The Influence of Chinese Culture on Russia

Influence of Chinese culture on Russia. How did Chinese Tradition of Tea drinking influence daily life of every Russian family.

Business Administration

The school of Management

Lika 丽卡

2015

How did China and Russia start cultural exchange between each other?

Recent archaeological findings show that cultural links between Russia and China formed much earlier than political and economic relations. Indirect cultural links between them existed from the previous millennium. Already in the tenth century, Central Asian merchants were exporting Chinese silk to Russia. After the thirteenth century, there were more ways for Chinese goods to reach the West. By this time, however, China had had contact with Russia for a long time. But when exactly did the cultural exchange between the two countries start? Even today, there is no single view on this matter. It is impossible to agree with those scholars who claim that “cultural exchanges between Russia and China began with the opening of the Silk Road during the Khan and Tang Dynasties.” In fact, Russia never did belong to the Hun, and during the late Khan period (first to third centuries), a single Russian culture did not yet exist. The earliest state of what would become the Russian Empire was Kiev Rus’, which was created only in the tenth century. Moreover, the Eastern Slav ethnos was formed no earlier than the fourth century.

According to currently available historical evidence, the earliest contact between the two cultures, Russian and Chinese, began in the period of the Golden Horde. In the first half of the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan’s grandson, Batyi Khan, campaigned in the West and created the Golden Horde, which included several principalities of Rus’ and the Lower Volga region with its capital in Old Sarai. The creation of the Golden Horde opened the way for economic and cultural exchange between the East and the West and, therefore, it created possibilities for contact between the Chinese and Russian cultures. In 1279, the Yuan Dynasty was established in China. Post stations were created on the way from Beijing to Old Sarai, and the ancestors of the two great nations, China and Russia, from that time on, maintained constant relations.

The greatest influence of Chinese culture.

“The first cup of tea moistens my lips, the second destroys my loneliness, the third slowly makes me forget life's setbacks, the fourth purifies my soul, the fifth lifts me into the realm of the gods who ignore me.” -

Wise Chinese tea master from Tang Dynasty.

Russia and China have one significant and important tradition for both of them. Tradition of Drinking Tea. Therefore the greatest cultural influence that Russia got from China is drinking tea tradition. In the realities of today's increasingly took the tea and everything connected with this ancient miracle drink. Moving across countries and continents, tea throughout his five-thousand stories organically and consistently fit into any culture, and, changing, has always remained true to himself.

How did Chinese tea found a place in Russia and Russian culture?

The history of its appearance in Russia is full of secrets, assumptions and legends.But we know for sure: only the highest quality tea was supplied to the royal family of the Imperator , and ordinary people could enjoy the taste of good tea in the numerous tea shops, which opened much as 5 o'clock in the morning - much earlier than other shops and cafes so from the earliest times tea became national drink for breakfast, lunch and dinner for both of children and adults. First, hetmans Ivan Petrov and Burnash Yalyshev, kazaks leaders, described tea after an expedition to China in 1567 on orders of Ivan the Terrible. Imperial Russia was attempting to engage China and Japan in trade at the same time as The East Indian Company. The Russian interest in tea began as early as 1618 when the Chinese embassy in Moscow presented several chests of tea to Tsar Michael Fedorovich.For the first time four pounds (65.5 kg) of tea were brought to Russia in 1638 by the Russian ambassador Starikov as a gift from the Mongol Khan for the Russian sovereign of Moscow Michael Fyodorovich. At first the tsar and the boyars were not particularly impressed with the astringent and bitter drink. When all