From Finland To Asia, Slaves Were Big Business

If you were a blonde girl or boy captured in a raid a few hundred years ago, you were an exotic luxury item so valuable it was worthwhile to transport you to far-away markets in Asia. Slave-trading was so common the routes stretched from Finland, the Russian Karelia and the Baltic Countries all the way to the Caspian Sea and central Asia. Finland to Asia? Rarely, of course. Only the largest merchants, with a buyer already in place, would hire gangs from the Volga to capture people and then hazard that journey. Writing in Russian History, University of Eastern Finland Professor Jukka Korpela read more

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