Abstract: The travel of the Russian merchant Afanasy Nikitin to India in the 1470s is often evoked, especially in official discourses, as a proof of "centuries long relations" between Russia and India. But, in fact, this accidental passage of a lonely merchant from the principality of Tver to the Bahmani Sultanate was just an episode without any consequences, neither for Russia nor for India, for several centuries to come. Afanasy Nikitin died on his way back home. Fortunately, his notes, that he had kept while in India (and/or on his way home), were preserved and passed to Moscow. But they remained little known till the beginning of the 19th century, when historian Nikolai Karamzin (1766–1826) unearthed them in the library of a monastery. Nevertheless, for about a century and a half, these notes (in the 19th century, they got the title "Хожение за три моря") did not attract much attention, either of scholars or of general public. It is only in the 1940s that the notes of Afanasy Nikitin began to be studied seriously in Russia. A lot remains to be done. In the meantime, Afanasy Nikitin has become a mythic figure, a hero of pseudo-historical novels and movies.

Keywords: Russia, the principality of Tver, India, the Bahmani Sultanate, 15th century, Afanasy Nikitin, "Travels Across (Beyond) Three Seas"