Afanasy Nikitin (Russian: Афана́сий Ники́тин; died 1472) was a Russian merchant of Tver and one of the first Europeans (after Niccolò de' Conti) to travel to and document his visit to India. He described his trip in a narrative known as The Journey Beyond Three Seas (Khozheniye za tri morya). In 1466, Nikitin left his hometown of Tver on a commercial trip to India. He travelled down the Volga River, and although he was attacked and robbed by Tatars near Astrakhan he succeeded in reaching Derbent, where he joined Vasili Papin, the envoy of Ivan the Great to the shah of Shirvan. At Derbent, Nikitin vainly endeavoured to get means of returning to Russia; failing in this, he went on to Baku and later Persia proper by crossing the Caspian Sea He lived in Persia for one year. In the spring of 1469, Nikitin arrived at the city of Ormus and then, crossing the Arabian Sea, and making several prolonged stays along the way, reached the sultanate of Bahmani, where he would live for three years. From what he tells us, he appears to have made his living by horse-dealing. During that ime he visited the Hindu sanctuary of Perwattum, which he called "the Jerusalem of the Hindus". On his way back, Nikitin visited Muscat, the Arabian sultanate of Fartak, Somalia and Trabzon, and in 1472 arrived at Feodosiya by crossing the Black Sea. On his way to Tver, Nikitin died not far from Smolensk in the autumn of that year. During his trip, Nikitin studied the population of India, its social system, government, military (he witnessed war-games featuring war elephants), its economy, religion, lifestyles, and natural resources. The abundance and trustworthiness of Nikitin's factual material provide a valuable source of information about India at that time, and his remarks on the trade of Hormuz, Cambay, Calicut, Dabhol, Ceylon, Pegu and China; on royal progressesand other functions, both ecclesiastical and civil, at Bahmani.,and on the wonders of the great fair at Perwattum—as well as his comparisons of things Russian and Indian—deserve special notice. A few years after his death his unique writings were transferred to Moscow where they were saved and rewritten. In 1955, in the city of Tver, the homeland of Afanasy Nikitin, a monument was erected to commemorate him.
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Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afanasy_Nikitin. https://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-ru ... y-nikitin/