Anthony Jenkinson

Anthony Jenkinson (1529 - 1610/1611) was an English explorer and traveller. On behalf of the English Muscovy Company and the English Crown, he was one of the first Englishmen to explore Muscovy and present-day Russia. He made four expeditions to Muscovy, and met Ivan the Terrible himself several times. Jenkinson was born to property and wealth, and was trained to be a merchant. By 1568, Jenkinson had become a pivotal researcher for the Muscovy Company, with ties by marriage to the family of that company's founder. Anthony Jenkinson became the first English Ambassador to Russia in 1566, sailed from London, England, to land at Russia near the mouth of the Dvina River close to the convent of St. Nicholas at Nyonoksa. The journey brought him, by 1558, to Moscow. He traced a route south along the Oka and Volga Rivers, passing through the Khanate of Kazan and arriving in Astrakhan, near the Caspian mouth of the Volga. He then crossed the Caspian Sea, joining a merchant caravan and traveling for several months in the Tatar lands of the Nogai Horde, reaching Bokhara before deciding that wars and banditry blocked further passage. He returned to Moscow in 1559, and London the following year. Jenkinson produced a map based on these travels, which provided the basis for Ortelius' map of Russia in his 1570 Theatrum orbis terrarum. He would return to Russia in 1561, 1566 and 1571 to negotiate trade relations between Britain and Muscovy, treating with Ivan the Terrible personally. In addition to the map of Russia Ortelius published, Jenkinson's travel accounts were printed in Haklyut's Navigations. Moreover, Jenkinson's personal letters have survived to provide damning illumination of Ivan the Terrible's regime.