Astrachan is a wealthy city, and the great emporium of the Tartars, which gives its name to all the surrounding country. It lies on this side of the Volga, near to its mouth, ten days' journey below Kazan. Some say that it is not situated on the mouths of the Volga, but some days' journey thence. I think that the position of Astrachan is at that point where the Volga divides itself into many branches, described by some as seventy in number, and after making many islands, falls into the Caspian by the same number of mouths, with so great an abundance of water, that to people looking from a distance it has the appearance of a sea. There are some who call the city Citrahan.
Between Viatka and Kazan, in the neighbourhood of Permia, dwell the Tartars, who are severally named Tamenskii, Schibanskii, and Cosatzskii; of these the Tamenskii are said to dwell in the woods, and not to exceed ten thousand in number. There are, moreover, other Tartars beyond the Volga, called Calmucks, because they alone let their hair grow; and on the Caspian Sea is Schamachia, which gives its name to the country around it, and whose inhabitants excel in weaving silk dresses. The city is six days' journey distant from Astrachan, and was not long since, they tell me, subject, together with its district, to the King of Persia.
The city of Azov, of which I have already spoken, is situated on the Don, and is seven days' journey distant from Astrachan. It is five days' journey from the Taurica Chersonesus, reckoned principally from the city of Precop. Between Kazan and Astrachan, in an extensive tract along the Volga as far as the Dneiper, lie desert plains, which are inhabited by Tartars, having no fixed abodes, with the exception of Azov and the city of Achas, which lies on the Don twelve miles above Azov, excepting also those Tartars Avho live in the neighbourhood of the lesser Don, and who cultivate the soil and have settled habitations. The distance from Azov to Schamachia is twelve days' journey.
