Afanasy Nikitin (Russian: Афанасий Никитин; died 1475) was a Russian merchant from Tver and one of the first Europeans (after Niccolò de' Conti) to travel to and document his visit to India. He described his trip in a narrative known as A Journey Beyond the Three Seas (Khozheniye za tri morya).

Afanasy Nikitin, son of Nikita, was a merchant in Tver. Prior to his voyage to Persia and India, Afanasy Nikitin was probably engaged in long-distance trade and had previously traveled to the Ottoman Empire, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Moldavia, Wallachia, Georgia, Crimea, and other countries. In 1466 or 1468, Nikitin left his hometown of Tver on a commercial trip, planning to trade in the lands around the Caspian Sea and go as far as Shirvan (in modern-day Azerbaijan). He travelled down the Volga, stopping at the Makaryev Monastery, then passing through Uglich, Kostroma, and Plyos to get to Nizhny Novgorod. Following the caravan of the returning ambassador to Moscow from Shirvan, Hasan Beg, Nikitin and his fellow merchants traveled further south.

Near Astrakhan, his party was attacked and robbed first by Nogais (whom he calls Tatars), then again by Kaitags on the Caspian coast. Niktin's belongings were stolen, and some of his fellow Russian merchants were taken prisoner by the Kaitags. Nikitin went to the Shirvanshah's (the ruler of Shirvan) camp in Shemakha to plead for help. The Russian merchants "humbly begged" Shirvanshah to give them "the wherewithal to reach Rus". His captured companions were rescued by the Shirvanshah; however, he refused to give him and his companions means to return home. At that point, Nikitin writes, his party dispersed: "we wept and dispersed; those of us who owned something in Rus left for Rus, and those who had debts there went wherever they could; some remained at Shemakha, while others went to work at Baku".

Hoping to recoup his losses, Nikitin continued on to Derbent, which was a familiar market to him, and then to Baku. He then crossed the Caspian Sea into Persia, where he followed a known trade route and made prolonged stops in market towns. He passed through Chapakur (Chapak Rud, where he remained for six months), Sari, Amol, Kashan, and Yazd before reaching Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. All in all, he remained in Persia for two years. Having heard about the riches of India from Muslim merchants, he decided to travel there. In the spring of 1471, Nikitin sailed for India from Hormuz and, after making several stops, arrived in the port of Chaul six weeks later. It was probably after his arrival in India that he began writing his travel notes.

Nikitin observed the markets, lifestyles and courts of the Bahmani Sultanate and the Vijayanagara Empire. He visited the Hindu sanctuary of Parvattum, which he called "the Jerusalem of the Hindus". He mentions that he engaged in horse-dealing, although his mercantile activities may have been more extensive than directly stated in his account. He spent almost three years in India, before deciding to return to Russia after concluding that further travel would not make him any great profit and that he could not afford to remain in India. Nikitin, in his writings, showed a longing to return to his homeland: "May God protect the Russian land! There is no land in the world like it. But why can the princes in the Russian land not live with each other as brothers? May the Russian land be well ordered, because justice there is quite rare".

On his way back, Nikitin visited Muscat, the Arabian sultanate of Somalia, and Trabzon. In November 1474, he sailed from Trebizond to Caffa (now Feodosia), where there was a large Russian settlement. It is most likely in Caffa that he composed Khozheniye za tri morya on the basis of his travel notes and memories. On his way to Tver, Nikitin died not far from Smolensk in the spring of 1475. Other Russian merchants took his notes to Vasily Mamyrev, secretary to Ivan III, the grand prince of Moscow. Nikitin's notes were considered valuable, so they were included in state chronicles dating from the late 15th to the 17th centuries. The author of the Lvov Chronicle writes that he received Nikitin's notes in 1475 and incorporated them into his work but was unable to learn anything more about the traveler.

During his trip, Nikitin studied the population of India, its political structure, agriculture, trade (he witnessed war-games featuring war elephants), customs and ceremonies. He describes the appearances of Indians, their clothing and food, interrelations, and so on. Nikitin's notes mention: "the countrymen are very poor, but the boyars are rich and live in luxury". The abundance and trustworthiness of Nikitin's factual material provide a valuable source of information about India at that time, and his remarks on the trade of Hormuz, Cambay, Calicut, Dabhol, Ceylon, Pegu and China; on royal progresses and other functions, both ecclesiastical and civil, at the Bahmani capital Bidar, and on the wonders of the great fair at Parvattum—as well as his comparisons of things Russian and Indian—deserve special notice.

Nikitin's descriptions show his ability to describe geographical features that were completely unfamiliar to him. He described the rainy season while living in Junnar, when "throughout four months there was water and mud everywhere, both by day and at night. That is the season of ploughing and of sowing wheat and rice and pulse, and all other crops". Nikitin also gained first-hand knowledge of Hindu customs. His notes mention: "They did not hide from me when eating, praying, or doing something else; nor did they conceal their wives". Some of the customs and behaviors of the people were so alien to him that his descriptions of everyday life were sometimes exaggerated—for example, the women's love for "white" European men. He also mentioned the following two legends, which he appeared to accept as true: