lettered by Abraham Ortelius, 1570
Place · settlement

Kyakhta

What the sources say here: 2 passages

CitiesKyakhta (Altanbulag, Mongolia)1770s

Maimachin: a wooden frontier town guarded by Mongols

Editorial contextFollowing Pallas, Coxe describes the Chinese trading town of Maimachin facing Russian Kiakhta, with frontier posts inscribed in Russian and Manchu. Its only defence was a wooden wall and a small ditch dug in 1756 during the Qing wars with the Kalmyks (Dzungars), and its gates were watched by a garrison of Mongols in tattered clothes armed with clubs.

Maimatschin has no other fortification than a wooden wall, and a small ditch of about three feet broad; the latter was dug in the year 1756, during the war between the Chinese and the Calmucs … over each of these gates there is a wooden guard-house for the Chinese garrison, which consists of Mongols in tattered clothes, and armed with clubs.

William Coxe (from P. S. Pallas's travels)
See the original page (p. 215)

About Chinese merchants; Mongol garrison of the Qing

Keep in mind

The following pages describe the town's one-storey wooden, plastered Chinese houses; those are Chinese, not Tartar, buildings.

Continue in this sourceWilliam Coxe on the Russian conquest of Siberia and the China trade1780 · 11 passages
The nameKyakhta, Buryatia1823

'Mongul Tartary' beyond Lake Baikal

Editorial contextHolman calls the whole country between Lake Baikal and the trading towns of Kiakhta (Russian) and Maimachin (Chinese) 'Mongul Tartary', wild and rugged and full of wild animals. Here the old map name Tartary survives as a regional label. A page earlier he describes the Buryats as 'of Mongul origin'.

The whole country between these points and the Baikal, which has the name of Mongul Tartary, is wild and rugged in the extreme, and often dangerous to the traveller in consequence of the great number of wild animals that inhabit it.

James Holman (1825)
See the original page (p. 138)

About Mongols and Buryats

Keep in mind

Holman did not travel to Kiakhta himself; this is a general description.

Continue in this sourceThe blind traveller's journey through Siberia1822 to 1824 · 7 passages

5 sources and maps name this place

  1. 1727–1736a range
    Journal of Two Journeys made in 1727, 1728 and 1736 from Kiakhta and Tsurukhaitu through Mongolia to Peking…
    WLorenz LangefirsthandW277
  2. 1731exact year
    Secret information on the strength and condition of the Chinese state
    WCount Sava Vladislavich-Raguzinsky, Russian…firsthandW173
  3. 1776exact year
    Map of a Part of the Tobolsk and Irkutsk Governorates from the Yenisei to the Amur, showing especially the…
    MPeter Simon PallascompilationM034
  4. 1826–1828a range
    Notes on Mongolia
    WHyacinthmixedW177
  5. 1842exact year
    Record of the Sacred Military Exploits
    WWei YuancompilationW135