ABSTRACT
Asian trade routes have always interested historians, but most of our knowledge is limited to the long-distance routes and those with major traffic. We know much less about local routes leading to the periphery of the world as known by Europeans in olden times. Mongolia, however, was not so peripheral as many seen to have believed. The Secret History of the Mongols (§ 182) mentions a Muslim merchant called Asan (= Hasan) coming from the south to the Argun River, where he wanted to trade sheep for sable and weasel furs. This happened before Jenghiz Khan unified the Mongols into a mighty state. In this paper I would like to speak about a little-known direction — namely that from the south, the Chinese-influenced Mongolia, to the north, Siberia; and about a very little-known peripheral area, namely the Sayan mountains and the area of the Xȯvsgȯl Lake, in Mongolia. Today the Sayan area is divided politically: Tuva, South Xakassia and part of Buryatia belong to the Soviet Union, whereas the Darxat region belongs to Mongolia. In olden times this area was one political entity with a mixed population, speaking the Turkic, Samoyed and Mongolian languages.
