Kyakhta Tea Road Heritage

The treaty of Kyakhta in 1727 fixed the border and made this the single point through which Russian trade with China was legally conducted, and for a century and a half the tea caravans came through - brick tea north across Mongolia by camel, furs and cloth south - with the goods transferred here by barter, since currency was not used in the exchange. The merchants who ran it became extremely rich and the town was called the sandy Venice; they built a cathedral, the Resurrection, with a silver iconostasis, and endowed a museum and schools. The trade died when the Suez Canal and then the Trans-Siberian railway made the caravan route pointless, and Kyakhta shrank to a garrison town on the border. The Resurrection cathedral now stands as a shell under slow repair. The local museum, founded in 1890, is unexpectedly good, with natural history, Mongolian and Chinese material and the trade records.

What you actually see

• The trade town - the single legal crossing point for Russian and Chinese goods for 150 years.
• The ruined cathedral - the merchants' Resurrection church, now a shell under repair.
• The 1890 museum - a substantial collection from the wealthy period, still open.
• The barter system - a trade conducted by exchange of goods rather than money.

When to go

June to September. Half a day. It is a four hour drive from Ulan-Ude.

Honest expectations

The cathedral is a ruin and cannot be entered properly. The town is poor and much of the merchant architecture is decayed. It sits on the border, so document checks are routine and some areas are restricted. Museum labelling is Russian.

Nearby

The Mongolian border crossing is adjacent; Ulan-Ude is north.