Elena Vyacheslavovna Bakaldina,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, The Saint-Petersburg Roerich Family Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Information about Hankow in the S.N. Milyutin’s Letters to Members of the Botkin Family
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2023-3-4
In the Department of Written Sources of the State Historical Museum in the Botkin Fund there are two blocks of letters from Sergei Nikolaevich Milyutin, written by him in the mid-1880s – early 1890s from the Chinese city of Hankow. The first block, addressed to one of the heads of the tea trading company “Petr Botkin’s Sons” Petr Petrovich Botkin, contains information of a business nature, the second – to Anna Petrovna Pikulina, nee Botkina, her godmother, consisting of letters of a descriptive and entertaining nature. Sergei Nikolaevich Milyutin, a Moscow tradesman, a graduate of the school at the Lutheran Church of Sts. Peter and Paul in Moscow, first worked in the Moscow department of the tea trade partnership “Petr Botkin’s Sons”, then, in 1883–1892, an employee of the firms “Pyatkov, Molchanov and Co.” and “Molchanov, Pechatnov and Co.” in Hankou. At the same time, he represented the interests of the tea trading company “Petr Botkin’s Sons”. Familiar with customs procedures and local conditions, with knowledge of languages, Milyutin in 1891–1892 applied for the position of a special agent of the Volunteer Fleet in Hankow. Milyutin’s letters are an important source on the life of Russian tea merchants in Hankow. The author shares details of the daily life and activities of tea merchants, reports on relationships with colleagues and competitors, warns of unrest in China and the readiness to resist these attacks. Milyutin also talks about the holidays held, about significant events – a visit to Hankow by Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich, Archimandrite Anatoly Tikhai, and the gunboat “Sivuch”. And although there is information about some of them from other sources, the details conveyed by an eyewitness to the events who took a direct part in them give additional value to his letters.
Publishing: 28/06/2023
The article has been received by the editor on 28/02/2023
How to cite: Bakaldina E.V. Information about Hankow in the S.N. Milyutin’s Letters to Members of the Botkin Family // Historical Courier, 2023, No. 3 (29), pp. 51–66. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2023/ISTKURIER-2023-3-04.pdf]
Links: Issue 3 2023
Keywords: S.N. Milyutin; Botkins; Hankow; China; tea trade; Volunteer Fleet; letters; merchants