But soon a new tempest burst forth, more terrible than any of those which had before shaken the soil of the East. In 1453, Mahomed II. seized Constantinople, and twenty years later all the Genoese colonies fell one after another into the power of the Ottomans. It was in vain the Venetians strove to appropriate the commerce of the Black Sea and the East; their efforts were fruitless, and the closing of the Dardanelles was peremptorily declared. The old communications between Europe and Asia were thus severed, and for many years the precious commodities of the East ceased to find their way towards Europe. But as they were in great demand, and were very costly, merchants contrived to find a new passage for them, and Smyrna became their entrepôt. The situation of that town, however, was far from compensating for the disadvantage of a long, perilous, and expensive land carriage. Hence the Indian trade remained in a languid state, until Vasco de Gama's discovery opened a new route for the people of the West.
Smyrna retained the monopoly of the Eastern trade for more than 250 years; and until the middle of the seventeenth century, Persia was the first entrepôt for Indian productions, which arrived there by way of the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Beloochistan. They were partly consumed in the country, and the rest was conveyed either to Smyrna by Erzeroum and Bagdad, or into Russia by the Caspian Sea and Georgia. In consequence of this great commercial revolution, the regions now constituting the south-eastern provinces of Russia, lost all their importance with regard to the traffic between Europe and Asia. The great entrepôts of Caffa and Tana having fallen into decay, all the routes leading to them were forsaken. The great caravans of the Volga and the Kouban disappeared, the navigation of the Caspian was almost annihilated, and Astrakhan was reduced exclusively to local commerce with the adjoining districts of Russia.
A hundred years after the taking of Constantinople, Ivan the Terrible planted his victorious banner on the shores of the Caspian, and the old city of the Tatars of the Golden Horde fell under the Muscovite sway. Ever since that event, historians have had to record but a long series of disasters, mistakes, and decadence. It appears, however, that under the reign of Ivan the Terrible and his next successors, Astrakhan still continued to supply Russia with the productions of Persia, and with some of those of Central Asia. An English company even attempted, about the year 1560, to open up a commercial intercourse with Persia and Turcomania by way of the Caspian, but failed completely; and subsequently the appearance of the Dutch and British flags in the Persian Gulf, and the immense development of the maritime commerce with India, for ever extinguished, for Astrakhan, the hope of recovering its former position. The navigation of the Caspian was completely abandoned, and the few Asiatic goods which Russia could not dispense with were conveyed to that country by expensive and perilous overland routes. Accordingly, when Alexis Michaelovitz ascended the throne about the middle of the seventeenth century, how to arrive at Persia by sea was almost become an unsolved problem. To this prince belongs, however, the honour of the first effort made by Russia to re-establish the commerce of the Caspian. A maritime expedition was undertaken from Astrakhan in 1660, under the direction of Dutch seamen; but it failed completely, in consequence of the revolt of the Cossacks, and the successes achieved by their leader, Stenko Razin. After this ineffectual attempt, things reverted to their old state, and the commercial history of this part of the empire presents nothing remarkable until the accession of Peter the Great.