<P> Before the European colonization of the Americas, Russia was a major supplier of fur pelts to Western Europe and parts of Asia . Its trade developed in the Early Middle Ages (500 - 1000 AD / CE), first through exchanges at posts around the Baltic and Black seas . The main trading market destination was the German city of Leipzig . </P> <P> Originally, Russia exported raw furs, consisting in most cases of the pelts of martens, beavers, wolves, foxes, squirrels and hares . Between the 16th and 18th centuries, Russians began to settle in Siberia, a region rich in many mammal fur species, such as Arctic fox, lynx, sable, sea otter and stoat (ermine). In a search for the prized sea otter pelts, first used in China, and later for the northern fur seal, the Russian Empire expanded into North America, notably Alaska . From the 17th through the second half of the 19th century, Russia was the world's largest supplier of fur . The fur trade played a vital role in the development of Siberia, the Russian Far East and the Russian colonization of the Americas . As recognition of the importance of the trade to the Siberian economy, the sable is a regional symbol of the Ural Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Siberian Novosibirsk, Tyumen and Irkutsk Oblasts of Russia . </P> <P> The European discovery of North America, with its vast forests and wildlife, particularly the beaver, led to the continent becoming a major supplier in the 17th century of fur pelts for the fur felt hat and fur trimming and garment trades of Europe . Fur was relied on to make warm clothing, a critical consideration prior to the organization of coal distribution for heating . Portugal and Spain played major roles in fur trading after the 15th century with their business in fur hats . </P> <P> From as early as the 10th century, merchants and boyars of Novgorod had exploited the fur resources "beyond the portage", a watershed at the White Lake that represents the door to the entire northwestern part of Eurasia . They began by establishing trading posts along the Volga and Vychegda river networks and requiring the Komi people to give them furs as tribute . Novgorod, the chief fur - trade center prospered as the easternmost trading post of the Hanseatic League . Novgorodians expanded farther east and north, coming into contact with the Pechora people of the Pechora River valley and the Yugra people residing near the Urals . Both of these native tribes offered more resistance than the Komi, killing many Russian tribute - collectors throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries . As Muscovy gained more power in the 15th century and proceeded in the "gathering of the Russian lands", the Muscovite state began to rival the Novgorodians in the North . During the 15th century Moscow began subjugating many native tribes . One strategy involved exploiting antagonisms between tribes, notably the Komi and Yugra, by recruiting men of one tribe to fight in an army against the other tribe . Campaigns against native tribes in Siberia remained insignificant until they began on a much larger scale in 1483 and 1499 . </P>

Who sent out the first fur trading expedition to the west