Sikkim's foreign trade in the 19th century and Russian foreign trade interests

Vladimir N. Shkunov

VAK Russia 5 UDC 9 CSCSTI 03.00 Russian Classification of Professions by Education 46.00.00 Russian Library and Bibliographic Classification 6 Russian Trade and Bibliographic Classification 7 BISAC HIS

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SIKKIM'S FOREIGN TRADE IN THE 19TH CENTURY AND RUSSIAN FOREIGN TRADE INTERESTS Sikkim's foreign trade in the 19th century and Russian foreign trade interests

АА Аа

Published in Asia, America and Africa history and modernity · Volume 5, Issue 3 · Pages 6–13 · Rubric: Cultural studies

EDN: MMJBDI

Received: 12.08.2026 Accepted: 09.09.2026 Published: 09.09.2026

Authors

Vladimir N. Shkunov

Samara Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Leading Researcher · Department of History and Archeology · Russian Federation · Samara

ABSTRACT

The article is devoted to the history of the development of foreign trade relations of the Kingdom of Sikkim during the 19th century. Special attention is paid to the country's trade relations with neighboring countries: Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, Assam and Bengal (as part of British India). The most important trade routes, channels of supply of goods, export and import items, features of trade organization, methods of transportation of goods in the conditions of the Himalayas, etc. are noted. The article presents an analysis of the observations in Sikkim of the Russian artist V.V. Vereshchagin, who traveled to the kingdom with his wife in 1875. The list of Russian goods that entered Sikkim in transit from the khanates of Central Asia, Xinjiang, Kashmir, Ladakh, Afghanistan and Tibet is given. The article contains a list of traditional Sikkim goods that were exported from the kingdom to neighboring countries. The role and importance of Buddhist monasteries of Sikkim in the development of foreign trade relations with foreign countries are analyzed. Examples of the activities of the British colonial authorities to strengthen their influence in Sikkim, including in the framework of the Sikkim expedition of 1888, are also given. The author uses specific research methods that are characteristic of works in the field of economic history.: statistical, historical-comparative, analysis, synthesis, etc. The methodological emphasis in the article is on source verification, cross‑cultural extrapolation and qualitative analysis of seasonality, trends and product niches. The presented article and methodological approaches open the way for further comparative studies of cross-border trade in the Himalayas and Central Asia in the 19th century. The article uses rare pre-revolutionary sources in Russian, English, and French.

KEYWORDS

Sikkim, Russian Empire, foreign trade, goods, export, import

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SIKKIM'S FOREIGN TRADE IN THE 19TH CENTURY AND RUSSIAN FOREIGN TRADE INTERESTS Sikkim's foreign trade in the 19th century and Russian foreign trade interests

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