanserais could also be on this way. In the forested area, in addition, crossed by many rivers, it was necessary to rely on fords and already existing roads. The road considered by the researcher rather precisely coincides the line connecting the Chongar Peninsula (now the Kherson region) and the city of Vladimir in the Mende Atlas. If the embassy road passed just in this way, this significantly facilitates orientation in the steppe. In the Russian border lands, this line strands a number of objects (located in close proximity to it), such as the mouth of the Nepryadva River–Lubyansk settlement—city of Mikhailov (Ryazan region)–village of Podlesnoye (Vypolzovo, Ryazan district of the Ryazan region), where the St. John the Theologian Monastery was located until the sixteenth century. Further, the road went to the lower reaches of the Vozh River. The ford across this river was presumably in the same place as for the road from the city of Rybnoye to the village of Istobniki (Rybnovsky district of the Ryazan region). Here, the river is the widest and, therefore, shallow. Further, the way went towards the Radovitsy St. Nicolas Monastery and then to Vladimir. Fords across the Oka River were located somewhere near the village of Seltsy (Rybnovsky district of the Ryazan region) or the village of Beloomut (Lukhovitsky district of the Moscow region). The first passed along the Kamorina Road, and the second passed the Kermedin Road. The route to Moscow was one of the side branches on the road to Vladimir and followed the Oka River upstream towards Kolomna (possibly, along the great winter Moscow Road).Footnote 51 The researcher emphasizes that there were previously a significant number of monasteries along this line. Later, when the main trade routes were displaced, they also changed their location or became obsolete and further disappeared. A.V. Azovtsev has noted that the last section of the road coincides with the pilgrims' route, which was described by M.N. Makarov and used in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is interesting that one of the settlements through which this road passed was the village of Kuplya also called Yam (Yegoryevsky district of the Moscow region).Footnote 52 Let us also add two more considerations, which indirectly support this version. Until the second half of the seventeenth century, the Batu Khan’s golden seal (paitsza) was kept in the St. John the Theologian Monastery and served as its security document.Footnote 53 Let us also point to the regular mention in the grand ducal/tsarist papers that a number of monasteries are forbidden to appoint tolmaches and ambassadors to monastic villages as written by us above. It seems that these two points are also quite clear markers for the identification of embassy roads. However, this work is just started and is attended with great difficulties, primarily, due to the poor state of sources. Archaeology data can be useful here, as well as analysis of ancient maps and toponymy. In addition, it should be borne in mind that the transport arteries including the embassy roads constantly changed their direction for one reason or another. This can be most clearly traced for the example of the road to the Crimea. During the second half of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the path of embassies has repeatedly changed in part due to the gradual advance of Russian cities inwards toward the steppe. Perhaps the discovery of remains from some homotypical structures located along the same lines at a nearly identical distance from each other will help in identifying the steppe paths. In this case, they will become a vivid illustration for the common stamp, which is encountered in the embassy correspondence of the sixteenth century and describes the following idyllic situation: “Orphans and widows walked in golden crowns between the yurts.”Footnote 54

D.V. Liseitsev raised the question of what served as a core for the formation of the command system at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Palace or the Treasury. Engaging in controversy with his predecessors, he claims that it was a Palace.Footnote 55 In real fact, the picture was more complicated. Apparently, the Grand Ducal Treasury and Palace were of equal importance. However, not one of these institutions could independently solve the constantly emerging new state problems. In particular, the maintenance of rapidly developing diplomatic contacts of the Moscow state was necessary from the last quarter of the fifteenth century. Coordination of many departments was required here. In the long run, this became a reason for the formation of the Ambassadorial Prikaz in the middle of the sixteenth century. It always had a more than modest income.Footnote 56 However, to maintain its missions, it acted as a kind of dispatcher for other prikazes, which were more or less engaged in servicing the foreign policy needs of the state. By this time, the main elements of embassy service already existed. It remained only to join them together finally. Researchers argue about the degree of Byzantine and Horde influence on the Russian court and embassy ceremonials.Footnote 57 The Horde’s influence on the organization of foreign policy service can be clearly traced. The Russian lands had to communicate closely with the Horde Khans for a very long period. The schemes developed for maintaining the contacts with the Horde from the thirteenth century were quite successful. However, the contacts with Western countries required the developed model to be modified slightly. At first glance, these borrowed elements are not so clearly visible in the structure of the Ambassadorial Prikaz. However, they can still be traced. The embassy clerks can be identified as early baksheis, but without the obligatory knowledge of Oriental languages. The service Tatars (stanichniks) and tolmaches more obviously retained their former duties. Here, it should be remembered that no “classic” foreign ministry model created by A.S. Belokurov actually existed.Footnote 58 Research shows that the Ambassadorial Prikaz was a dynamic system, which was constantly adjusted to the changing needs of the state.Footnote 59 The last traces of the foundations of the embassy service laid as early as in the thirteenth century disappear only in the eighteenth century.