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CHAPTER 7

The Caspian Sea


Astrakhan, mouth of the Volga River

September 17, 1637

Bernie looked out on still waters. The Volga, at this point, was as wide as a lake, but they were still some distance from the Caspian Sea. And here they’d been welcomed with much more joy than concern. For one because, with freedom of religion as part of the United States of Russia constitution, the Muslims were confident of their ability to make pilgrimages that their religion demanded of them; but also because the gunboat represented proof that Czar Mikhail wasn’t leaving the city to the Ottoman Turks.

This was a more cosmopolitan city than any in the United Sovereign States of Russia, more than Ufa, Kazan, even more than Moscow. Here the Volga trade reached the Caspian Sea, where the Safavid Empire, Russia, and the Kazakhs all met and traded with one another. There were even merchants from China and India here. So the Ilya M. was considered more a demonstration that the United Sovereign States of Russia really was developing into a powerful industrial nation than a threat.

The only concern that the city, soon to be state of Astrakhan, had about ratifying the constitution was the duties that the federal government was going to impose on the Caspian Sea trade.

The city council was negotiating for all it was worth, but ratification was assured.

“Mister Zeppi . . . ” The voice had a Chinese accent and it went with the face of the Chinese merchant who had moved here ten years ago, before the Ring of Fire had happened.

Bernie turned. “Yes, Wong?” Chao Wong was a short, chubby man in silk.

“I wanted to try again to persuade you to take this lovely ship on a trip around the Caspian Sea.” He held up a hand. “Yes, I know the decision will be made by Czar Mikhail. But he listens to you. It’s well known.”

“Very well. Explain to me why, when we need to return upriver to persuade the other Volga states to ratify, we should take this lovely persuader on a pleasure cruise around the Caspian Sea to visit countries which are not now and are not likely to become Russian states.”

“Trade. Such a trip would accomplish two things. First, it would act as a reminder to the Ottomans and the Safavids that Russia has the means to defend the city. And, second, it will show the whole Caspian Sea that Russia can provide them with the tools they need to build their own steamships and factories. A source that is not the USE. A source which includes Muslim states, so will respect Islamic tradition and law. A source of safe and morally acceptable change.” Chao Wong was a Buddhist, not a Muslim, but he’d been dealing with Muslims for his whole career, and knew their wants and concerns. And most of the coast of the Caspian Sea was Muslim.

“I am particularly concerned that Grand Vizier Saru Taqi be made acquainted with Russian technology. He has a great interest in building and technology.”

Bernie turned back to look at the Caspian Sea. The waters were still here, but in spite of the fact that it was less salty than the Mediterranean, it was a sea. Smaller than the Mediterranean, but bigger than all the Great Lakes combined. It wouldn’t be like trying to cross the Atlantic in a riverboat, but a storm on the Caspian could sink the Ilya M. And that wasn’t the only danger. Bernie considered the Kalmyk Khanate.

The Kalmyk were much like the Kazakhs in that they were herders, but they hadn’t yet signed on with the United Sovereign States of Russia and it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that the local sultan would decide to prove his strength by taking the steam-powered gunboat. It was unlikely that such an attack would succeed, but Natasha was on the boat and he didn’t like the idea of her being in the line of fire.

Not that he was ever going to admit that out loud. Natasha wouldn’t appreciate it.

Then there was the Safavid Empire. It was a big, powerful state, even if Murad had taken Baghdad away from them a couple of years ago. He’d also taken Vienna away from the Austro-Hungarian empire just about as easily. And Grand Vizier Saru Taqi was indeed interested in building and new tech. But the guy was, according to the Embassy Bureau, also crooked as a dog’s hind leg and not averse to stealing what he wanted.

Bernie turned back to Chao Wong. “Not this trip, sir. You’re no doubt right about the need for such a mission, but if we’re going to do it, we should do it with a half a dozen gunboats and a thousand troops carrying AK4.7s, not the hundred we have with us. What we need, sir, right now is to stabilize our control over the Volga and Don rivers. For that, we need to be ratified by Tsaritsyn. And, for that, we need to be ratified by you folks here in Astrakhan. Once that’s done, we can revisit the idea of diplomatic missions to truly foreign powers.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Chao Wong said. “May I have the use of the radio?”

“Going over my head, sir?” Bernie grinned, but authorized him to use the gunboat’s radio. It was a big one with a directional antenna.


Ufa Kremlin

September 17, 1637

Czar Mikhail and Evdokia were in his private office having tea when the radio message from Astrakhan arrived.

Mikhail read it, then passed it over to his wife. Evdokia read it, grinned, and said, “Bernie’s worried about Natasha.”

“What? Where do you get that?”

“Think, husband. If it were just Bernie, would he be telling you that we should wait? Or would he be raring to go? And don’t you doubt for one minute that Natasha won’t realize it.”

“I think it’s a perfectly reasonable position,” Mikhail said.

“Yes, dear. I know you do, and you’re right. But you’re a czar, not a former football jock. Trust me. If Natasha wasn’t in the boat, Bernie would be all for trying to sack the quarterback.”

“And that’s what worries me about the mission that this Chao Wong wants. Safi is going to be worried that we’re getting ready to incorporate Iran as another state.”

The Safavid Empire’s official name was Iran. Its borders weren’t all that different from the borders of Iran in the atlases from Grantville. They extended from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf.

“Safi is too busy with his booze, drugs, and women to notice. What you’re worried about is Grand Vizier Saru Taqi. There hasn’t been a more conniving eunuch since Narses.”

“Who?” Mikhail wasn’t nearly the student of history that his wife was. It was the influence of Natasha and Brandy Bates.

“He was one of Justinian the Great’s generals and, according to Procopius, a conniver second to none.”

“All right, if you say so. But he can’t have been as much of a conniver as Saru Taqi. The only reason that Safi is still alive is that he spends his time drunk, stoned, or getting laid, and leaves governing to Saru Taqi. And Saru Taqi is going to see Bernie and the Ilya Muromets as a threat to his power. I don’t need a war with the Safavid Empire.”

“You won’t get one, not with Murad to their west. I’d be more concerned about Saru Taqi deciding that he can take the Ilya Muromets and apologize for it later. So what we should do is make the expedition too big for that.”

“How big?”

Ufa, as it happened, wasn’t short of riverboats. Over the past four years, and especially over the last two, river traffic had become steam powered on the Volga, and to an equal extent on the Don River. The change had started slowly, but had been growing exponentially as the presence of steamboats had demonstrated their utility.

Any riverboat owner who had the money converted their boat to steam. The rest just wanted to. Of course, many didn’t have the money, but having to compete with steamboats was putting them out of business, and their boats were being bought up by those who did have the money to convert them to steam. And in the last few months more and more of the steam riverboats had switched their allegiance to Mikhail as life around Muscovy got scarier and scarier.

“We have a couple of months before the Volga starts to freeze, but wouldn’t it be nice to have all those riverboats or at least a good number of them on the Caspian Sea when the ice makes the Volga impassable?”

“The Caspian Sea freezes in the winter,” Mikhail said.

“Only the northern part of it,” Evdokia returned.

In any case, it was true that most of the riverboats in the Volga wintered at Astrakhan because the Caspian froze a bit later than the Volga and thawed a bit sooner. So even before steam was added, a lot of the riverboats would keep working by migrating south, then would put up for the winter in Astrakhan. Which meant they were pulled up onto the shore at fairly extensive drydocks in Astrakhan, and sat there for the eighty to a hundred forty days that the river and northern Caspian were frozen. With the advent of steam, that had become even more pronounced. A steamboat was more profitable both because it was generally faster and because wood was less expensive than food for a couple of hundred people that you tied to the boat to pull it upriver.

There were a lot of former Volga boatmen in Ufa acting as stevedores and general workers. And most, though by no means all, of them considered their situation an improvement over their previous job. It did mean that there were plenty of people to operate spinning wheels and steam-powered lathes and drill presses, and all the other devices that now filled new factories and shops and every nook and cranny they could be fitted into. And production levels in Kazan were even higher.

Mikhail pulled his mind back to the problem. He really didn’t want the Ilya Muromets sitting in Astrakhan over the winter. It was a waste of resources. And even more, he didn’t want the other riverboats laid up for the winter. Especially the armed riverboats.

“How will we supply them?” Evdokia asked.

“That’s the problem,” Mikhail agreed. “They will need a supply base somewhere where the Caspian doesn’t melt.”

Evdokia considered. “We can’t do it anywhere on the west coast of the Caspian, not south of the winter ice, that’s all the Safavid Empire. And the east coast is all desert with no freshwater.”

Mikhail smiled at his wife. “Would you mind running over to the Dacha and seeing what they can offer in the way of a desalination plant?”

✧ ✧ ✧

With Bernie and Natasha in Astrakhan, the Dacha was run by Anya, the former slave who had shot Cass Lowry when he tried to rape Natasha. Anya worked from an orderly office about fifteen by twenty feet long. It had an up-time-style desk that had an in-basket and an out-basket. Anya spent her days emptying the ever full in-basket and filling the out-basket.

As Evdokia opened the door to Anya’s office, Anya was seated in her office chair with her feet on the desk, reading a file with a pencil in her hand. She looked up as the door opened and when she saw who it was, her feet came off the desk, but at Evdokia’s wave she didn’t start to stand. She did drop the file she’d been reading on the desk between the baskets and sat up. “Welcome to paperwork central, Your Majesty,” Anya said, waving to the couch along one wall.

“Not even close,” Evdokia said. “Tell me about desalination?”

“That’s just one aspect of water purification,” Anya said. “And that’s something we’ve been working on since Bernie met the slow plague in Moscow.” After Bernie Zeppi was recruited to be a translator of books at the Dacha, he’d learned of the slow plague that hit Moscow every summer. It was a consequence of a waterborne disease, and because of that the Dacha had been deeply interested in water purification.

“Up-time they could do reverse osmosis, but we can’t. Though there is good work being done, we aren’t there yet. We have to do it the hard way. We boil the water, collect the steam and end up with distilled water. These days, we avoid doing it when we can.

“For river water, just getting the water hot enough to kill the microbes is plenty, so that’s what we mostly do. The killing of the microbes is why the Dacha has been actively encouraging the drinking of hot tea. When you boil the water to make the tea, you’re killing the bugs.

“For seawater or any water with dangerous elements, you need to collect the steam and that takes a lot more energy, because you have to turn all the water into steam. I assume that’s what this is about?”

“No, it’s about having drinking water on the east coast of the Caspian Sea. We want to put a supply base somewhere on the east coast so that . . .  Never mind. But we want something that will provide water for a few dozen people over the winter.”

Anya chewed on the pencil as she thought. Part of why a woman who’d been essentially illiterate five years ago was now in effective charge of the United Sovereign States of Russia’s premier research and development center was that Anya had a phenomenal memory. It wasn’t eidetic, but it was very good. “There was something in one of the magazines. Good Earth, I think, or maybe Mother Earth News. It had something to do with sunlight.”

Vladimir Gorchakov had, as part of his mission in Grantville, managed to have just about every book and periodical in Grantville copied and sent to Moscow. Not translated, just copied. And even that cost a great deal of money. But by now both dachas, the Moscow Dacha and the Ufa Dacha, had fairly complete copies. And the Mother Earth News was right up there with the encyclopedias, at the front of the line to be translated.

“I’ll put a team on it, Your Majesty. When do you need the results?”

“As soon as possible.”


Astrakhan, mouth of the Volga River

September 18, 1637

The radio message that came back from Ufa the next day was long. Bernie considered it as he read it. Then he had one of the military aides the captain had assigned him find out where Chao Wong was.

Natasha had already read the message and was going to be busy for the rest of the day putting things in motion.

✧ ✧ ✧

Chao Wong’s business was on the ground floor of his house. He was an importer/exporter on this spur of the Silk Road. There were caravans, mostly Kazakh caravans, that brought goods from China and took other goods back the other way. In fact, one of Wong’s main concerns was the rail line from Ufa to the Aral Sea because that rail line threatened his business. However, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it, and Wong was a realist. The business consisted of an office and a shop where silk, tea, lacquered woods and Chinese porcelain were on offer, as well as furs from Russia and a new product, canned caviar. The Volga was rich in sturgeon and in the seventeenth century probably the best source of caviar in the world.

Bernie didn’t have a lot of time to look at the goods Chao Wong had on offer, because as soon as he arrived Wong broke off whatever he was doing and came over to ask Bernie what the czar had said.

“You’re going to get what you want, but not for a couple of weeks. We’re going to be going back to Ufa first, to collect some more armed riverboats, and some supplies, and then we’re going to want you to arrange a lot of supplies for . . . ” Bernie trailed off. Chao Wong was one of the leading figures in Astrakhan, even though he wasn’t officially part of the city’s government. They were going to need him and his connections for supplies, though once the winter closed in, they weren’t going to be able to get supplies from here. He didn’t need to know where they were going, or what they were doing. “We’re going to need a lot of grain and preserved fruits and vegetables and a fair amount of preserved meat.”

“What for?”

“Something Czar Mikhail wants us to do.”


Ufa Kremlin

September 21, 1637

“How was your trip?” Czar Mikhail came around his desk and took Bernie’s hand.

“Confusing, Your Majesty,” Bernie said, shaking the proffered hand. “We got to Astrakhan and someone changed our mission. What’s this all about?”

Mikhail waved Bernie to the couch. “Oil. We’ve been putting together what the twentieth century knew about Russia, and what our friends the Kazakhs are telling us, and we are pretty sure that there are extensive oil fields on the east coast of the Caspian Sea. We don’t think that the Safavids know that yet, though they are already exploiting oil wells on the south end of the Caspian. Right now, no one lives on the east coast of the Caspian Sea. There’s no freshwater, no wells, no rivers. It’s desert, and cold desert, at that. But under that desert, there is probably a lot of oil. We want to already be there when the Iranians, the Bukhara Khanate and especially the Khiva Khanate, realize that there is something of value under all that sand. Right now, no one actually owns the place. Arap Munhammad died in 1623 and they haven’t had a stable government since. Besides which, ninety percent of their population is centered in the oasis south of the Aral Sea. Like I said, there is no one there. Because there’s no water, so no food, there.”

“Well,” Bernie said, sounding disgusted, “if you’re going to catch the imperial bug and start seizing territory, at least you’re not seizing land other people are living on.”

“The imperial bug, as you call it,” Evdokia said, “isn’t a disease. It’s a job requirement. We, our people, are going to need that oil, and we don’t want the Iranians to be able to jack up the price. We have the beginnings of the industrial revolution going on here in Russia, Bernie, but that revolution needs oil just like it did in your timeline. I don’t want our people sent back to subsistence farming and serfdom because we can’t run the machines that release them from the land.”

Bernie looked at her, then stood and bowed. “You’re right, Your Majesty. I spoke without thinking. So what do you want us to do?” He sat back down.

“Just what I said. I want you to put a well-supplied and defensible base on the east coast of the Caspian, below the freeze line.” There wasn’t a firm freeze line per se. The northern third or so of the Caspian Sea froze in winter, and there were chunks of ice all over the Caspian, but it was generally safe to run boats over the southern two-thirds or so. Mikhail waved Bernie over to his desk, where there was a map of the Caspian Sea. That map was based on up-timer maps, but also on what they already knew. Mikhail pointed at a place on the map where a city named Aktau was located. “There is nothing there now, from what little we can discern from encyclopedias. The up-time USSR established a city there after they found uranium in the area. But by the late 1990s, it was the prime location in Kazakhstan for the support companies for oil drilling.

“I don’t insist that you put the base there, but find some place around there where you can build a base. Docks, distilleries for distilling water, facilities to store and refine oil, eventually all that. For right now, I want enough of a presence there so that we can accept a petition for statehood from the residents.”

After that, they got down to planning.


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