Afanasiy Nikitin (Никитин, Афанасий in Russian) (? _ 1472) was a Russian traveller, writer and the first European to visit India.

In 1466, Nikitin left his hometown of Tver on a commercial trip to India. He traveled down the Volga River, reached Derbent, then Baku and later Persia by crossing the Caspian Sea, where he would live for one year. In the spring of 1469, Nikitin arrived at the city of Ormus and then reached India by crossing the Arabian Sea, where he would live for 3 years. On his way back, Nikitin visited the African continent (Somalia), Muscat, Trabzon and in 1472 arrived at Feodosiya by crossing the Black Sea. On his way to Tver, Nikitin died not far from Smolensk in the fall of that year.

During his trip, Nikitin studied the population of India, its social system, government, economy, religion, lifestyles, nature. He wrote down his observations in A Journey Beyond the Three Seas. The abundance and trustworthiness of Nikitin's factual material were a valuable source of information about India.

In 1955, the local authorities of Tver (then Kalinin) erected a bronze monument to Afanasiy Nikitin on the shores of the Volga River.