Talk:Muscovy Company

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Cut n paste from Reference desk in hopes some will prove useful (Wetman 04:14, 21 May 2007 (UTC)): English trade contacts with Russia go as far back as 1553, when the Edward Bonaventure sailed into the White Sea. Before long the port of Archangel became the main point of a thriving commercial exchange between both nations, and in London the Muscovy Company was established. With the foundation of St. Petersburg early in the eighteenth century merchants based in Archangel and Moscow made their way steadily to the new capital on the River Neva. As the new city grew British traders acquired some of the finest properties, so much so that by the end of the reign of Catherine the Great the area between Senate Square and the New Admiralty Canal was known as the English Embankement. The mansions on the Embankment became the home of a number of important business people and other British residents, including Edward Cazlet of the Petersburg International Commercial Bank, Margaret Chamberlain, whose father had established a large cotton printing and dye works near the city in 1753, and Thomas Warre, a partner in a leading trading house. There also was to be found John Rogerson, a Scotsman who was the physician to Catherine the Great, and later Sir James Wylie, another Scot, who was doctor to Tsar Alexander I.

The 1734 Anglo-Russian Commercial Treaty extended certain privileges to the Petersburg community, which, when allied with the importance of Russian iron, tallow and naval stores for the British economy, ensured a vigorous and expanding trading environment. It was even suggested that for Britain the Russian trade was more important than that with the 'whole of the tropics.' Edmund Burke, the great Whig politician and writer, considered Russia to be "the most useful ally Britain had in the commercail sense." Because of this the British government maintained a close interest in the trade, and the Russia Company, which succeeeded the old Moscovy Company, had much political influence. In the 1790s the Company even managed to campaign succesfully against the policy of Prime Minister William Pitt to force the Russians to give up the Ochakov Fortress, captured from the Ottoman Turks.

Although the privileges granted in 1734 wre eroded somewhat by subsequent commercial traties in 1766, 1793 and 1797, this had little effect on the general prosperity of the Petersburg community, which reached new heights towards the end of the century. Responding to French complaints about trade privileges granted to the British, Prince Potemkin responded "What would you like us to do, to behave in a manner detrimental to the needs of our merchants and landowners? The demand of the English for our goods is very great but ours for theirs is insignificant..." Russia continued to benefit from the inflow of English gold, as well as shipping services provided by British merchants, who were also the main suppliers of insurance and credit on the domestic market for goods destined for export. For the British commercial returns could reach as high as fifteen per cent, making life in Petersburg highly agreeable. James Brogdan, writing in the 1780s, found the life in Russia "in regard to variety of eating and drinking, far superior to the common made of living in England." Towards the middle of the nineteenth century a German observer commented sourly on the lifestyle and status of the English in the Russian capital;

...they have their own church and despising all other nations, but most especially their protectors, the Russians, they live shut up by themselves, drive English horses and carriages, go bear hunting on the Neva, as they do tiger hunting on the Ganges, disdain to lift their hats to the Emperor himself and proud of their indispensablness and the invincibility of their fleets, defy everybody, find fault with everything they see, but are highly thought of by the government and by all, because they think highly of themselves, and reside chiefly in the magnificent quay named after them.

Changing patterns of trade, growing competition from other nations, and the shift towards conducting trade from importing rather than exporting centres, brough a gradual decline to the merchant princes of Petersburg. Some held on to their position by diversifying into the Russian manufacturing sector, including Alexander Wilson, the British director of the Imperial Aleksandrov Manufacturing Plant. The Cazlet family aquired interests in tallow processing, as well as the Russian Steam Oil Mill Company and the Kalinkin Brewery. However, the heyday of the Petersburg community was over, so much so that James Wishaw was later to write in his memoirs "The English colony (especially those in society) was a large one and could dine out practically every night without meeting the same family twice. It was to decline all too rapidly in this respect, for the senior residents either retired or died off, and by the time of the Great War very few of the old families reamained." The coup de grâce was delivered in 1917. Clio the Muse 00:59, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

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The name of the people and the state?
The writing in the article about "Russia" and "Russians" is manipulative. The very name of the English company clearly indicates the name of the country with which they traded - Muscovy/Moscovia. And people there called themselves "muscovites" in those time. There are Constantinople peace treaty in 1700 where modern russian, still used that name for state and people. So, it's article either manipulative, or not accurate. In those times "russian/rus'/rusines/ruthenians people" it was name for Ukrainian and Belarusian people who was ancestors of Kyivan Rus' state. Muscovites invented to steal their name and history only in 1721, in order to claim the lands of the former Kyivan Rus. Actually, it was an invention of the Rusin/Ukrainian people of Kyiv-Mohyla academy, who was oppressed by Polish people in "Polish, Lithuanian, Ruthenian Commonwealth of Nations". the Ukrainians were Orthodox, and therefore invented an alliance with the Muscovites. And in Moscow at that time there was not even a higher educational institution. That is why the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy later opened a Slavic Latin Greek Academy in Moscow and Slavic Latin Greek Academy in Iiasy (now - Academia Vasiliană). The fact that the word Slavs is used in the name of the academy shows that Ukrainians(rusines/ruthenians in those times) did not consider Muscovites to be Slavs, as well as Romanians. They teached Slavic language for moscovites as foreign.

So, why we use wrong name in article for Muscovites and Muscovy? Bodia1406 (talk) 23:54, 15 February 2023 (UTC)


 * The charter literally says "Russia", so your claim is bullshit and you were already alerted about CTs. Mellk (talk) 03:30, 17 February 2023 (UTC)