A Journey Beyond the Three Seas

A Journey Beyond the Three Seas (Russian: Хожение за три моря, romanized: Khozheniye za tri morya) is a Russian travelogue in the form of travel notes, made by Afanasy Nikitin, a merchant from Tver, during his journey to the Indian subcontinent in 1466–1472.

[1][2] A Journey Beyond the Three Seas was the first Russian literary work to depict a strictly commercial, non-religious trip.

However, most of the notes are dedicated to India, its political structure, trade, agriculture, customs and ceremonies.

Its last page is in Turkic and broken Arabic; these are, in fact, typical Muslim prayers, indicating that Nikitin might have converted to Islam while he was in India, although his lapse from Christianity bothered him as he mentions several times in the text.

The author did not make his way back to his native land; he died on the trip home.