in November 1726, he picked up Lorenz Lange and Ivan Bucholz and sent out cartographers to survey the border. The negotiators on the Manchu side were Tulishen and Dominique Parrenin. After six months a draft treaty was worked up, but it became clear that neither side had adequate maps. In May Vladslavich and Tulishen went back to Selenginsk near Lake Baikal to get the waiting maps. By 31 August a draft treaty was drawn up ('Treaty of Bura' after a nearby river). Work quickly began setting up border markers starting from Kyakhta on the Selenga River. The 'Abagaitu Letter' listed 63 markers from Kyakhta east to the Argun River. The 'Selenginsk Letter' listed 24 markers west from Kyakhta to the "Shabindobaga River on the northwest slopes of the Altay Mountains". The 'Treaty of Bura' was sent to Peking to be combined with work already done there. The result was sent back to the frontier and the Treaty of Kyakhta was signed on 25 June 1728. The treaty had three official versions, in Russian, in Latin and in Manchu. No official Chinese version of the treaty exists. Articles The treaty had eleven articles, the core of which dealt with commercial relations and diplomatic immunities. (This list, probably from Perdue, differs somewhat from the list given by March.) Articles I and XI spoke of eternal peace and cooperation between the two nations, and concerned itself with the language and organization of the rest of the document. Article II dealt with the exchange of fugitives. Article III, along with VII, delineated the new borders, leaving only territory along the Irtysh River unassigned. The fate of this land, according to the treaty, would be determined in the future by ambassadors or further correspondence between the two nations' capitals. Article VI dealt with commercial relations; from this treaty and others, Russia gained far more favorable commercial arrangements with the Chinese than most European countries, who traveled by sea and traded at Canton. Russia would send a caravan to Peking every three years and continuous border trade would be conducted at Kyakhta and Tsurukaitu in Manchuria. See Kyakhta trade. Article V allowed for the establishment of a Russian religious institution in Beijing. Article VI, along with IX, concerned itself with the forms and modes of diplomatic intercourse between the two nations, both of which had complex systems of bureaucracy and protocol. Article VIII, along with X,