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The paper aims to provide insight into the content of the diplomatic documents from the "Persian" fund of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, which reveals the role of the Crimean prince Şahin Geray in relations between Safavid Iran and the Russian Tsardom at the turn of the 1620s and 1630s. A detailed source examination is given to a group of nineteen texts dated by 1630. This set consists of letters in Turki and Farsi as well as their Russian translations and a preface by the administrators of Astrakhan. The addressees of correspondence were Astrakhan and Terek voivodes and the governor of the non-Russian population of the Terky Sholokh Cherkassky. The senders were Shah Safi I, Şahin Geray, beglerbeg of Shirvan Qazaq Khan and shamkhal of Tarki Ildar. The materials analyzed reflect the attempts of the aforementioned political emigrant, with the support of the Shahs Abbas the Great and then Safi I, to obtain diplomatic and military assistance from Moscow and the local Russian authorities of the Ciscaucasia in reconquering the Crimea. The authors reveal the details of the plan of Şahin Geray and the reasons for the Russian negative stance on any combinations involving the former Crimean qalga. The scholars conclude that Shah's supportof the political figure unacceptable for the Romanov monarchy became one of the significant factors holding back the development of Russian-Persian relations in the period under review. In the appendix, there is a Turki text of the firman by Safi I to voivodes, as well as its contemporary and recent translations into Russian.

The manuscript given below is uncommon for the Safawid corpus of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RSAAA). It is a list of instructions for verbal enunciation given by Safi I to his ambassador Hajji Inji who deliver the text at an audience with Mikhail Fjodorovich, held on April 13, 1635. The text brought up four particular issues that had been upholding conflictive environment in the Russian-Qizilbash relations to the moment of negotiations. The points raised were increasing Cossacks invasions, extradition of fugitives, return of the traders' property lost during shipwreck and detaining of the Shahs paper packs.

The study investigates the materials of the Russian ambassade S. Islen’ev and M. Griazev to the court of the Qizilbash shah Safī, stored in the funds of Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts. The archival file is a set of documents reflecting the process of the exchange of embassies between the Russian Tsardom and the Safavid Empire in 1635–1637. The aim of the embassy of S. I. Islen’ev and M. K. Griazev was to discuss some topical issues of bilateral relations such as duties, restitution cases, the purchase of Iranian niter etc. In addition, the documents describe the features of the court ceremonial in relation to foreign guests. The good preservation of the documents gives researchers the opportunity to study the ambassade at great length. As for the results of the embassy of Islen’ev and Griazev, they can be regarded as moderately positive. The high level of bilateral relations and their positive nature (“friendship and love”) were confirmed. In addition, the Safavid side once again confirmed the need to verify the membership of embassies and trade missions. On the other hand, the attempt of the tsar’s ambassadors to purchase niter in the shah’s possessions ended in failure. In general, the embassy of S. Islen’ev and M. Griazev was an ordinary diplomatic mission in terms of tasks and results, but this is its value for a scholar. Sustainability of the bilateral agenda and the presence of well-known “stumbling blocks” in its framework contributed to the regularity of Russian-Safavid ties.