Rus İmparatorluğu’nun Basra Körfezi Politikasının Teşekkülü
The Formation of the Persian Gulf Policy of the Russian Empire

Summary/Abstract: This article deals with the Russian Empire's first political and commercial contacts in the Persian Gulf and its relations in the region. Based on the analysis of documents compiled from the Russian Empire Foreign Policy Archive (AVPRI), the study reveals the role of the Imperial consulates in Baghdad and Basra in establishing mutually beneficial contacts between representatives of the commercial and industrial circles of the Russian Empire and the Arab markets in the region. It pays particular attention to the British policy opposing the initiatives of the Russian structures. The author finds the difficulty that prevented the success of the Russian plans in the region not related to the geographical remoteness but to the necessity of keeping friendly relations with Great Britain. At the same time, the growing Russian presence and military demonstrations between the last quarter of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century paved the way for the change in the political balance of powers. They contributed to formalizing the Russian-British agreement of 1907 for the legal division of “spheres of influence” in the East.

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