The East India Company - Roots (fw)

[Bala Pillai <bala@malaysia.net>]

A Summary of the History in Trade in the Eastern Bloc
http://www.theeastindiacompany.com/archives/FSU.html

                            Some of the original founders of the East India
Company had been involved in the establishment of trading routes via
Murmansk into Russia. This commerce in English staples such as woolen
broadcloth and metalwares continued whilst the East India Company was
developing its own trade in South East Asia and India, but the resulting
interest all over Europe in eastern textiles - silks and calicoes - and
porcelain as well as spices, meant that the East India Company gave birth
to a thriving re-export trade from the U.K. East India Company goods found
their way as far as the Russian court, and the palaces and cities of the
Holy Roman Empire, Prussia and Poland sought to acquire these new and
exotic eastern products. This interest was reflected in the scientific and
cultural life of Eastern Europe, and with Kepler under the patronage of
Emperor Rudolph, the court in Prague developed great skills in the fields
of cartography and astronomy which spread later to Budapest.

Whilst these developments were part of the general thirst for knowledge
that the opening of the sea lanes to the East had generated, the reign of
Peter the Great of Russia ( 1672 - 1725 ) saw the change of Russia under
the mediaeval Boyars system to a modern state in the Western European
model. It is no coincidence that Peter's inspiration was the great
mercantile city of London. He spent three months there in 1697, dividing
his time between the city and the Royal shipyards at Deptford. When he
returned to Russia to found St.Petersburg he took with him 500 English
engineers, builders and artisans, and the great dockyards they built were
part of his vision of that new city as a thriving commercial centre, as
well as a model for the future social and political state of Russia. The
current resurgence of interest in Peter since the collapse of Communism
reflects his global perspective.

Prussia and the Holy Roman Empire both made abortive attempts to get
involved in the Eastern trade, and Russia's heavy consumption of tea led to
a number of private traders finding their way to China. There failed to
emerge, however, an equivalent to the East India Company of any
significance from these countries.