Rasht

Rasht was a market town in the Gilan lowlands near the Caspian coast. In the fourteenth century it belonged to Bia-pas, western Gilan, ruled by the Sunni Eshaqvand dynasty from nearby Fuman.

The silk trade through Bandar-e Anzali enriched Rasht. In 1572 Jamshid Soltan moved the Bia-pas capital there from Fuman; after Shah Abbas I abolished the local dynasties in 1592, it became the seat of Gilan’s governors. Stenka Razin’s Cossacks sacked the city in 1669, and Russian troops occupied it from 1722 to 1732.