Petlin's report on the road to China (1619)
A Tomsk Cossack's account of the first Russian journey to Ming China, 1618 to 1619.
Full title Report (rospis) on the Chinese state, the Lob state and other settled and nomadic states, uluses, the great Ob, rivers and roads (1619)
Роспись Китайскому государству и Лобинскому и иным государствам, жилым и кочевным, и улусам, и великой Оби, и рекам и дорогам
Ivan Petlin, Tomsk Cossack
Ivan Petlin, a Cossack of Tomsk, travelled in 1618 through the lands of Altyn Khan in western Mongolia, across the Gobi and the Great Wall, to Beijing, and wrote his report in 1619. It describes the route and the peoples along it, with second-hand notes on the Ob and Lob regions. An English version appeared in Purchas in 1625. The atlas does not hold the text: the card cites a 1966 Soviet edition and a 2014 web text, and no Internet Archive scan of the 1966 book was found, so nothing is stored in the corpus.
- How they knew
- Part eyewitness
- Who “Tartar” means here
- The card lists Kalmyks (Oirats), Mongols, Kirghiz and Siberian Tatars among the peoples on the route. How Petlin uses the word Tatar is not recorded here.
- Why read it
- The first Russian eyewitness route description from Siberia through Mongolia to Beijing, and the source behind Purchas's English version.
- Watch out
- Two textual variants exist, and Purchas garbled many names. The Ob and Lob sections are hearsay. The atlas quotes nothing from this work.
What it says
No quotes from this one yet. Its text is out of reach for now, or the scan could not be read.
The fine print
How we know
firsthand The author saw the places or people described.
firsthand observation of the 1618-1619 route Tomsk, Altyn Khan (Khotogoit Mongols), Mongolia, Great Wall, Beijing; the Ob and Lob passages are informant hearsay
Research notes
- Two textual variants; the 17th century manuscript tradition diverged and western printings (Purchas) garbled names; Lob and Ob sections are hearsay. vostlit states source edition and OCR credits.
- No IA scan of the 1966 edition located (zero hits).
Why it matters
First Russian eyewitness route description of Mongolia and northern China (1618), the basis of the Purchas 1625 English version; documents the Altyn Khan polity between Siberia and the Ming.
Places named
Tomsk; Altai; western Mongolia (Altyn Khan); Gobi; Great Wall; Beijing; Ob basin (hearsay)
Peoples named
Kalmyks (Oirats); Altyn Khan (Khotogoit); Mongols; Ming China; Kirghiz; Siberian Tatars