 Many Swedish, Finnish and Baltic people, especially women and children, had been sold as slaves in Russia and Turkey during the Great Northern War after having been taken captive by Russian soldiers, particularly after the fall of Narva in 1704.Many were then sold in the slave market in Istanbul; from June 1710, the Swedish ambassador Thomas Funck regularly visited the slave auctions in Istanbul to buy Swedish citizens, and Sven Agrell noted that they, among others, had bought a "carpenter's daughter" from Narva for §82, a "Captain's wife" for §240, Catharina Pereswetoff-Morath, eighteen years old, for §275 and a whole family, Anders Jonsson and his wife and children, though the funds were not always enough to buy all.The people bought free were probably taken to the camp of the king Charles XII of Sweden in Moldavia and returned to Sweden with him.