[2] Prior to his voyage to Persia and India, Afanasy Nikitin was probably engaged in long-distance trade and had previously traveled to the Ottoman Empire, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Moldavia,[3] Wallachia, Georgia, Crimea, and other countries.

[4] In 1466 or 1468,[3][b] Nikitin left his hometown of Tver on a commercial trip, planning to trade in the lands around the Caspian Sea and go as far as Shirvan (in modern-day Azerbaijan).

Following the caravan of the returning ambassador to Moscow from Shirvan, Hasan Beg, Nikitin and his fellow merchants traveled further south.

He passed through Chapakur (Chapak Rud, where he remained for six months), Sari, Amol, Kashan, and Yazd before reaching Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.

The author of the Lvov Chronicle writes that he received Nikitin's notes in 1475 and incorporated them into his work but was unable to learn anything more about the traveler.

[14] During his trip, Nikitin studied the population of India, its social system, government, military (he witnessed war-games featuring war elephants), its economy, religion, lifestyles, and natural resources.

[1] The abundance and trustworthiness of Nikitin's factual material provide a valuable source of information about India at that time, and his remarks on the trade of Hormuz, Cambay, Calicut, Dabhol, Ceylon, Pegu and China; on royal progresses and other functions, both ecclesiastical and civil, at the Bahmani capital Bidar, and on the wonders of the great fair at Parvattum—as well as his comparisons of things Russian and Indian—deserve special notice.

[16] After studying Nikitin's account, and especially his references to Islam (much of India was ruled by Muslim sultans, and many Muslim merchants lived along the coast), particularly the prayers he transliterates from Arabic and Turkic into Cyrillic letters, Gail Lenhoff and Janet Martin speculated that Nikitin might have converted to Islam in India.

[22] However, Lurye characterizes Nikitin's religious expressions as "the peculiar syncretism of a man who acknowledged any monotheistic faith as 'true', if practiced with a pure heart".

[23] Scholars became aware of Nikitin's Voyage relatively early and prominent historians mentioned it in their works, such as Nikolay Karamzin (1766–1826) in his History of the Russian State (1817).

[24] A German translation of Nikitin's notes was also published in 1835 as "Reise nach Indien unternommen von einem Russischen Kaufmann im 15 Jahrhundert" in Dorpater Jahrbücher für Literatur.

[citation needed] In 1958, the Russian state-owned Mosfilm Studio and Indian director Khwaja Ahmad Abbas' "Naya Sansar International" production house co-produced a film entitled The Journey Beyond Three Seas with Oleg Strizhenov cast as Nikitin.

In 2000, a black obelisk was erected in Nikitin's honor at Revdanda, 120 km south of Mumbai, the probable location where he first set foot in India.

The power metal band Epidemia composed a song titled "Khozhdeniye za tri morya (Walking the three seas) about Nikitin's writings.