Marwar Baraev

Marwar Baraev was an Indian merchant and moneylender conducting business from Astrakhan, Russia. He was the most prominent member of the Marwari community of traders in Astrakhan.

Indian traders in Astrakhan also acted as moneylenders. In 1724 ten Indians lent more than 1,000 roubles each, although most loans were quite small. Marwar Baraev, for example, lent a total of 4,372 roubles that year, but did so in fifty-four separate transactions. He appears to have been the most prominent example of an Indian who concentrated almost exclusively on moneylending. He also exemplified the dangers of such specialization, for later it was his inability to collect several large loans that almost certainly led him to become a member of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Baraev's loans are a good example of the variety of an Indian's financial operations, for his clients ranged from a clerk who had borrowed 12 roubles, to an Armenian textile merchant who was indebted to him for 1,550 roubles. A small number of his loans and those of other Indians may have been used for personal expenses, such as the 12-rouble loans to the clerk, but the important, often unstated purpose of most agreements appears to have been commerce. To a certain extent this purpose was reflected in the short durations of most loans, ranging from a few months to a year, for the repayment period was usually geared to the estimated length of a trading journey.

Creditors had legal recourse to Russian judicial authorities in case of default; merchandise, immovable property and even land served as collateral. Marwar Baraev's debtors mortgaged cloth, vegetable gardens and shops among other things, and on several occasions he had such property seized for bad debts.