Astrakhan and Its Surroundings According to Yan Pototsky's Travel Notes

Abstract

Considered one of the first travel writers of the modern era, Yan Pototsky is considered by his contemporaries a historian, linguist, geographer, archaeologist, naturalist, and scientist, and many other merits. Pototsky, who traveled to almost all Slavic lands, Europe, Asia, Africa, and many other places, wrote many articles after his travels. One of these travels is to Astrakhan, and the Caucasus made in 1797-1798. Pototsky devoted the first year of his trip to Astrakhan and its surroundings. This part was first published in the I and II issues of the Severny Archive Magazine which is published in St. Peterburg. Pototsky, who started his journey from Moscow on a spring day, first went to Serapta by land and then to Astrakhan in a ship. There is interesting information about other steppe peoples in this trip, especially Kalmyks, Kazakhs, Tatars, Cossacks, and Buddhists living in and around Astrakhan. Pototsky's journey is important in terms of showing the region's demographic structure at the end of the 18th century, being multicultural and multilingual. For this reason, the study will contribute to those who will research about the region in the historical and cultural context.