THE NOVGOROD-HANSA TRADE

By the thirteenth century eastern Europe's interlocking fur trade network had fragmented. Bulgar, temporarily stunned by the Mongol destruction of its markets, would resurrect its fur trade, but without the involvement of its Russian neighbors and for the benefit of its masters to the south. The fur center at Kiev, destroyed by the Mongols, would not recover its place in the trade network. The third center, Novgorod, would remain an active fur market. But its pattern of trade from the thirteenth century would contrast sharply with those of the preceding centuries. From the thirteenth century Novgorod's fur trade no longer overlapped with that of Bulgar or Kiev. And although Russian commerce with both the south and the east would revive, specifically along the Volga route in the fourteenth century, it would not be conducted by Novgorod. Rather, when it recovered from the general economic decline it suffered immediately after the Mongol invasion, Novgorod focused its fur exports on one region.

In the tenth century that region had received only token amounts of fur. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries it had been reorganizing its commercial relations. From the thirteenth century, however, it would be the chief consumption area for Novgorodian fur. The area was the Baltic region.

Novgorod's concentration on the Baltic market was encouraged in a paradoxical manner not only by the Mongol invasion, but also by a second invasion, the German drive eastward along the southern Baltic coast.