The centuries-long confrontation between Russia and Sweden – which by the late sixteenth century had clearly grown into a broader fight for supremacy in the Baltic space – has tended to eclipse the underappreciated reality of intensive commercial ties between the two rivals. Yet such relations were not only of very long standing but had centuries earlier effectively given rise to Russian statehood in the era of Kievan Rus'. Even in the early modern era, they continued to be of considerable importance for both countries, both at the level of the adjacent border regions and the broader context of the national economies. In spite of laudable efforts by writers such as Artur Attman, Helmut Piirimäe, and Igor' Shaskol'skii, even the historiography of early modern Russian foreign trade has tended to dwell above all on White Sea trade, which was triggered by the English Muscovy Company in the sixteenth century. Naturally, it was undoubtedly the Dutch commercial superpower of the era – assisted by north German and English merchants – that paved the way for Russia's economic integration in the broader European economy. Nonetheless, this remarkable success story never undermined or substituted for Russia's long-standing commercial relations with its geographic neighbours. While the remarkable rise of Arkhangelsk inevitably led to a decline in the relative importance of trade in the Baltic, trade with the ascendant Swedish realm constituted an important aspect of Russian trade policy throughout the seventeenth century.