Kyakhta

Kyakhta stands on the river of the same name, at the meeting of the Russian and Mongolian worlds. Its Buryat name refers to a place covered with couch grass. Founded in 1727 after the treaty that fixed the frontier between Russia and the Qing Empire, it became a trading point opposite the Chinese settlement of Maimaicheng. A wooden fortress and church at nearby Troitskosavsk guarded the Russian side of the frontier.

Before 1762, state caravans travelled between Kyakhta and Beijing; thereafter merchants conducted much of their business by barter at the frontier. Russian furs, textiles, leather and cattle were exchanged for Chinese tea, silk, porcelain and other goods. When the English traveller Samuel Bentham visited in 1782, he found two neighbouring settlements joined by commerce despite the political boundary between them. The tea trade made Kyakhta's name familiar far beyond the steppe.