Introduction

The trade in non-baptised nemci (‘German’ or ‘foreign’, understood as ‘northern European’) formed a luxury business and was profitable even over long distances. This kind of slave trade did not start only in the sixteenth century along Russian rivers, as appears in written sources, but is continuous from the age of the Vikings. The reason for the expansion in the written records is merely state formation and the growth of administration, which produced new kinds of written material. In fact, this process led to prohibition of the old business. The prominent role of nemci in the slave trade did not mean that Germans or Swedes had some special qualifications that were especially in demand in the Middle East. The concept only distinguished blonde slaves from others in the trade on the Volga. ‘White’ (i.e. fair-coloured) slaves were especially expensive in the southern markets. Baptism formed one restriction in the business from the perspective of a rising state power. The concern was not religious, but baptised people were the ruler's taxpayers and so part of his wealth, according to the thinking of mercantilist economists.

Nemci girls for sale

When the Nogai ruler Izmail-bek sent a delegation headed by the high-ranking diplomats Temer and Bek-Cüra to Moscow in the late summer of 1561, one of the things he ordered Bek-Cüra to buy for him was two nemci girls (Gramoty: 174).