One of the most remarkable pages in the history of Russia is the development of Siberia. Today, the Siberian expanses make up most of the Russian territory. And at the beginning of the 15th century, Siberia was a real “blank spot”. For our country, the feat of Yermak, who conquered Siberia for Russia, became one of the most epoch-making events in the formation of the Russian state.

In the 15th century, between the lands of the Golden Horde (meaning the Astrakhan, Crimean and Kazan khanates) and the Moscow state, there were huge expanses of "no man's" land. Despite the fact that the territories were very attractive for development, the Russians looked with longing and pity at the fertile, fatty steppe lands that they did not dare to develop.

Only the brave Cossacks were not afraid to set up their settlements in the zone of "no man's" steppe. The most desperate people flocked to these villages, looking for a free life, ready to fight and not afraid of military campaigns.

In response to the raids of the steppes, the Cossacks made trips to the Nogai, Crimean and Kazan lands. Often the Cossacks took booty from the Tatar hordes returning from the robbery of Russian lands and freed the captives. Thus, the Cossacks took an active part in the war against the enemies of Russia.

The most famous Cossack who fought for Russia was Ermak Timofeevich (Ermak is his nickname, and his real name was Yerema). Even before the famous Siberian campaign, he honed his skills and gained experience, being the chieftain of the Cossack detachment on the border of the steppes. Little information has been preserved about Yermak's personality: it is known that he was strong, eloquent and "black with hair."

According to one of the legends, Yermak's grandfather, Afanasy Alenin, helped the Murom robbers. Yermak himself worked for some time on plows that traveled along the Volga and Kama. But soon he took up robbery.

There were many rumors about Yermak's robbery past. For example, the English traveler John Perry in his notes claimed that Yermak was a noble robber: he did not kill anyone, robbed only the rich and shared the proceeds with the poor. However, historians doubt the reliability of this information. Thus, they reject the widespread legend that Yermak, together with the Volga Cossacks, robbed the Persian ambassadors. However, based on information from the Land Book of the Ambassadorial Order, it follows that the ambassadors were robbed a few years after the death of Yermak. Thus, we can conclude that information about Yermak's robbery past may be incorrect - and this is the first mystery.

The second historical mystery is that it is not known in what year Yermak Timofeevich went with his comrades on a Siberian campaign. According to various sources, this could have happened in the period 1579-1582. And it happened like this.

Having beaten off another attack by the warriors of the Horde prince Ali, the Cossacks began to gather on a long campaign. The rich merchant clan of the Stroganovs provided them with everything they needed, including ammunition and a large supply of bread. All stocks should have been enough for two years. About a thousand Cossacks went on a campaign.

Why did Yermak and his army move precisely towards Siberia?

At that time, the Siberian Khanate was part of the previously disintegrated Golden Horde. For a long time it lived peacefully with neighboring Russia. However, when Khan Kuchum took power in the khanate, numerous detachments of Tatars began to attack Russian lands located on Western Urals. In one of these raids, the horde of Tsarevich Ali, who lost the battle to the Cossacks near Nizhny Chusovsky, did not return to their Siberian estates, but retreated to Cherdyn. The Yermakovites did not catch up with him, they decided to take advantage of the unique moment when the Siberian expanses were left without the protection of the horde in order to conquer Siberia and, at the same time, end this endless war. The Cossacks understood that the defeat of Ali's hordes was not enough for a complete victory, and the whole force of the numerous khan's detachments settled in the Siberian region would come out against them.

Before the campaign, the priests in the churches of Chusovskie Gorodoki served a prayer service and blessed the soldiers on their hard journey, the bells rang, the Cossacks marched under the banner with the face of Jesus Christ. The chronicles say that during the entire Siberian campaign, the Cossacks observed all Orthodox fasts and participated in prayers before battles. In the meantime, the Cossacks on three dozen plows set off along the river. At that time, the safest way to travel across the southern Russian steppes was to move along the river on plows, since in this way it was easiest to get away from the fast Tatar horses. Each plow was about ten meters long, 18 rowers were placed at the sides. The Cossacks rowed alternately, and when the enemy appeared, they took up arms. Plows had to be dragged by hand in case of crossing the watershed.

It is not known exactly who became the instigator of the Siberian campaign of the Cossacks. But it has been established for certain that the performances were financed by the merchants Stroganovs. The merchants hoped that the military campaign would stop the Tatar raids and serve to protect their property. It is possible that Ivan the Terrible instructed the Stroganovs to organize and pay for a trip to the unexplored Siberian lands. There is a version that the tsar, having learned about the impending campaign of the Cossacks in Siberia, wrote a letter to the Stroganovs, demanding that the Cossacks be sent to defend the towns that were attacked by the detachments of Khan Kuchum and his eldest son Alei.

Yermak's campaign developed successfully, in several battles the army of the Cossack chieftain defeated the Tatar detachments. With battles, the Cossacks led by Yermak reached the Irtysh River and captured the capital Siberian Khanate- now the city of Kashlyk. Yermak received numerous delegations of the indigenous peoples of Siberia, took an oath on behalf of Ivan the Terrible and forced them to pay tribute in favor of the Russian state.

Ermak did not stop at the capture of the main city of the Siberian Khanate: his detachment went further along the Irtysh and the Ob. The Cossacks captured one ulus after another and took the oath to the Russian Tsar. For several years, until 1585, Yermak's squad fought with the soldiers of Khan Kuchum in the expanses of Siberia.

After Yermak considered his duty to annex Siberia under the hand of the Russian Tsar fulfilled, he sent an ambassador to Ivan the Terrible with a victorious report. Ivan IV was very pleased and hastened to thank not only the ambassador for the good news, but also all the Cossacks participating in the campaign. For Yermak himself, the ambassador took two chain mail pieces of excellent workmanship. According to the chronicles, one of them, earlier, belonged to the famous voivode Shuisky. The chain mail weighed about 12 kg, it was made in the form of a shirt, it consisted of 16 thousand rings, on the right side a copper plate with the image of a double-headed eagle was attached to the chain mail.

On August 6, 1585, a detachment of Cossacks numbering up to 50 people, together with ataman Ermak Timofeevich, stopped for the night on the Irtysh, not far from the mouth of the Vagai River. Several detachments of Khan Kuchum unexpectedly attacked the Cossacks, killing all the fighters of Yermak. The ataman himself tried to swim to the plows. He was wearing two, donated by the king, chain mail. They became the cause of the death of Yermak, he drowned in the water of the Irtysh.

However, there is circumstantial evidence that this story had a continuation. Popular rumor says that a day later (according to some sources, after eight days), Yermak's body fell into the fishing nets of a Tatar fisherman, who hastened to report his find to Khan Kuchum himself. In order to ascertain the death of the famous Russian ataman, the entire Tatar nobility gathered. The joy was so great that the Tatars continued to celebrate the death of Yermak for several days. Having fun, the Tatars, for a week, shot Yermak's body with bows. They took his chain mail with them. The remote ataman was buried secretly and the exact place of his grave is still unknown.

The further fate of Khan Kuchum also did not work out. After the annexation of the Siberian lands to Russia, he wandered for a long time near Tobolsk, but did not enter into battle with the Russians, ruining only the settlements of his former subjects. All his sons were gradually taken prisoner and taken to Moscow. He was repeatedly offered to go to the service of the Russian Tsar, but the aged Kuchum answered that he was a free man and wanted to die free too. He failed to regain the throne of Siberia.

It so happened that the death of two opponents - Kuchum and Yermak remained secrets. Both of them have unknown graves, legends live about them among the Tatar people.

In history, Yermak looks like a hero, and Khan Kuchum got the fate of a villain, although, in fairness, he should be recognized for his desire for independence and love of freedom, which means it’s worth looking at his personality from the other side.

It so happened that Ermak Timofeevich became not only historical figure, but also a key figure in Russian national folklore. There are many tales, legends and songs about him. In them, the dashing ataman Ermak Timofeevich is described as a person of exceptional courage and courage. Although it must be admitted that there is very little real data on the conqueror of Siberia, and the available information is rather contradictory. It is this circumstance that makes many researchers look again and again for new information about the national hero of Russia, and now Russia.

Row of paintings

Godforsaken Side

Severe lord

And a miserable worker - a man

With a bowed head...

As the first to rule accustomed!

How slaves the second!

N. Nekrasov

Mankind owes civilization to two centers lying on two opposite ends of the continent of the Old World. European civilization born on the coast mediterranean sea, Chinese - on the eastern outskirts of the mainland. These two worlds, European and Chinese, lived a separate life, barely aware of the existence of each other, but not completely without intercourse with each other. The works of these individual countries, and perhaps ideas, were transferred from one end of the mainland to the other. In the interval between the two worlds lay the path of international relations, and this communication between East and West caused greater or lesser successes in settlement and culture along the way, despite the fact that the path itself passed through desert places, where fertile areas meet in fits and starts and are separated by waterless spaces. Siberia, more convenient than these deserts for settlement and culture, lay aside from this international path, and therefore, until later centuries, did not receive any significance in the history of the development of mankind.

It remained even almost completely unknown to both civilized worlds of the Old World, because the borders of this country were surrounded by such difficult conditions that penetration into the country presented serious obstacles.

In the north, the mouths of its large, sea-like rivers are blocked by ice. northern ocean, along which the path has only recently been paved. In the east, it adjoins the foggy, stormy and little visited Seas of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea. It is cut off from the civilized south of Asia by the steppes. In the west, the wooded Ural blocked the entrance to it. Under such conditions, relations with neighboring countries could not develop, civilization did not penetrate here either from the west or from the east, and information about this vast country was the most inconsistent, fabulous. From the father of history, Herodotus, almost to the famous imperial ambassador Herberstein, instead of reliable reports about Siberia, only fables were transmitted. Or they said that in the extreme northeast live one-eyed people and vultures guarding gold; or they said that there people were imprisoned behind the mountains, which have only one opening, through which they go out once a year for trade; or, finally, they were assured that they hibernated for the winter, like animals, freezing to the earth's surface through the liquid that flows from their noses. The fabulousness of the news testifies that during the entire time that the Russian state was taking shape, relations with Siberia were very difficult and rare, due to the impassability of the wooded Urals. The pass through this ridge, along which the rail track is now thrown, was a real international barrier in remote times. Even in the last century, traveling through the Urals to Berezov, for observations, the astronomer Delisle stated that anyone who endures the journey through the Urals will be surprised that there are people who do not dare to take the Urals beyond the border between Europe and Asia.

In the 16th century, an attempt to form a state in Siberia was made by the Turkestans. The path from Turkestan to Siberia lay through the steppe, inhabited by the Kirghiz, a people who were engaged in cattle breeding and raids on their neighbors. It was a predatory, mobile population that did not know any power over itself. Dissatisfied people from the neighboring settled Turkestan states, both ordinary people and princes, fled here, and often some capable adventurer rallied around him a significant gang of daring people, from which he made raids on settled areas, first for robbery, and then for conquests, - raids, sometimes ending in the foundation of a new and strong dynasty. Probably, it was such and such daring people who founded the first embryos of the Tatar, actually Turkestan, colonization in Siberia.

At first, several separate principalities arose. One of them, the most ancient, was Tyumen, another prince lived in Yalutorovsk, the third in Isker. A strong colonization from Tatar settlements was established along the rivers. In the settlements that were the residences of the princes, fortresses or towns were built in which the squads lived, obliged to collect tribute to the prince from the surrounding wandering tribes. These colonists laid the foundation for agriculture and crafts. Farmers, tanners and other craftsmen, as well as merchants and preachers of Islam, came here from Turkestan; the mullahs brought a letter and a book here. Individual princes, of course, did not live peacefully among themselves; From time to time, personalities appeared among them, striving to unite the region under their personal power.

The first unification was accomplished by Prince Ediger. Immediately this new kingdom became known on the western side of the Urals. Until Yediger formed the whole Siberian kingdom from all the small Tatar settlements, the Trans-Urals did not attract the eyes of either the statesmen of Russia or ordinary industrialists. The small peoples of Siberia lived in their wilderness, not making themselves felt. Under Yediger, however, clashes between border residents led to relations between Moscow and Siberia, and in 1555 the first Siberian ambassadors arrived in the capital of the Muscovite state. Perhaps those gifts that were brought to Moscow pointed to the wealth of the Siberian region in furs, and at the same time the idea arose to take possession of this region. The fate of the Trans-Ural region in the minds of Moscow statesmen was decided; the Muscovite tsar began to communicate, by means of an embassy, ​​with Siberia. Ediger admitted that he was a tributary, and annually sent a thousand sables. But this tribute was abruptly terminated. The steppe rider Kuchum, with a crowd of the Tatar horde, attacked Yediger and conquered his kingdom. Of course, the Moscow governors would have forced Kuchum to recognize the Moscow authorities, but they were warned by a gang of freemen, led by Yermak. One of the Siberian chronicles ascribes the initiative to the eminent citizen Stroganov; the folk song - to Yermak himself.

The song hints that the Volga freemen were constrained from all sides and did not give her room to roam, and now the Cossacks gathered on the Astrakhan pier “in a single circle to think a little thought from the cry of the mind, from full of reason.” - “Where to run and save yourself?” Yermak asks:

“And live on the Volga? - to be known as thieves ...

Go to Yaik? - the transition is great.

Go to Kazan? - the king is formidable.

Go to Moscow? - be intercepted

Scattered in different cities,

And sent to dark prisons ... "

Ermak decided to go to Usolye, to the Stroganovs, to take from them a supply of grain and guns and attack Siberia. The chronicle tells that Yermak arrived in the Stroganov lands in the autumn of 1579. The Stroganovs were wealthy peasants who made a fortune on extracting salt from the vats. They bought large lands from foreigners, started small towns, kept garrisons and guns in them. Maxim Stroganov, the then head of this family, was frightened by the appearance of Yermak's gang in the Urals, but he had to reconcile himself and fulfill everything that the decisive chieftain demanded of him; he supplied Yermak's squad with lead, gunpowder, breadcrumbs, cereals, gave him cannons and leaders from Zyryan. In the first summer, Yermak ran on a ship from Chusovaya to the wrong river, and therefore he had to spend the winter here. Only in 1580, Yermak appeared on the Siberian slope of the Ural Mountains; he went up in boats along the Chusovaya and Silver and went down to Tura.

He met the first natives in the yurts of Prince Epanchi, where the city of Turinsk is now. Here the first battle was fought. Cossack shots rang out; the Tatar population, who had not seen firearms before, fled. From here, Yermak went down in boats down the river to the Tobol and the Tobol to its confluence with the Irtysh. Here was the Tatar city of Siberia or Isker, i.e. a small village surrounded by an earthen rampart and a moat; it served as the residence of the Siberian king Kuchum. Yermak had previously attacked the small town of Atikin, which lay close to Siberia. The Tatars were defeated and fled. This battle decided the fate of Tatar rule in the country. The Tatars did not dare to resist the Cossacks anymore and abandoned the city of Siberia. The next day, the Cossacks were surprised by the silence that reigned beyond the city ramparts - "and nowhere was there a voice." The Cossacks did not dare to enter the city for a long time, fearing an ambush. Kuchum took refuge in the southern steppes of Siberia, and from a settled king turned into a nomad. Ermak became the owner of the region. He hit the Moscow sovereign with his brow.

The song says that he came to Moscow and previously bribed the Moscow boyars with sable coats to report him to the tsar. The king accepted the gift and forgave Yermak and his comrades for the murder of the Persian ambassador. The tsarist army was immediately sent to Siberia under the command of the voivode Bolkhovsky. It occupied the city of Siberia, but, due to tedious transitions, a lack of food supplies and the governor’s indiscipline, a pestilence began in the troops from hunger and the governor himself died. Ermak again became the main ruler of the region, but not for long. At that time, he heard that a Bukhara caravan was going along the Irtysh to Siberia. Yermak went to meet him, but on the way he was surrounded by Tatars and died in this dump.

This happened in 1584. Song says that he had only two columns with him; Yermak wanted to jump from one column to another in order to help his comrades. He stepped on the end of the passage; at this time, the other end of the board rose and fell on his "violent head" - and he fell into the water.

The Cossacks fled from Siberia. All the conquered cities were again occupied by the Tatar princes, and Prince Seydyak appeared in Isker. Moscow still knew nothing about this and sent new troops to Siberia to continue and strengthen the conquest. Therefore, the Cossacks had not yet managed to reach the Urals, when they met the governor Mansurov, who was going to Siberia, with troops and guns. Mansurov did not stop in Siberia, he sailed down the Irtysh to its confluence with the Ob, and here he founded the town of Samarovo, in a desert country occupied by non-belligerent Ostyaks. Only the next governors began to build cities in more important places occupied by the Tatars.

For several years, the Russians were not the only masters in the region. Tatar princes lived next to them and collected yasak for themselves. Tatar fortresses interspersed with Russian ones. Governor Chulkov in 1587 founded the city of Tobolsk, a few miles from Siberia, traces of which are still preserved near Tobolsk. The governor did not dare to take the Tatar city by force, as Yermak did. Once, the chronicle tells, the Tatar prince Seydyak, with two other princes: Saltan and Karachay, and with a retinue of 400 people, left the Tatar city for hawk hunting and drove up under the walls of the Russian city. Governor Chulkov invited them to his city. When the Tatars wanted to enter with weapons in their hands, the voivode stopped them with the words that “they don’t go to visit like that.” The princes left their weapons and with a small retinue entered the Russian city. The guests were brought to the governor's house, where the tables were already ready.

A long conversation began about the "peaceful setting", i.e. peace-loving division of power over Siberia and the conclusion of eternal peace. Prince Seydyak sat deep in thought and ate nothing; heavy thoughts and suspicions crossed his mind. Governor Danilo Chulkov noticed embarrassment and said to him: “Prince Seydyak! That you think evil of Orthodox Christians, neither drink nor taste brashn. Seydyak replied: "I do not think of any evil against you." Then the Moscow governor took a cup of wine and said: “Prince Seydyak, if you don’t think evil, you and Tsarevich Saltan and Karacha are against us, Orthodox Christians, and you drink this for health.” Seydyak took the cup, started drinking, and choked. After him, the princes Saltan and Karacha began to drink - and they also choked - God was rebuking them. Those who saw this, the voivode and the troops, as if thinking evil of them, Prince Seydyak and others, want them dead - and waving the hand of the voivode Danilo Chulkov, the troops began to beat the filthy. Seydyak with the best people was captured and sent to Moscow. This happened in 1588. From that time on, the power of the Moscow voivode established itself in Siberia.

Before the discovery of Siberia, the Volga was a channel through which the so-called dangerous elements left the state. Both the tax-payer and the criminal fled here; an energetic person who was looking for broad activities went here; not only serfs, vagabonds and walking people fled here, but also individuals from the common people, outstanding in mind and character, who did not have a proper course in life. When Yermak led part of the Volga freemen beyond the Ural Range, everything that had previously fled to the Volga rushed to Siberia. Instead of plundering trade caravans on the Volga, emigration on the new soil began to conquer wandering tribes and tax them with yasak from sables in favor of the Moscow sovereign, and, of course, a significant share fell to the conquerors themselves. But in order to take away a sable from a foreigner, one must have an advantage in strength, one must have courage and other conditions. Therefore, part of the emigration turned directly to the trade for sables. Rumors about a myriad of sables in Siberia, stories, perhaps exaggerated, that foreigners give as many sable skins for an iron cauldron as the cauldron will fit, caused increased emigration not only from serf Moscow, but also from the free population of the ancient Novgorod region . The inhabitants of the current Olonets, Vologda and Arkhangelsk provinces, who have long been familiar with animal trades, set off to Siberia to get an expensive animal. All these emigrants, starting with the military squad of Yermak, went to Siberia either by boat or on foot. Therefore, the first flood of emigration across the new country took place along the forest belt, by way of river communications. There was no emigration to the southern steppes, because they did not have horses to raid the nomads living in the steppes; moreover, the nomads had nothing but cattle, and the emigrants needed expensive sable skins, and emigration climbed far to the north, closer to the Arctic Ocean. In view of this, in the XYII and early XYIII centuries, the north of Siberia was much busier than now. The northern cities of Siberia were founded earlier than the southern ones. The city of Mangazeya was especially famous in old Siberia (songs give it the epithet "rich"), which lay almost on the shores of the Arctic Ocean and now does not exist at all. The geography of northern Siberia and even the Taimyr Peninsula was better known to Russians in the 17th century than in later times. But when the sable and other valuable animals were exterminated in the north, the population began to rise up the rivers and found southern cities.

The spread of Russian power in the region proceeded in this order. Having fortified on the Tobol and its tributaries, the Russians began to spread their possessions in Siberia down the Irtysh and Ob. In 1593, the city of Berezov was founded on the lower reaches of the Ob. In the same year, the Russians climbed the Ob up from the mouth of the Irtysh and founded another city, Surgut. A year later, in 1594, a detachment of one and a half thousand military people climbed the Irtysh above the mouth of the Tobol and founded the city of Tara. At Tara, military enterprises up the Irtysh ceased and began again in this direction only after all of Siberia, right up to the Pacific Ocean, had been conquered by Kamchatka and Amur. The Omsk fortress, which lies only 400 versts south of Tara, was founded only in 1817, therefore, 224 years after the foundation of Tara.

The only conquest made with the help of Tara is in the land of the Baraba Tatars. On the contrary, parties from the northern cities went much further east. Berezovtsy in 1600 founded a city, almost at the very Arctic Sea, on the river Taza, and called it Mangazeya; the Surgut Cossacks went up the Ob and founded, on its tributary, the Keti River, the Ket prison; having risen even higher along the Ob, they met the Tom River, and on it, 60 versts above the mouth, the city of Tomsk was founded in 1604; fourteen years later, i.e. in 1618, the city of Kuznetsk was founded on the same river Tom, but higher than Tomsk.

Here the conquerors of Siberia for the first time reached the South Siberian mountains that separate it from Mongolia. The occupation of the vast system of the Ob River ended with the founding of Kuznetsk; a third of Siberia was occupied; further to the east there were two more of the same large river systems: Yenisei, in the occupation of which immediately after the conquest of the Ob system, and was started, and Lena, lying east of the Yenisei.

The occupation of the Yenisei system began from the far north. In the same year as the city of Tomsk was founded in the Ob system, the Mangazeya Cossacks, or industrial people, started a winter hut on the Yenisei, where the city of Turukhansk now stands. By 1607, the Samoyeds and Ostyaks, who lived on the Yenisei and the Pyasida River, were overlaid with yasak; and in 1610, the Russians, going down the Yenisei on ships, reached its mouth, i.e. out into the Arctic Sea. The middle parts of the Yenisei system were discovered by the Ket Cossacks, who, taxing the Ostyaks up the Keti, in 1608 reached the Yenisei in the place where the Yeniseisk hillock now stands, and from there they went up to the outskirts of present-day Krasnoyarsk. Near Yeniseisk, they found Ostyakov, who, because they knew blacksmithing, were called blacksmiths. Soon after the yasak was imposed, the Ostyaks of the blacksmith volost were attacked by the Tungus, who came from the Tunguska River. The Russians who were in the volost collecting yasak were also beaten. This was the first meeting of the Russians with a new tribe - the Tungus. The hostile actions of the latter against the Ostyaks, who had been taxed with yasak, caused the construction, around 1620, of the city of Yeniseisk, on the banks of the Yenisei River. After that, within two years, both the Tungus, who lived along the Tunguska River, and the Tatars, who lived up the Yenisei, were brought into obedience, and overlaid with yasak. In 1622, the first news was received about a new people - the Buryats.

It was the Yenisei who heard that the Buryats came to the river Kan, which flows into the Yenisei on the right, among 3,000 people. This news made the Russians think about a stronger position on the upper Yenisei, against the Kan. For this purpose, in 1623, it was founded on the Yenisei, in the lands belonging to the Tatars-Arins, at the mouth of the Kacha, in 300 ver. above Yeniseisk, new town- Krasnoyarsk. The sphere of action of the Krasnoyarsk people was turned mainly to the south, where they met the nomadic Tatar tribe of the Kirghiz, with whom the Tomsk Cossacks had previously waged a stubborn struggle. In the east, the Krasnoyarsk people limited themselves to exploring the valleys of the Kana and Mana rivers, in which they found hunting Samoyed-Ostyak tribes: Kamash, Kotovtsev, Mozorov and Tubintsev.

Discoveries in eastbound were developed with more significant consequences from the middle and lower Yenisei. One of the Yenisei parties, sent up the Tunguska and Angara, under the command of Perfiriev, reached the mouth of the Ishim; the other, under the leadership of the centurion Beketov, rose even higher, she crossed the dangerous rapids, reached the Oka River, and overlaid the Tungus living here with yasak. The Ishim River, which flows into the Angara above the Oka, opened the way for the Russians to a new, more eastern region, to the system of the large Lena River. In 1628, foreman Bugor with ten Cossacks climbed up the Ishim, dragged himself to the valley of the Kuta River and descended along it into the Lena River, along which he sailed to the mouth of the Chaya River. The high quality of the sables exported by this consignment to Yeniseysk was tempting for the Yenisey people. They, in the same year, sent another party to the Lena, under the command of Ataman Galkin; and in 1632, Beketov, already famous for his dexterity and ability to conduct such enterprises, was sent with an order to build the city of Yakutsk in the lands occupied by the Yakuts. These parties, going down the Lena, already found Russians here industrial people from the city of Mangazeya, who, through Turukhansk, reached the Lena and the land of the Yakuts ten years earlier than the Yeniseys. Five years after the founding of Yakutsk, namely, in 1637, the Cossacks under the command of the foreman Buza, descending the Lena, for the first time reached its mouth, and entered the Arctic Sea; from here they entered the Olensk and Yana rivers in order to impose yasak on the Tungus and Yakuts living on them. Two years later, in 1639, therefore, sixty years after the capture of Siberia by Yermak, a party of Tomsk Cossacks who came to Yakutsk with Ataman Kopylov, looking for new lands and taxing foreigners with yasak, having risen up the Aldan and Maya, saw the waves of the Pacific Ocean for the first time. They came ashore where the small river Ulya flows into the ocean.

Still remained unoccupied in Siberia: the Baikal country, Transbaikalia, Amur and the extreme northeast, with Kamchatka. The Russians approached the northern shores of Lake Baikal, gradually expanding their power up the Angara River. In 1654, Balagansky prison was built on the Angara, where the city of Balagansk is now, 200 miles below Irkutsk; and in 1661 Irkutsk was also built, 60 versts from the shores of Lake Baikal. The Russians came to the southern shore of Lake Baikal, bypassing the lake from the east. The first prison in Transbaikalia - Barguzinsky, was founded in 1648, i.e. 13 years earlier than Irkutsk and 6 years earlier than Balagansk. From here, the Russian wave gradually spread across Transbaikalia to the west and south, to Kyakhta and Nerchinsk. The parties that went along the southern tributaries of the Lena, i.e. along the Olekma and Aldan, they learned about the existence of a large Amur river flowing behind the ridge from the south side. The first one dared to cross the Poyarkov Range in 1643. He went down the Zeya River, swam along the Amur River to its mouth, and went out to sea. and, making his way north near the shore, he reached the Ulya River, from where he crossed to Aldan along the same road along which the Tomsk Cossacks first discovered the Pacific Ocean. After 1648, the industrialist Khabarov, having recruited a squad of hunters on the Lena, appeared on the Amur, climbing the Olekma and Tugir. He went to the Amur far above the mouth of the Zeya, and from there he went down to the mouth of the Sungari and returned back by the old road with huge booty. This was, in general terms, the geographical course of the conquest of Siberia.

This conquest was more the work of the peasants than the governor. Things usually went like this: Before a Cossack party, sent from the nearest prison or city, appears in a new country, sable industrialists appear in it and start wintering or hunting huts in it. Having caught sables with their own traps, or having collected them from local residents under the pretext of collecting them in yasak, they brought the booty to the city or prison in order to sell the goods to Moscow merchants. The news of a new country rich in sables reached the governor or the ataman who was in charge of the prison, and he sent a Cossack party to the newly discovered country. In this way, long before the appearance of the Cossack parties, the Yenisei and Lena were discovered. When the Cossack detachments appeared in these places, they already found the Mangazeians, who set up their winter quarters here and caught sables. At the end of the conquest period in Siberia, campaigns to discover new lands turned into a very profitable trade. Small parties began to be formed from private individuals, from ordinary animal merchants, with the aim of discovering lands, subjugating them under the sovereign's hand and imposing yasak. Such parties, having collected sables from foreigners, gave a smaller part to the treasury, and most, as the Siberian chroniclers testify to this, kept in their favor. In the end, these parties began to become crowded; simple animal merchants began to appear as conquerors of vast countries. Khabarov, a simple animal trader from the Lena River, who boiled salt on the Kirenga, gathered a squad of one and a half hundred volunteers and with it destroyed almost the entire Amur Territory. Cossack search parties, presumably, were formed not so much on the initiative of the governor, but on the Cossacks' own hunting. The Cossacks founded an artel, approached the governor with requests to supply them with gunpowder, lead and supplies, and set off on a campaign, hoping to take out a significant number of sables for their share. The Cossack conquering parties were for the most part not crowded: 20 or even 10 people.

So, the main role in the occupation and colonization of Siberia belongs to the common people. The peasantry singled out from its midst all the chief leaders of the cause. From his environment came out: the first conqueror of Siberia - Ermak, the conqueror of the Amur - Khabarov, the conqueror of Kamchatka - Atlasov, the Cossack Dezhnev, who rounded the Chukchi nose; simple industrialists discovered a mammoth bone. They were brave people, good organizers, created by nature itself to control the crowd, resourceful in a difficult situation, able, in case of need, to turn around with small means and resourceful.

The first parties of Russian settlers to Siberia brought with them to the new soil the primary forms of social organization: the Cossacks - the military circle; sable industrialists - an artel, farmers - a community. Along with these forms of self-government in Siberia, a voivodeship administration was also established. Yermak was forced to call him; he realized that without sending new people and a "fiery battle" in a word - without the support of the Moscow state, he, with his small Cossack artel, could not hold Siberia. In Siberia, two colonizations developed simultaneously: the free people, which went ahead, and the government, led by governors.

In the early days of Siberian history, the Cossack communities retained their self-government. They were especially independent away from the voivodeship cities, on the Siberian outskirts, where they maintained garrisons of prisons abandoned among hostile tribes. If they themselves, without a voivodship initiative, went in search of new tributaries, then the entire management of the newly occupied region was in their hands. The first Siberian cities were nothing more than settled Cossack squads or artels, controlled by a "circle". These settled Cossack artels divided yasak Siberia among themselves, and each of them had its own area for collecting yasak. Sometimes there were disputes about who should collect yasak from this or that tribe, and then one Cossack city went to another war. Tobolsk was considered the eldest among the Siberian cities, which insisted that it alone had the right to receive foreign ambassadors. In later times, the freedom and initiative of these artels and communities have been reduced; but back in the 18th century, many cases, even criminal, remote Cossack communities decided on their own. In the event of the discovery of a conspiracy, the garrison of a remote prison gathered a gathering, sentenced the criminals to death and executed it, then letting them know only to the nearest voivodship office. So, for example, the inhabitants of the city of Okhotsk acted with the rebellious Koryaks at the end of the last century. This self-government and lynching, however, gradually disappeared before the spreading voivodeship power. But occasionally flashed attempts to restore Siberian antiquity. So there were stories about the deposition of governors in Irkutsk and Tara. Traces of this struggle have been preserved in the Siberian archives in a small number; but in reality there were more. By the last century, self-government in Siberian cities had finally fallen. The remnants of self-government survived only in villages abandoned in the taiga, far from the main road.

Not only the first conquerors who came with Yermak - the Cossacks and the rabble of the Volga freemen - but also the later emigrants, more peaceful animal merchants, were people either unwilling to engage in agriculture, or never engaged in it. These parties were engaged in provisions, piled it on a sled, or the so-called chunitsy, which had to be dragged on oneself, and went east one after the other. They found the beginnings of local agriculture only where the settlements were founded by the Tatar colonization. Of course, these rudiments were insignificant and could not satisfy the hunting artels that arrived one after the other. In addition to bread, these latter also needed a “fiery battle”. Both of these circumstances made the hunting artels dependent on the distant metropolis. Since the sable trade was immediately appreciated by Moscow, the Muscovite state took upon itself the concern of supplying the industrialists with provisions and shells. In general, the passion for sable fishing was beneficial for the state. All the booty of the hunters was turned into the state treasury. Sable, like later gold, was recognized as a state regalia; it was ordered that all sable caught in Siberia should be handed over to the treasury. Part of the sables entered it like yasak; but even those sables that came from foreigners for sale or were caught by Russian industrialists and then bought by fences could not bypass the treasury. Buyers, under severe punishment, were obliged to bring them to Moscow and hand them over to the Siberian order, from which they were given money, according to an estimate, as they are now given to a gold merchant when he pours the gold he mined into a smelting furnace in Barnaul or Irkutsk. In its orders or instructions to the Siberian governors, the Moscow government insisted - to try by all means, "so that in all Siberia sables were in one of his Great Sovereign's treasury." Only thin furs were allowed to be exported to China; Bukhara merchants were completely forbidden to export furs to Turkestan; The governors themselves were strictly forbidden to wear sable coats and sable hats. Both undressed skins and sewn furs, the governors had to select from the region and send them to Moscow. To do this, they were sent goods from Moscow, which they were to give out to the Ostyaks, Yakuts and Tungus for booty; they were also allowed to sell vodka from the treasury through the uluses in order to exchange furs for it.

Trying to turn all the booty from the sable trade in favor of the treasury, the government had to fulfill two tasks: to provide food for industrial parties and to overcome smuggling. So that Russian merchants would not bring sables secretly, customs outposts were established in the cities along the large Moscow highway. But, in addition to Russian merchants, Bukhara merchants were engaged in smuggling in Siberia. The latter consisted partly of the descendants of those Turkestans who settled in Siberia before Yermak, and partly of natives who came to Siberia after the conquest of it by the Russians. They had land in Siberia and were the only landowners in it. Even before the appearance of the Russians, they were already engaged in a lively trade with Siberian foreigners - they took sables from them, and they were given paper fabrics. Russian merchants, in exchange for sables, began to offer Siberian residents Russian canvas and krashenina; but Russian material was both worse and more expensive, so that competition with the Bukharians was difficult. In addition to the fact that the goods of the Bukhara were more profitable for the foreigner, the Bukhara took precedence over the Russian and the prescription of his relations with Siberia; The Bukharians had wives and families in foreign camps, were related to local princelings; finally, they were more educated than the Russian newcomers. In the XYII century they were the only people in Siberia who had a book in their hands. In the 18th century, foreigners who ended up in Siberia found rare manuscripts with them. For example, the captive Swede Stralenberg opened the Turkestan chronicle, written by the Khiva prince Abulgazi, under the title “Genealogy about the Tatars” at one of the Tobolsk Bukharians. The Russians had to compete in Siberia with the commercially dexterous Turkestanis, famous for their antiquity of their culture dating back to the Christian era. This struggle continued throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, and partly even into the 19th century. The otatarization of foreigners continued to take place under Russian rule; the conversion of pagans to Islam went along with the conversion to Christianity, and some tribes, such as the Baraba Tatars, only in the middle of the last century switched from shamanism to Mohammedanism, and the voices of the Tobolsk bishops about taking measures against Muslim preaching were heard in vain. The struggle with the Bukharans was no less difficult in terms of trade. The Bukharans in the 17th century controlled all internal trade in Siberia; in the 18th century, only Asiatic trade remained in their hands; but also ousted from the internal market, the Bukharans seemed to be serious rivals to the Ustyug merchants, who held in their hands the trade of Siberia with European Russia. Siberian residents, both foreigners and Russians, loved Asian fabrics more than Russians. In the last century, the whole of Siberia, according to the well-known Radishchev, dressed in underwear made from Asian calico, and on holidays they put on silk shirts made from Chinese fanza. Peasant women on Sundays went around in scarves and caps made of Chinese silk fabric - naked; priestly robes were also sewn from Chinese gole; all correspondence from Siberia was written in Chinese ink; an Irkutsk merchant wrote a petition to Moscow with her, and she wrote all the papers in the regimental offices on the Irtysh.

Both the Ustyug merchant and the Moscow government could not like this filling of the Siberian market with Asian goods and the primacy of the Bukharans. The government could have liked it all the less because Bukharian demanded furs from foreigners for their fabrics. Contrary to the decrees of the government, there was an extensive smuggling trade in furs in Siberia. It was difficult for the local administration to keep track of it, because the entire population was interested in the existence of smuggling. The population wanted to wear silk, not linen shirts, and therefore everyone - both Russians, and foreigners, and merchants, and Cossacks - were secretly selling furs to Bukharians. To put an end to the smuggling and export of sables to Turkestan, the government completely forbade the Bukharians from entering Siberia. By such a measure, at the beginning of the 19th century, the government managed to give an advantage to the Russian merchant over Bukharts and establish a Russian factory in Siberia. Already at the end of the last century, this change became noticeable. Not only did the import of Asian paper goods to Siberia decrease, but the export of Russian paper textiles to China and Turkestan began. And in the first half of the 19th century, the export of this product took precedence over the import.

Another concern of the government in relation to Siberia was to supply it with food. These worries continue throughout the eighteenth century, and in part even into the present century. The animal merchants, carried away by the ease of profit from sable fishing, did not want to take on the plow. The government began to establish villages in Siberia, build roads, establish post pits, recruit farmers in Russia and settle them along the Siberian roads. Each settler, by royal decree, had to take with him the prescribed amount of livestock and poultry, as well as agricultural tools and seeds. The settler's cart looked like a small Noah's ark. Sometimes the government recruited horses in Russia and sent them to Siberia for distribution to settlers. But these measures were not enough. The government set up state-owned arable land in Siberia, obliged the peasants to work them, forced them to build plank houses and float bread on them to grainless places.

The establishment of arable land, cattle breeding, settled settlements required the multiplication of women in Siberia, and a predominantly male population went to the new country. From the lack of women, at first Siberia did not differ in morality. In the absence of Russian women, the Russians got wives from foreign women and, according to the custom of the Bukharians, got them several at a time, so that the Moscow Metropolitan Filaret had to preach against Siberian polygamy. Foreign wives were obtained either by purchase or by capture. Numerous revolts of foreigners, which were caused by unfair requisitions and oppression of yasak collectors, gave rise to numerous military campaigns in foreign camps, and imaginary disobedient people were beaten, and wives and children were taken prisoner and then sold in Siberian cities into slavery. Hunger from lack of bread and the lack of a beast often forced the foreigners themselves to sell their children into slavery. The nomadic tribe of the Kirghiz, who occupied the southern steppes of Siberia, making raids on the neighboring Kalmyks, always returned with captives and captives, and also sometimes sold them in the Siberian border towns.

The royal decree of 1754 limited the right of distillation to one class of nobles; Merchants were forbidden to smoke wine. But since there was no nobility in Siberia, this law at first did not apply to Siberia. Unexpectedly, two years later, a certain Evreinov, a trusted prosecutor general Glebov, appears in Irkutsk and demands that the distilleries, or “kashtak” in Siberian, be handed over to Glebov, to whom they seem to have been leased by the treasury. The merchants did not believe; the Irkutsk vice-governor Wolf himself took this for a mistake. But it wasn't a mistake. Prosecutor General Glebov really rented taverns and kashtaki in Siberia in order to engage in a profitable wine trade.

The following year, after the arrival of Evreinov, investigator Krylov, sent by the Senate, at the request of Glebov, arrives in Irkutsk. Before starting the investigation, Krylov strengthens himself in his apartment; he sets up a guardhouse, surrounds himself with soldiers, hangs the walls of his bedroom with various weapons, goes to bed only with a loaded pistol under his pillow. Everything showed that Krylov was plotting something unkind against urban society, capable of causing popular revenge, and was strengthening himself in his apartment in advance.

While this home fortress was not ready, Krylov, appearing in society, was very affectionate and affable; but then he suddenly changed and began by putting the entire magistrate in chains and putting him in prison. Extortion began from money merchants; under torture and lashes, they were forced to confess to abuses of city government and to the illegal trade in wine. Not only the members of the magistrate, but also many other persons from the city society were implicated in this matter by means of false denunciations. It has always been easy to do this in Siberia. As soon as a person invested with power showed a tendency to listen to denunciations, how helpful people always turned out to be in numbers that exceeded the request of the authorities. One of the Irkutsk merchants, Yelezov, left a particularly bad memory of himself. From the very beginning, he served Krylov and then indicated to him from whom and how much money could be obtained through dungeons and torture. The merchant Bichevin turned out to be more stable than the others. He was a rich man who traded in the Pacific Ocean and thus amassed a large fortune. It is unlikely that he, judging by the nature of his trading activities, was involved in the abuses of the Irkutsk magistrate in the wine trade; but his wealth was a bait for Krylov, and therefore he was brought to trial and tortured. He was raised on his hind legs or temple: i.e. a stump of a tree or a raw log like the one on which our butchers chop beef was tied to his feet, weighing from 5 to 12 pounds. The martyr was lifted up the block by ropes tied to the hands and quickly lowered, preventing the log from hitting the ground; then, with twisted joints in his arms and legs, the unfortunate man hung for the duration of the time determined by the tormentor, from time to time receiving lashes on his body. Suspended on his temple, Bichevin fastened and refused to admit his guilt. Without removing it from the whiskey, Krylov went to the merchant Glazunov for a snack. There he stayed for three hours. Bichevin hung on his hind legs all this time. When Krylov returned, Bichevin felt the approach of death and agreed to sign 15,000 rubles. He was taken off the rack and taken home. And here Krylov did not leave him alone. He came to his house and before his death, he still extorted the same amount. About 150,000 rubles were extorted from Irkutsk merchants and philistines in a similar brutal way. In addition, Krylov, under the pretext of rewarding the treasury for losses, confiscated merchant property. He especially took away precious things, which he partly directly, without circumlocution, appropriated for himself, partly sold at auction, while he himself was both an appraiser, and a seller, and a buyer. With this order, of course, everything of value and the best went into the chests of the investigator himself for nothing at all. These extortions and robbery of private property were accompanied by Krylov's insulting treatment of Irkutsk residents. At the meeting, Krylov always appeared drunk, and raged; beat merchants in the face with fists and a cane, knocked out their teeth, pulled their beards. Using his power, Krylov sent his grenadiers for the daughters of the merchants and dishonored them. When the fathers complained to Vice-Governor Wolf, he only shrugged and said that Krylov had been sent by the Senate and was not subordinate to him. Neither age nor lack of beauty guaranteed Irkutsk women from Krylov's violence. He grabbed ten-year-old girls. The old women were also not spared from his persecution. One of the Siberian everyday writers tells how Krylov forced the love of the merchant Myasnikova. The grenadiers grabbed her, brought her to Krylov, beat her, shackled her, locked her up; but the woman heroically endured the beatings and refused his caresses. Finally, Krylov called the husband of this woman, gave him a stick in his hands and forced him to beat his wife - and the husband beat, persuading his own wife to break the marriage ...

The Siberian merchants behaved incredibly cowardly in this story. No one dared to complain and expose before the highest authorities of violence a rabid man who accidentally fell into the hands of power over the region, due to the greed of such an important state official as Governor General Glebov. In Irkutsk there was a rich merchant Alexei Sibiryakov, who had a reputation as a lawyer in the city. He loved to study the laws, collected decrees and instructions for the management of the Siberian region, since the code of laws did not yet exist, and compiled a complete collection of these state acts. Instead of arming himself with knowledge to defend his city, Sibiryakov also fled somewhere in a remote village or simply in the forest, living in an animal industry hut. Krylov was frightened, thinking that Sibiryakov had driven off to Petersburg with a denunciation, and sent a messenger after him to return the fugitive. The messenger drove to Verkhoturye, and returned empty-handed. The fugitive left his wife and family and brother in the city. Immediately Krylov shackled them and demanded an indication of where Sibiryakov had disappeared. But, despite the whips, neither the wife nor the brother of the fugitive could say anything, because Sibiryakov fled furtively even from his family. To complete the abuse of the Irkutsk society, Krylov suggested that the Irkutsk merchants send a deputation to St. Petersburg, in order to ask Glebov for gracious indulgence towards the accused merchants, among whom there were many allegedly guilty ones, and his favorite and informant was elected deputy Yelezov.

For two years, Krylov was outrageous in this way in the region. The representative of the authorities, Lieutenant-Governor Wolf, was silent and did not have the courage not only to stop him with his own power, but even to inform about the atrocities. Bishop Sophrony also hid and tried to make his existence invisible to Krylov, who began to interfere in all parts of the administration. Once, having taken a walk at a meeting, Krylov, in a drunken state, wanted to flaunt his power in front of Wulf and began to scold him for omissions in the service. Although Wulf timidly objected to him, trying to refute the accusation, but Krylov, under the influence of intoxication, got excited, ordered the sword to be taken away from Wulf, declared him arrested and dismissed from his post, and himself entered into the administration of the region. Only then, frightened for his freedom, and, perhaps, his life, Wulff decided to inform his superiors about the events in Irkutsk. In secret, he and Bishop Sophrony considered this matter. The bishop wrote a denunciation, and Wulff sent it to Tobolsk with a secret courier. From Tobolsk came an order to arrest Krylov. Wulf, however, did not dare to do so openly; he undertook this undertaking with great precautions. At night, a team of twenty selected Cossacks approached the investigator's apartment, first seized the guns that were in the bipod in front of the guardhouse, then changed the guard. Then, the Cossack officer Podkorytov, famous for his prowess, entered with several comrades into the room of the violent administrator. Krylov, seeing him, grabbed a gun from the wall and wanted to defend himself, but Podkorytov warned him and defeated him. They put shackles on Krylov and sent him to prison, and then, by order of the higher authorities, to Petersburg, where he was to appear before the court. Empress Elizabeth, having learned about this case, ordered that "this villain, regardless of any person, should be dealt with." The Senate, ignoring all the atrocities of Krylov, charged him only with the arrest of Wulf and insult state emblem, which Krylov had the imprudence to nail to the gate of his apartment, along with a plaque on which his own name was put, and deprived him of his ranks. “In a hundred years, even,” says one Siberian writer of everyday life, “it is difficult to judge this disgusting event in cold blood, especially for us Siberians, whose ancestors died or went bankrupt under Krylov’s whip; but what was this executioner supposed to look like to those who experienced his torture and violence?...”.

Unrest in Siberia grew; news of them more often began to reach the supreme power. To help the cause, increased the powers of the chief commander of the region. Governor-General Selifontov, who ended in disgrace, was vested with such extensive authority - dismissal from service with a ban on entry to the capitals. Then the governor-general in Siberia is Pestel. He was a painfully suspicious person. At the very appointment to this high post, Pestel wrote with a trembling hand, among other things, to the Sovereign: “I am afraid, Sovereign, of this place. How many of my predecessors were broken by the Siberian snake! Not hoping and I will safely leave this position; better cancel your will - the Siberian scammers will ruin me. The sovereign did not agree to cancel his order, and Pestel had to go to Siberia upon taking office, he declared that he had come to crush the sneak. However, he did not directly manage Siberia: he handed over the affairs of management to his closest relatives and favorites, while he himself went to St. Petersburg and never returned. For eleven years he ruled Siberia, living in St. Petersburg, twisting the Highest Commands, circumventing them and replacing them with Senate orders. On the one hand, he deceived the government with false ideas; on the other hand, he deceived the local population with intimidation that in St. Petersburg the top authorities had turned their backs on him and despised him for his snitching.

Finally, Pestel's opponents managed to convince the Sovereign to revise Siberia. They say that one day, Emperor Alexander I looked out of the window of the Winter Palace and noticed something black on the spike of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. He called Count Rostopchin, who was famous for his wit, and asked if he would consider what it was. Rostopchin replied: “We must call Pestel. He sees from here what is happening in Siberia.” And in Siberia, indeed, something terrible was happening. The sovereign sent Speransky to Siberia. At the mere rumor of this, the Siberian administration went mad with fear. One of the arbitrarily despotic bigwigs of Siberia fell into a wild madness, from which he soon died; another time haggard and aged; the third hanged himself just before the start of the Speransky investigation.

Speransky appeared in Siberia. His management was actually only an "administrative journey" through Siberia. Two years later he left the region and returned to St. Petersburg. Suffering Siberia met him, the messenger of God. “Be a man sent from above!” wrote his contemporary, an educated Siberian, Slovtsov. And Speransky himself understood that his arrival in Siberia was an epoch for Siberian history. He called himself the second Yermak, because he discovered the socially living Siberia, or as he put it: "discovered Siberia in its political relations",

One of the Siberian writers, Mr. Vagin, tells the following anecdote. In some remote city in Transbaikalia they were waiting for Speransky. The officials were in a pack, but the governor-general was not coming. The company got bored, sat down at the cards, got drunk, then fell asleep. The governor-general arrived at night and woke up this society with the words: "Behold the bridegroom is coming at midnight!" The results were as follows: the governor-general, two governors and six hundred officials, were subject to trial for abuse; the amount of embezzled money stretched up to three million rubles! Presenting his audit report, Speransky petitioned the Sovereign to confine himself to punishing only the most significant culprits. This was prompted, firstly, by necessity, since to expel six hundred officials from service meant leaving Siberia without officials; secondly, it was not the people who were to blame for the abuses of the Siberian officials, but the management system itself. Only two hundred people were hurt; of these, only forty suffered a more severe punishment.

Having discovered the abuses of the bureaucracy and punished the most important culprits, Speransky changed the very system of government in Siberia, granting it the well-known special "Siberian Code". Each Siberian governor and governor-general is assigned a council consisting of officials appointed by the ministries. The Arakcheev Party prevented Speransky from introducing elected representatives from the local society into these councils. The practice of subsequent years proved that this new "Code" contributed very little to reducing administrative arbitrariness in Siberia.

The beneficial consequences of Speransky's stay in Siberia lie rather in the charming impression that he made on the local population with his personality. “In the nobles,” says Vagin, “the Siberians saw a man for the first time.” Instead of the former rulers, a simple, accessible, affable, highly educated man with a broad statesmanship appeared in Irkutsk - in a word, a man that Siberia had never betrayed before. Speransky kept himself extremely simple in society. He entered into friendly relations with the old-timers; showed love and patronage for the sciences. The ruler of a vast region, its reformer, overwhelmed with cases of revision, bombarded with thousands of petitions, constituting at once several projects for the management of individual parts - he, at the same time, follows the current Russian literature with the liveliest interest, studies German literature, learns English and teaches himself Latin language one young student. Speransky's stay in Siberia is a bright episode in the history of this country, a solid, so to speak, picture of the triumph of truth over arbitrariness. Punishment, which befell the perpetrators of the abuses and, most importantly, the personal influence of Speransky, made for some time impossible the unrest on the previous scale. Then, the development of education in the metropolis, where the rulers of the region came from, the change in views on governance in general and the administration of the outskirts in particular, the softening of the morals of the rulers - finally made it completely impossible to repeat Krylovism and Pestelevism in Siberia. The special "Siberian Code" was intended to weaken the disturbances of governance that occurred from the remoteness of the region, by limiting the power of the chiefs of the region through the soviets, it was thought that this limitation would make the Siberian orders similar to Russian ones. However, the "Siberian Code" did not deliver this equality. The Siberian order is, after all, constantly worse than those that exist in European Russia. True, they are better than those who were before Speransky, but the people in Siberia are not the same anymore. Siberia, which has already entered the fourth century of its existence under the dominion of Russia, is waiting for a new, more fundamental reform in governance.

On the occasion of the tercentenary anniversary of Siberia, the Sovereign word was heard from the height of the throne, giving the right to hope that, probably in the near future, those reforms that European Russia uses will be extended to Siberia. The Siberian administration finally declared the urgent importance and necessity of this, and the highest government authorities treated this statement with special attention and care.

Indeed, bringing Siberia into one whole with European Russia by establishing unity in the system of governance of both of these Russian territories is the first thing that is necessary in order to make Siberia not only a definitively Russian country, but also an organic part of our state organism - in consciousness as a European Russian and Siberian population. Then, it is necessary to finally consolidate the connection of Siberia with European Russia by railroad, which runs through the entire Siberian territory. Then, of course, quite naturally, a proper influx of population from European Russia to Siberia will be established and the abundance of Siberian natural wealth will receive a corresponding sale on the Russian and Western European markets. Only under this condition can Siberia be able to justify its old reputation as a "gold mine".

* Picturesque Russia. - St. Petersburg; M., 1884. - T. 11. - S. 31-48.

Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation

Kursk State Technical University

Department of History

Abstract on the topic:

"Conquest of Siberia"

Completed by: st-t group ES-61

Zatey N.O.

Checked by: K.I.N., Associate Professor of the Department of History

Goryushkina N.E.

K U R S K 2 0 0 6

1. Introduction............................................... ................................................. .3

2. The conquest of Siberia............................................... .....................................4

2.1 Campaign of Yermak and his historical meaning.......................................4

2.2 Accession of Siberia to the Russian state.......................................10

2.3 Accession of Eastern Siberia…………………………………….20

Conclusion................................................. ...................................................28

List of used literature

Introduction

Relevance of the topic: The conquest and annexation of new territories strengthen the state with the influx of a new mass of taxes, minerals, as well as the influx of new knowledge received from the conquered peoples. New lands provide new prospects for the development of the country, in particular: new outlets to the seas and oceans, borders with new states, making it possible to increase the volume of trade.

Objective: Study in depth the conquest and annexation of Siberia to the Russian state.

Tasks:

Study Yermak's campaign;

To study the accession of Siberia to the Russian state;

Find out what nationalities were conquered;

Overview of historiography: The free Russian colonists were pioneers in the development of new lands. Ahead of the government, they settled in the "wild field" in the Lower Volga region, on the Terek, on the Yalik and the Don. The campaign of Yermak's Cossacks in Siberia was a direct continuation of this popular movement.

Yermak's Cossacks took the first step. Behind them, peasants, industrialists, hunters, and service people moved to the East. In the struggle against the harsh nature, they conquered land from the taiga, founded settlements and laid the foundations of agricultural culture.

Tsarism brought oppression to the indigenous population of Siberia. His oppression was equally experienced by both local tribes and Russian settlers. The rapprochement of the Russian working people and the Siberian tribes favored the development of productive forces and overcoming the age-old disunity of the Siberian peoples, embodying the future of Siberia.

2. The conquest of Siberia

2.1 Yermak's campaign and its historical significance

Long before the beginning of the Russian development of Siberia, its population had ties with the Russian people. The Novgorodians were the first to start their acquaintance with the Trans-Urals and Western Siberia, who, already in the 11th century, tried to master the Pechora way beyond the Stone (Urals). The Russian people were attracted to Siberia by the rich fur and sea crafts, and the possibility of barter with the locals. Following the sailors and explorers in the northwestern limits of Siberia, Novgorod squads began to periodically appear, collecting tribute from the local population. The Novgorod nobility has long officially included the Yugra land in the Trans-Urals into the possessions of Veliky Novgorod24. In the XIII century. the princes of Rostov stood in the way of the Novgorodians, who founded in 1218 at the mouth of the river. Yugra is the city of Ustyug, and then the development initiative passed to the Moscow principality.

Taking over the "volosts" of Veliky Novgorod, the government of Ivan III sent detachments of military men beyond the Urals three times. In 1465, voivode Vasily Skryaba went to Ugra and collected tribute in favor of the Grand Duke of Moscow. In 1483, governors Fyodor Kurbsky and Ivan Travnin with military people "went up the Kama tributary, the Vishera River, crossed the Ural Mountains, dispersed the detachments of the Pelym prince Yumshan and moved "down the Tavda river past Tyumen to the Siberian land"25. possession of the Tyumen Khan Ibak, the detachment moved from Tavda to Tobol, Irtysh and Ob. There, Russian warriors "fought" Yugra, capturing several Ugric princes.

This campaign, which lasted several months, had important consequences. In the spring of the following year, an embassy "from all the land of Kodsky and Yugra" arrived in Moscow, delivered gifts to Ivan III and a request to release the prisoners. The ambassadors recognized themselves as vassals of the Russian sovereign and pledged to annually deliver tribute to his treasury from the population of the areas subject to them.

However, the established tributary relations of a number of Ugric lands with Russia proved to be fragile. At the end of the XV century. the government of Ivan III undertook a new campaign to the east. More than 4 thousand warriors under the leadership of the Moscow governor Semyon Kurbsky, Peter Ushaty and Vasily Zabolotsky spoke in the winter of 1499. Until March 1500, 40 towns were occupied and 58 princelings were taken prisoner. As a result, the Yugra land was subjugated, and the collection of tribute began to be carried out systematically. The delivery of furs was charged to the duty of the "princes" of the Ugric and Samoyedic associations. From the middle of the XVI century. In the 18th century, the sending of special government collectors of "tributors" to the Yugra land began, which delivered the tribute collected by the local nobility to Moscow.

At the same time, the commercial development of the Russian Western Siberia. This was facilitated by the peasant colonization of the northern regions of Russia, the basins of the Pechora, Vychegda, and the Urals. From the 16th century Russian trade relations with the inhabitants of the Trans-Urals are also developing more intensively. Russian fishermen and merchants are increasingly appearing beyond the Urals, using the fishing villages of the North-Eastern Pomerania as transshipment bases (Pustozersky jail, Ust-Tsilemskaya settlement, Horn town, etc.). There are villages of industrial people in the Trans-Urals. These were temporary hunting winter huts, on the site of which the Russian prisons of Berezovsky, Obdorsky, etc. later appeared.

Close contact with the inhabitants of North-Western Siberia led to the fact that Russian hunters borrowed from them the methods of hunting and fishing, began to use deer and dogs for riding. Many of them, having lived in Siberia for a long time, were able to speak Ugric and Samoyedic languages. The Siberian population, in turn, using the iron products (knives, axes, arrowheads, etc.) brought by the Russians, improved the methods of hunting, fishing and sea fishing.

In the XVI century. Yugra's southern neighbor was the Siberian Khanate, which arose on the ruins of the Tyumen "kingdom". After the capture of Kazan by the troops of Ivan IV in 1552 and the annexation of the peoples of the Volga and Ural regions to Russia, favorable conditions developed for establishing permanent ties with the Siberian Khanate. The Taibugins (representatives of a new local dynasty) who ruled it, the brothers Ediger and Bekbulat, frightened by the events in Kazan and pressed from the south by Genghisid Kuchum, the son of the Bukhara ruler Murtaza, who claimed the Siberian throne, decided to establish diplomatic relations with the Russian government. In January 1555, their ambassadors arrived in Moscow and asked Ivan IV to “take the whole Siberian land in his name, and intercede from all sides, and put his tribute on them, and send his man (“road”) for her collection

From now on, Ivan IV added to his titles the title of “ruler of all Siberian land. The ambassadors of Yediger and Bekbulat, while in Moscow, promised to pay “to the sovereign from every black man for sable, and for the sovereign’s road for a squirrel from a man to Siberian. Later, the amount of tribute was finally determined at 1,000 sables.

The royal envoy, the son of the boyar Dmitry Nepeitsin, went to the capital of the Siberian Khanate, located on the Irtysh near modern Tobolsk, where he swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar of the Siberian rulers, but could neither rewrite the "black" population of the kingdom, nor collect a full tribute. Vassal relations between the Siberian Khanate and Russia proved to be fragile. In the context of constantly growing strife between the Tatar uluses and the growing discontent of the "black people" and the conquered Ugric and Bashkir tribes, the position of the Siberian rulers was unstable. Kuchum took advantage of this, who in 1563 defeated their troops, seized power in the Siberian Khanate and ordered the death of Ediger and Bekbulat, who were captured.

In relation to Russia, Kuchum was hostile from the very beginning. But the change of dynasty in the Siberian "kingdom" was accompanied by turmoil. For several years, Kuchum had to fight with the recalcitrant nobility and tribal princelings, seeking obedience from them. Under these conditions, he did not dare to break diplomatic relations with the Moscow government. In 1571, in order to lull the vigilance of the Russian Tsar, he even sent his ambassador to Moscow and a tribute of 10,000 sables.

The arrival of Kuchum's ambassadors came at a difficult time for Moscow. In 1571, it was attacked and burned by detachments of the Crimean Khan Devletgirey. Among the inhabitants of the capital, rumors began to spread about Russia's failures in the Livonian War. When the ambassadors reported to Kuchum about their observations made in Moscow, he openly decided to do away with Russian influence in the Trans-Urals. In 1573, the tsarist ambassador Tretyak Chubukov and all the service Tatars accompanying him were killed at his headquarters, and in the summer of the same year, Kuchum's armed detachments, led by his nephew Mametkul, crossed the Kamen to the river. Chusovaya and devastated the district. Since that time, raids into the Kama region began to be carried out systematically, and the Russian settlements in it were thoroughly devastated. Kuchum also did not spare any of those who were guided by an alliance with Russia: he killed, took prisoner, imposed a heavy tribute on the peoples of all the vast possessions of the Khanty and Mansi of the Ob and the Urals subject to him, the Bashkir tribes, the Tatar tribes of the Trans-Urals and the Baraba steppe.

In such a situation, the government of Ivan IV took some retaliatory measures. In 1574, it sent to the Stroganovs, large estate owners, who were developing the Perm Territory, a letter of commendation, which assigned them lands on eastern slopes Ural along the river. Tobol and its tributaries. The Stroganovs were allowed to hire a thousand Cossacks with squeakers and build fortresses in the Trans-Urals on the Tobol, Irtysh and Ob.

The Stroganovs, using the right given to them by the government, formed a mercenary detachment, commanded by ataman Yermak Timofeevich. Information about who Ermak was by origin is scarce and contradictory. Some sources call him a Don Cossack, who came with his detachment to the Urals from the Volga. Others are a native inhabitant of the Urals, a townsman Vasily Timofeevich Olenin. Still others consider him a native of the northern volosts of the Vologda district. All this information, which is based on oral folk tradition, reflected the desire of the inhabitants of various Russian lands to consider Yermak the national hero as their fellow countryman. Only the fact that Yermak served in the Cossack villages in the “wild field” for 20 years, guarding the borders of Russia, is reliable.

On September 1, 1581, 31 Yermak's squad of 540 Volga Cossacks set out on a campaign and, having climbed the river. Chusovoi and passing the Ural Range, began its advance to the east. They sailed on light plows along the Siberian rivers Tagil, Tura, Tobol in the direction of the capital of the Siberian Khanate, Kashlyk. Siberian chronicles note several major battles with Kuchum's detachments, which were taken by Yermak's squad on the way. Among them is the battle on the banks of the Tobol near the yurts of Babasan (30 versts below the mouth of the Tavda), where one of the experienced military leaders Kuchuma Mametkul tried to detain the squad. Not far from the mouth of the Tavda, the squad had to fight with the detachments of Murza Karachi.

Having fortified himself in the town of Karachi, Yermak sent a group of Cossacks led by Ivan Koltso to the Stroganovs for ammunition, food and servicemen. In winter, on sleds and skis, the Cossacks reached the estates of Maxim Stroganov, and in the summer. 1582 returned back with reinforcements of 300 servicemen. In September of this year, the replenished squad of Yermak moved into the depths of Siberia. Having reached the confluence of the Tobol with the Irtysh, the detachment began to climb up the Irtysh.

The decisive battle took place on the 20th of October on the outskirts of the capital near the so-called Chuvash Cape. Kuchum hoped to stop the Cossacks by arranging a fence of fallen trees on the cape, which was supposed to protect his soldiers from Russian bullets. Sources also report that 1 or 2 cannons were installed on the cape, brought to Kashlyk from the Kazan Khanate (before it was occupied by the Russians).

But long-term wars with the Tatars and Turks, which hardened the Cossacks, taught them to unravel the tactics of the enemy and use the full advantages of their weapons. In this battle, Mametkul was wounded and narrowly escaped capture. The servants managed to transport him to the other side of the Irtysh. Panic broke out in Kuchum's army. According to legend, the vassal Khanty and Mansi princelings left their positions after the very first volleys and thus made it easier for the Cossacks to win.

Kuchum watched the battle from the mountain. As soon as the Russians began to overcome, he, with his family and murzas, seized the most valuable property and cattle, fled to the steppe, leaving his bet to the mercy of fate.

The local tribes, conquered by Kuchum, treated the Cossacks very peacefully. The princes and murzas hastened to come to Yermak with gifts and declared their desire to accept Russian citizenship. In Kashlyk, the Cossacks found rich booty, especially furs collected in the khan's treasury over many years. Ermak, following the laws of the free Cossacks, ordered to divide the booty equally among all.

In December 1582, Yermak sent messengers to Russia, led by Ivan Koltso, with a report about the capture of the Siberian Khanate. He himself, having settled down for the winter in Kashlyk, continued to repel the raids of Kuchum's detachments. In the spring of 1583, Mametku-la's headquarters on the banks of the Vagai was destroyed. Mametkul himself was taken prisoner. This noticeably weakened Kuchum's forces. In addition, from the south, from Bukhara, a descendant of the Taibugins, the son of Bekbulat-ta Sepdyak (Seid Khan), returned, who at one time managed to escape reprisal, and began to threaten Kuchum. Anticipating new strife, the nobility began to hastily leave the Khanek yard. Even one of his most loyal associates, Murza Karami, "departed" from Kuchum. Capturing camps along the river. Omi, he entered into single combat with Yermak, seeking the return of the ulus near Kashlyk.

In March 1584, Karachi lured a detachment of Cossacks from Kashlyk, led by Yermak's faithful companion Ivan Koltso, who had returned from Moscow, and destroyed it. Until the summer, the Tatars, besieging Kashlyk, kept Yermak's detachment in the ring, depriving him of the opportunity to replenish the meager food supplies. But Yermak, after waiting for the moment, organized a sortie from the besieged town one night and defeated the Karachi headquarters with a sudden blow. In the battle, 2 of his sons were killed, but he himself managed to escape with a small detachment.

The power of Kuchum ceased to be recognized by some local tribes and their princelings. Back in the spring of 1583, Yermak sent 50 Cossacks along the Irtysh to the Ob, led by Bogdan Bryazga, and overlaid with yasak a number of Tatar and Khanty volosts.

The forces of Yermak's squad were reinforced in the summer of 1584. The government of Ivan IV, having received a report about the capture of Kashlyk, sent a detachment of 300 servicemen to Siberia, headed by the governor S. D. Bolkhovsky. This detachment in the winter of 1584/85. was in a difficult position. Lack of housing and food, severe Siberian frosts caused severe famine. Many archers died, and the voivode Semyon Bolkhovsky also died.

Kuchum, who wandered with his ulus in the steppes, gathered forces, threatening and flattering, demanding help from the Tatar murzas in the fight against the Russians. In an effort to lure Yermak out of Qashlyk, he spread a rumor about the delay of the Bukharian trade caravan heading to Qashlyk. Yermak decided to take another campaign against Kuchum. This was Yermak's last campaign. With a detachment of 150 people, Yermak left on plows in July

1585 from Kashlyk and moved up the Irtysh. During an overnight stay on the island of the Irtysh, not far from the mouth of the river. Vagai, the detachment was subjected to an unexpected attack by Kuchum. Many Cossacks were killed, and Yermak, wounded in hand-to-hand combat with the Tatars, while covering the withdrawal of the detachment, managed to break through to the shore. But the plow, on the edge of which he unsuccessfully jumped, turned over, and, dressed in heavy armor, Yermak drowned. It happened on the night of August 5-6, 1585.

Having learned about the death of their leader, the archers, led by Ivan Glukhov, left Kashlyk for the European part of the country by the Pechora route - through the Irtysh, Ob, Northern Urals. Part of the Cossacks with Matvey Meshcheryak, together with a small detachment of I. Mansurov sent from Moscow, remained in Siberia and laid at the mouth of the river. The first Russian fortification on the Irtysh was the town of Ob.

Following Yermak's Cossacks, peasants, industrialists, hunters, and service people moved to Siberia, and intensive commercial and agricultural development of the region began.

The tsarist government used Yermak's campaign to extend its power to Siberia. "The last Mongol king Kuchum, according to K-Marx, was defeated by Yermak" and this "laid the foundation of Asiatic Russia." Tsarism brought oppression to the indigenous population of Siberia. His oppression was equally experienced by the Russian settlers. But the rapprochement of the working Russian people and local tribes favored the development of productive forces, overcoming the age-old disunity of the Siberian peoples, embodying the future of Siberia.

The people glorified Yermak in their songs and legends, paying tribute to his courage, devotion to his comrades, and military prowess. For more than three years, his squad did not know defeat; neither hunger nor severe frosts broke the will of the Cossacks. It was Yermak's campaign that prepared the annexation of Siberia to Russia.

Archive of Marx and Engels. 1946, vol. VIII, p. 166.

2.2 Accession of Siberia to the Russian state

The question of the nature of the inclusion of Siberia into the Russian state and the significance of this process for the local and Russian population has long attracted the attention of researchers. Back in the middle of the 18th century, the historian-academician Russian Academy Sci. Gerard Friedrich Miller, one of the participants of a ten-year scientific expedition in the Siberian region, having become acquainted with the archives of many Siberian cities, suggested that Siberia was conquered by Russian weapons.

The position put forward by G. F. Miller about the aggressive nature of the inclusion of the region into Russia was quite firmly entrenched in the noble and bourgeois historical science. They argued only about who was the initiator of this conquest. Some researchers assigned an active role to the activities of the government, others argued that the conquest was carried out by private entrepreneurs, the Stroganovs, and others believed that Siberia was conquered by the free Cossack squad of Yermak. There were supporters and various combinations of the above options.

Miller's interpretation of the nature of the inclusion of Siberia into Russia also passed into the works of Soviet historians in the 1920s and 1930s. our century.

Research by Soviet historians, a careful reading of published documents and the identification of new archival sources made it possible to establish that, along with military expeditions and the deployment of small military detachments in Russian towns founded in the region, there were numerous facts of the peaceful advancement of Russian explorers-fishers and the development of large areas of Siberia. A number of ethnic groups and nationalities (Ugrians-Khanty of the Lower Ob region, Tomsk Tatars, chat groups of the Middle Ob region, etc.) voluntarily became part of the Russian state.

Thus, it turned out that the term "conquest" does not reflect the whole essence of the phenomena that took place in the region in this initial period. Historians (primarily V. I. Shunkov) have proposed a new term “annexation”, which includes the facts of the conquest of certain regions, and the peaceful development by Russian settlers of the sparsely populated valleys of the Siberian taiga rivers, and the facts of voluntary acceptance by some ethnic groups of Russian citizenship.

The question of what the accession to the Russian state brought to the peoples of Siberia was solved in different ways. Noble historiography, with its inherent apologetics of tsarism, sought to embellish government activities. G. F. Miller argued that the tsarist government in the administration of the annexed territory practiced "quietness", "gentle persuasion", "friendly treats and gifts", and showed "strictness" and "cruelty" only in those cases when "affection" didn't work. Such a “gentle” administration, according to G.F. Miller, allowed the Russian government in Siberia to “do a lot of good things” with “a considerable benefit to the country there.” This statement by Miller with various variants was firmly held for a long time in the pre-revolutionary historiography of Siberia and even among individual historians of the Soviet period.

The noble revolutionary of the end of the 18th century considered the question of the significance of the inclusion of Siberia into Russia for the indigenous Siberian population in a different way. A. N. Radishchev. He gave a sharply negative characterization of the actions of tsarist officials, merchants, usurers and Orthodox clergy in Siberia, stressed that they were all “greedy”, “self-serving”, shamelessly robbing the local working population, taking away their furs, bringing them to impoverishment.

Radishchev's assessment found support and further development in the writings of the AP. Shchapova and S. S. Shashkov. A.P. Shchapov in his writings spoke with a passionate denunciation of government policy towards Siberia in general and its peoples in particular, while he emphasized the positive impact of economic and cultural communication between Russian peasants and artisans and Siberian peoples.

A negative assessment of the results of the activities of the tsarist administration in Siberia, put forward by A. N. Radishchev, was shared by Shchapov's contemporary SS. Shashkov. Using specific materials of Siberian life, showing the oppressed position of the working non-Russian population of the region in order to denounce contemporary social reality, the democrat and educator S. S. Shashkov in his publicistic articles came to the conclusion about the negative value in general of the inclusion of Siberia into the Russian state. Unlike Shchapov, S. S. Shashkov did not consider the issue of the activities of the working Russian population in developing the productive forces of the region and the impact of this activity on the economy and social development local Siberian residents.

This one-sidedness of S. S. Shashkov in resolving the issue of the importance of the region's joining Russia was adopted and developed further by representatives of the Siberian regionalism with their opposition of Siberia and the Siberian population of Russia to the entire Russian population of the country.

The negative assessment of S. S. Shashkov was also perceived by the bourgeois-Nashch-Yunalist-minded part of the intelligentsia of the Siberian peoples, who opposed the interests of the local indigenous population to the interests of the Russian inhabitants of the region and condemned the very fact of joining Siberia to Russia.

Soviet researchers, who had mastered the Marxist-Leninist materialist understanding of the history of society, had to, relying on the source base, decide the question of the nature of the inclusion of Siberia in the

Russian state and determine the significance of this process both for the non-Russian population of the region and its Russian settlers, and for the development of the country as a whole.

Intensive research work in the postwar period (second half of the 40s-early 60s) ended with the creation of a collective monograph "History of Siberia", five volumes of which were published in 1968. The authors of the second volume of "History of Siberia" summed up the previous study of the issue about the accession of Siberia to the Russian state, showed the role of the masses in the development of the productive forces of the region, revealed “the significance of Russian colonization in general and agriculture in particular as the leading form of economy, which later had a decisive influence on the economy and lifestyle of local indigenous peoples. This confirmed the thesis about the fruitful and mostly peaceful nature of the Russian annexation and development of Siberia, about the progressiveness of its further development, due to the joint life of the Russian and aboriginal peoples.

The annexation of the vast territory of the Siberian Territory to Russia was not a one-time act, but a long process, the beginning of which dates back to the end of the 16th century, when, after the defeat of the last Chinggisid Kuchum on the Irtysh by the Cossack squad of Ermak, the Russian resettlement in the Trans-Urals and development by newcomers-peasants, fishermen, artisans, first in the forest belt of Western Siberia, then in Eastern Siberia, and with the onset of the 18th century, in Southern Siberia. The completion of this process occurred in the second half of the 18th century.

The accession of Siberia to Russia was the result of the implementation of the policy of the tsarist government and the ruling class of feudal lords, aimed at seizing new territories and expanding the scope of feudal robbery. It also met the interests of the merchants. Cheap Siberian furs, valued on the Russian and international (European) markets, became a source of enrichment for him.

However, the leading role in the process of joining and developing the region was played by Russian immigrants, representatives of the working strata of the population, who came to the far eastern region for crafts and settled in the Siberian taiga as farmers and artisans. The availability of free land suitable for agriculture stimulated the process of their subsidence.

Economic, domestic and cultural contacts were established between the newcomers and local residents. The indigenous population of the Siberian taiga and forest-steppe for the most part had a positive attitude towards joining the Russian state.

The desire to get rid of the devastating raids of stronger southern nomad neighbors, the desire to avoid constant intertribal clashes and strife that damaged the economy of fishermen, hunters and cattle breeders, as well as the perceived need for economic ties, prompted local residents to unite with the Russian people as part of one state.

After the defeat of Kuchum by Yermak’s retinue, government detachments arrived in Siberia (in 1585 under the command of Ivan Mansurov, in 1586 led by governors V. Sukin and I. Myasny), the construction of the Ob city on the banks of the Ob began, in the lower reaches of the Tura the Russian fortress of Tyumen, in 1587 on the banks of the Irtysh against the mouth of the Tobol-Tobolsk, on the waterway along the Vishera (a tributary of the Kama) to Lozva and Tlvda-Lozvinsky (1590) and Pelymsky (1593) towns. At the end of the XVI century. in the Lower Ob region, the city of Berezov was built (1593), which became the Russian administrative center on Yugra land.

In February 1594, a small group of service people was sent from Moscow with the governors F. Baryatinsky and Vl. Anichkov. Arriving by sleigh in Lozva, the detachment moved in the spring by water to the town of Ob. From Berezov, Berezovsky servicemen and the Khanty codecke with their prince Igichey Alachev were sent to connect with the arriving detachment. The detachment moved up the Ob to the borders of the Bardakov "principality". The Khanty prince Bardak voluntarily accepted Russian citizenship, assisted in the construction of a Russian fortress erected in the center of the territory subject to him on the right bank of the Ob at the confluence of the Surgutka River. The new city began to be called Surgut. All the villages of the Khanty, subject to Bardak, became part of the Surgut district. Surgut became a stronghold of tsarist power in this region of the Middle Ob, a springboard for an attack on the Selkup tribal union, known as the Pegoy Horde. The need to bring the Piebald Horde under Russian citizenship was dictated not only by the desire of the tsarist government to expand the number of yasak payers in the Ob region. Representatives of the Selkup nobility, headed by the military commander Vonya, at that time had close contacts with the Ching-gisnd Kuchum, who was expelled from Kashlyk, who in 1596 "roamed" to the Pegoy Horde and was going to raid the Surgut district in 1597.

To strengthen the Surgut garrison, the service people of the Obsk town were included in its composition, which, as a fortified village, ceased to exist. The negotiations undertaken with Vonya did not lead to positive results for the royal governors. In order to prevent the military performance of Vonya on the side of Kuchum, the Surgut service people, on the instructions of the governor, built a Russian fortification in the center of the Pegoy Horde - the Narym prison (1597 or 1593).

Then began moving to the east along the right tributary of the Ob river. Keti, where the Surgut service people set up the Ket prison (presumably in 1602). On the portage from Keti to the Yenisei basin in 1618, a small Makovsky prison was built.

Within the southern part of the taiga and in the forest-steppe of Western Siberia in the 90s. 16th century the struggle continued with the remnants of the Kuchum horde. Expelled by Yermak's Cossacks from Kashlyk, Kuchum and his supporters roamed between the Ishim and Irtysh rivers, raiding the Tatar and Bashkir uluses that recognized the authority of the Russian Tsar, invaded the Tyumen and Tobolsk districts.

To prevent the devastating invasions of Kuchum and his supporters, it was decided to build a new Russian fortress on the banks of the Irtysh. A significant number of local residents were attracted to this construction: Tatars, Bashkirs, Khanty. Andrei Yeletsky headed the construction work. In the summer of 1594, on the banks of the Irtysh near the confluence of the river. Tara, the city of Tara appeared, under the protection of which the inhabitants of the Irtysh region got the opportunity to get rid of the domination of the descendants of the Chinggisids of Kuchum. The servicemen of Tara carried out military guard service in the border area with the steppe, struck back at Kuchum and his supporters, the Nogai Murzas and Kalmyk taishas, ​​expanding the territory subject to the Russian Tsar.

Fulfilling the instructions of the government, the Tara governors tried to start negotiations with Kuchum. In 1597, he was sent a royal letter calling for an end to the struggle with Russia and acceptance of Russian citizenship. The tsar promised to secure for Kuchum nomad camps along the Irtysh. But it soon became known that Kuchum was preparing for a raid on the Tara district, was negotiating military assistance with Nogai horde and the Khanate of Bukhara.

By order from Moscow, preparations began for a military campaign. The detachment assembled in Tara by Andrey Voeikov consisted of Russian service people and Tatars of Tobolsk, Tyumen and Tara. In August 1598, after a series of small battles with supporters of Kuchum and people dependent on him in the Baraba region, A. Voeikov's detachment suddenly attacked the main camp of the Kuchum Tatars, located in a meadow near the mouth of the Irmeni River, the left tributary of the Ob. The Chat Tatars and White Kalmyks (Teleuts) who lived in the neighborhood in the Ob region did not have time to help Kuchum. His headquarters was destroyed, members of the khan's family were taken prisoner. In the battle, many representatives of the nobility, relatives of the khan, over 150 ordinary Tatar soldiers were killed, they managed to escape along Kuchum itself with a small group of his supporters. Soon Kuchum died in the southern steppes.

The defeat of Kuchum on the Ob was of great political importance. The inhabitants of the forest-steppe strip of Western Siberia saw in the Russian state a force capable of protecting them from the devastating invasions of the nomads of Southern Siberia, from the raids of the Kalmyk, Uzbek, Nogai, Kazakh military leaders. The Chat Tatars were in a hurry to declare their desire to accept Russian citizenship and explained that they could not do this before, because they were afraid of Kuchum. The Baraba and Tereninsky Tatars, who had previously paid tribute to Kuchum, accepted Russian citizenship. As part of the Tatar district, the Tatar uluses of Baraba and the basin of the river were fixed. Omn.

At the beginning of the XVII century. Prince of the Tomsk Tatars (Eushtin-tsev) Toyan came to Moscow with a request to the government of Boris Godunov to take under the protection of the Russian state the villages of the Tomsk Tatars and "put" a Russian city on their land. Toyan pledged to help the tsarist administration of the new city in imposing yasak on the Turkic-speaking groups adjacent to the Tomsk Tatars. In January 1604, a decision was made in Moscow to build a fortification on the land of the Tomsk Tatars. Toyan sent from Moscow arrived in Surgut. The Surgut governors, after taking Toyan to the oath (sherti), sent with him as an escort several people from the service people to the Tomsk land to select the site for the construction of the future city. In March, a detachment of builders was being recruited in Surgut under the command of the assistant of the Surgut governor G. I. Pisemsky and the Tobolsk son of the boyar V. F. Tyrkov. In addition to Surgut service people and carpenters, it included service people who arrived from Tyumen and Tobolsk, Pelymsky archers, Tobolsk and Tyumen Tatars and Kodsky Khanty. In the spring of 1604, after the ice drift, the detachment set off from Surgut in boats and planks up the Obn to the mouth of the Tom and further up the Tom to the lands of the Tomsk Tatars. During the summer of 1604 a Russian city on the right bank of the Tom was built. At the beginning of the XVII century. Tomsk city was the easternmost city in Russia. The adjacent region of the lower reaches of the Tom, the Middle Ob and Prnchulymya became part of the Tomsk district.

Collecting yasak from the Turkic-speaking population of the Tomsk region, Tomsk service people in 1618 founded a new Russian settlement in the upper reaches of the Tom, the Kuznetsk prison, which became in the 20s. 17th century the administrative center of the Kuznetsk district. In the basin of the right tributary of the Obi-Chulym, at the same time, small prisons - Melessky and Achinsky were set up. In them, there were Cossacks and archers from Tomsk, who performed military guard duty and protected the yurts of local residents from incursions by detachments of Kyrgyz princes and Mongolian Altyn Khans.

Growing contacts of the annexed part of the Ob region with the center and north of the country already at the end of the 16th century. sharply raised the question of improving the means of communication. The official way to Siberia from the Kama region through the Lozvinsky town was long and difficult. In the second half of the 90s. 16th century Solvychegodsky townsman Artemy Sofinov-Babinov took a contract from the government to build a road from Solikamsk to Tyumen. From Solikamsk it went through mountain passes to the upper reaches of the river. Tours. In 1598, the Verkhotursky town was set up here, in the construction of which carpenters, peasants, and archers transferred here from Lozva participated.

Verkhoturye on the Babinovskaya road during the entire 17th century. played the role of the “main gate to Siberia”, through which all communications between Moscow and the Trans-Urals were carried out, customs duties were levied on the transported goods. From Verkhoturye the road went along the river. Tours to Tyumen. In 1600, on the half way between Verkhoturye and Tyumen, the Turinsky prison arose, where coachmen and peasants transferred from the European part of the state were settled, serving the needs of the Babinovskaya road.

By the beginning of the XVII century. almost the entire territory of Western Siberia from the Gulf of Ob in the north to Tara and Tomsk in the south became an integral part of Russia.

2.3 Annexation of Eastern Siberia

Russian fishermen back in the 16th century. hunted fur-bearing animals in the right bank of the lower reaches of the Ob, in the basins of the Taz and Turukhan rivers, gradually moved east to the Yenisei. They founded winter huts (which grew from temporary into permanent ones), entered into exchange, production, household and even family relations with local residents.

The political inclusion of this tundra region into Russia began later than the settlement of Russian fishermen here, at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries. with the construction in 1601 on the banks of the river. Taza of the Mangazeya town, which became the administrative center of the Mangazeya district and the most important trading and transshipment point in northern Asia, a place where hunters flocked to prepare for the next hunting season. Until 1625, there was no permanent detachment of service people in Mangazeya. The military guard service was performed by a small group of "year-olds" (30 people), sent from Tobolsk and Berezov. After the creation of a permanent garrison (100 people), the Mangazeya governors created several yasak winter quarters, began to send fur collectors to the treasury on the banks of the lower Yenisei, on its right-bank tributaries, the Podkamennaya Tunguska and the Lower Tunguska, and further to the Pyasina and Khatanga basins.

As already noted, the penetration of Russians into the middle Yenisei went along the right tributary of the Ob - Keti, which in the 17th century. became the main road from the Ob basin to the east. In 1619, the first Russian administrative center, the Yenisei prison, was built on the banks of the Yenisei, which quickly grew into a significant transit point for fishermen and merchants. The first Russian farmers appeared in the area adjacent to Yeniseisk.

The second fortified town on the Yenisei was the Krasnoyarsk prison founded in 1628, which became the main stronghold of the defense of the borders in the south of the Yenisei Territory. Throughout the 17th century south of Krasnoyarsk there was a fierce struggle against the nomads, caused by the aggression of the Kyrgyz princes of the upper Yenisei, who relied in the first half of the century on the strong state of Altyn Khans (established in Western Mongolia), and in the "second half" on the Dzungarian rulers, whose vassals they became. the princelings considered their kishtyms (dependent people, tributaries) to be the local Turkic-speaking groups of the upper Yenisei: Tubn, Yarin, Motor, Kamasin, etc.

Almost every year, the rulers of the Kyrgyz uluses besieged the Krasnoyarsk fortress, exterminated and captured the indigenous and Russian population, captured cattle and horses, and destroyed crops. Documents tell about multiple military campaigns against the steppe nomads of detachments of Krasnoyarsk, Yenisei, Tomsk and Kuznetsk service people.

The situation changed only at the beginning of the 18th century, when, by order of the Dzungarian kontaishi Tsevan-Raptan, the forcible resettlement of the Kyrgyz uluses and kishtyms of the nobility began to the main camps of the Dzungars in Semirechye. The military leaders failed to fully transfer ordinary residents of the Kirghiz uluses to new places. Local residents took refuge in the forests, some of the hijacked fled when crossing the Sayan Mountains. For the most part, the population dependent on the Kirghiz princelings remained in their former habitats and was then included in Russia. The consolidation of the territory of the upper Yenisei ended with the construction of the Abakan (1707) and Sayan (1709) prisons.

From Russian fishermen, the Mangazeya and Yenisei governors learned about the rich furs of the Lena Land. They began to send service people to the middle Lena, where the Yakuts lived, for yasak. Already in 1632, on the banks of the Lena, a small group of Yenisei Cossacks, headed by P. Beketov, set up the Yakut prison, the first Russian village, which later became the center of the Yakut (Lena) voivodeship.

Some Yakut toyons and princelings of individual associations tried to fight the yasak collectors, defending their right to exploit their relatives, but not all groups of Yakuts took part in this "struggle. Intertribal strife, as well as the desire of some representatives of the Yakut nobility to take advantage of the help of service people located on Leia, weakened the resistance of the Yakut groups to political subordination to the tsarist government. most of The Yakut population was convinced of the disadvantage of breaking peaceful ties with Russian fishermen and merchants. With all the "untruths" perpetrated by fishermen to local residents in the fields, the predatory nature of the exchange, the activity of commercial colonization was the main incentive for the inclusion of the main part of Yakutia into Russia.

Soviet researchers found that the Russian fishermen were the first to penetrate the Lena, and later on, within Eastern Siberia, as a rule, they outnumbered the detachments of service people in quantitative terms. The inclusion of the Evenks, Evens, and Yukaghirs in Russia, the taxation of them with yasak fees in the royal treasury dragged on until the middle of the 17th century. Some geographical discoveries of Russian explorers date back to this time. So, the Cossacks led by I. Rebrov and I. Perfilyev in 1633 went along the Lena to the Arctic Ocean. On the boats built in Yakutsk, by sea, they reached the mouth of the river. Yana, and then the mouth of the Indigirka. Almost simultaneously, another group of Cossacks, led by S. Kharitonov and P. Ivanov, set off from Yakutsk and opened a land road to the upper reaches of the Yana and Indigirka. The commercial development of this area began, Russian winter huts appeared (Verkhoyanskoye, Nizhneyanskoye, Podshi-verskoye, Olyubenskoye, Uyandinskoye).

Especially great importance in the geographical discoveries of the north-eastern part of Asia, he had a sea voyage, which began in 1648 under the leadership of S. Dezhnev and F. Popov, in which up to 90 people of merchants and fishermen participated. From Yakutsk, the expedition reached the mouth of the Lena, went out to sea and set off to the east. For the first time, sea kochi of Russian sailors rounded the northeastern tip of the mainland, opened the strait between the continents of Asia and America, passed through this strait from the Arctic to the Pacific Ocean and reached the mouth of the river. Anadyr. In 1650 on the river. Anadyr overland from the banks of the river. Kolyma was passed by a group of Cossacks with Stadukhin and Motora.

The advance from the Lena to the east towards the coast of Okhotsk began in the 1930s. XVII century, when the Tomsk Cossacks with D. Kopylov founded the Butal winter hut on Aldan. A group of Cossacks sent from the Butalsky winter hut headed by I. Moskvitin, following the rivers Aldan, Mae and Yudoma, reached the mountain range, crossed the mountains and along the river. Hive went to the coast, where in the early 40s. Oblique Ostrozhek was built (which served as the beginning of the future Okhotsk).

Due to the natural and climatic conditions, the Russian development of Eastern Siberia was predominantly commercial in nature. At the same time, Russian settlers identified areas where arable farming is possible. In the 40s. 17th century in the mouths of the Olekma and Vitim rivers and in the middle reaches of the Amga, the first arable land appeared.

The accession of the lands of the Buryat tribes was complicated by external circumstances. The Buryat nobility placed certain groups of the Evenks and the Turkic-speaking population of the right bank of the Yenisei in a position dependent on themselves, levied tribute from them and therefore opposed their inclusion in the yasak payers of Russia. At the same time, the Buryats themselves were subjected to frequent raids by the Mongol (especially Oi-rat) feudal lords, they were interested in using Russian military detachments to protect themselves from the devastating invasions of their southern neighbors. The interest of the Buryat population in trade relations also pushed for good neighborly relations with the Russians.

The first Russian settlements in this region appeared in the early 1930s. - Ilimsk and Bratsk prisons. Under the protection of the Ilim prison in the middle of the 17th century. more than 120 families of Russian farmers lived. In the 40s. yasak collectors began to appear among the Buryats living near Lake Baikal. At the confluence of the Irkut with the Angara on about. In 1652, the Irkutsk yasak winter hut arose, and in 1661, the Irkutsk prison was built opposite this winter hut on the banks of the Angara, which became the administrative center of the Irkutsk district and an important trading post in Eastern Siberia.

In the middle of the XVIII century. in Transbaikalia, the first fortified winter quarters appeared, founded by Russian fishing bands. Some of them later became prisons and administrative centers (Nerchinsky, Udn-sky, Selenginsky, etc.). Gradually, a network of fortified villages developed, which ensured the security of Transbaikalia from external invasions and contributed to the economic development of this region by Russian settlers (including farmers).

The first information about the Amur region came to Yakutsk in the early 1940s. 17th century from the Russian fisherman S. Averkiev Kosoy, who reached the mouth of the Argun. In 1643, an expedition of V. Poyarkov was formed in Yakutsk, the participants of which for three years traveled along the rivers Aldan, Uchur, Gonom, dragged the transition to the Amur water system, went down the river. Bryande and Zeya to the Amur, then on ships moved down the Amur to its mouth. Having gone out to sea, the expedition of V. Poyarkov moved north along the coast and reached the mouth of the river. Hives. From here, along the path laid earlier by a group of Cossacks I. Moskvitina, she returned to Yakutsk. This campaign of V. Poyarkov, unparalleled in difficulty and range of the unknown path, gave a lot of information about the Amur, about the inhabitants who inhabited its shores, their jams, but it has not yet entailed the annexation of the Amur region.

More successful in this regard was the campaign organized in 1649 by a merchant from Ustyuzhan E. P. Khabarov-Svyatitsky. Khabarov's campaign was supported by the Yakut governor Frantsbekov. Participants of the campaign (over 70 people) joined Khabarov at will. The leader of the campaign received an official "mandate" from the Yakut governor, that is, he could act as a representative of government authorities. From Yakutsk, the expedition set off along the river. Lena to its tributary Olekma, then up the Olekma to portages to the Amur basin. During the years 1650-1653. the participants of the campaign were on the Amur. The Tungus-speaking Evenks and Duchers and Mongol-speaking Daurs lived on the middle Amur. The Evenks were engaged in nomadic cattle breeding and fishing, while the Daurs and Duchers were familiar with arable farming. The process of formation of a class society began among the Daurs and the neighboring Duchers, there were fortified towns ruled by their "princes".

The natural wealth of the Amur Territory (fur animals, fish), a climate favorable for arable farming attracted immigrants from the Yenisei, Krasnoyarsk, Ilimsk and Yakutsk districts. According to V.A. Alexandrov, during the 50s. 17th century “At least one and a half thousand people went to the Amur. Many “free willing people” took part in the very campaign of E. Khabarov”4. Fearing the depopulation of the areas from where the settlers (fishers and peasants) left, the Siberian administration arranged at the mouth of the river. Olekma outpost. Unable to prevent the process of spontaneous settlement of the Amur region, the tsarist government decided to establish its own administration here, appointing Nerchpnsky prison (founded in 1652) as the administrative center from 1658.

Ruled in the 17th century in China, the Manchu Qing dynasty from time to time subjected the Daur and Ducher settlements on the Amur to predatory raids, although the territory they occupied lay outside the empire. In annexing the Amur region to Russia, the Qing dynasty saw a threat of drawing closer the borders of Manchuria with Russia and therefore decided to prevent the Russian development of this region. In 1652, the Manchu troops invaded the Amur and for almost six years conducted military operations against the small Russian detachments. At the end of the 50s. the Manchus began to forcibly resettle the Daurs and Duchers in the Sungari basin, destroying their towns and agriculture. By the beginning of the 60s. Manchurian troops went into the empire.

The Russian population resumed the development of the deserted Amur lands from Nerchinsk to the mouth of the river. Zei. The center of Russian settlements on the Amur was the Albazinsky prison, built in 1665 on the site of the former town of the Daurian prince Albaza. The population of Albazin - Cossacks and peasants - was formed from free settlers. The exiles were an extremely small part. The first inhabitants and builders of the Russian Albazin were fugitives from the Ilimsk district, participants in the popular unrest against the governor, who came to the Amur with N. Chernigovsky. Here the newcomers declared themselves Albazin servants, established an elected government, elected N. Chernigovsky as Albazin's clerk, began collecting tribute payments from the local population, sending furs through Nerchinsk to the royal treasury in Moscow.

Since the late 70s and especially in the 80s. the position of the Russians in Transbaikalia and the Amur region again became more complicated. The Manchurian Qing dynasty provoked the speeches of the Mongol feudal lords and Tungus princelings against Russia. Intense hostilities unfolded near Albazin and Selenginsky prison. The Treaty of Nerchinsk, signed in 1689, marked the beginning of the establishment of a border line between the two states.

The Buryat and Tungus population acted together with the Russians in defense of their lands against the Manchu troops. Separate groups of Mongols, together with the Taishi, recognized Russian citizenship and migrated to Russia.

Conclusion

Ermak's campaign played a big role in the development and conquest of Siberia. This was the first significant step to start the development of new lands.

The conquest of Siberia is a very important step in the development of the Russian state, which brought an increase in territory by more than two times. Siberia, with its fish and fur trades, as well as gold and silver reserves, significantly enriched the treasury of the state.

List of used literature

1. G.F. Miller "History of Siberia"

2. M.V. Shunkov "History of Siberia" in 5 volumes. Tomsk, TSU 1987

One of the most important stages in the formation of Russian statehood was the conquest of Siberia. The development of these lands took almost 400 years and many events took place during this time. Ermak became the first Russian conqueror of Siberia.

Ermak Timofeevich

The exact surname of this person has not been established, it is likely that she did not exist at all - Yermak was of an humble family. Ermak Timofeevich was born in 1532, in those days a middle name or nickname was often used to name a common person. The exact origin of Yermak has not been clarified, but there is an assumption that he was a runaway peasant, who stood out for his enormous physical strength. At first, Yermak was a chur among the Volga Cossacks - a laborer and a squire.

In battle, a smart and courageous young man quickly got himself weapons, participated in battles, and thanks to his strength and organizational skills, he became an ataman in a few years. In 1581 he commanded a flotilla of Cossacks from the Volga, there are suggestions that he fought near Pskov and Novgorod. He is rightfully considered the ancestor of the first marines, which was then called the "plow army". There are other historical versions about the origin of Yermak, but this one is the most popular among historians.

Some are of the opinion that Yermak was of a noble family of Turkic blood, but there are many contradictory points in this version. One thing is clear - Yermak Timofeevich was popular in the military environment until his death, because the post of ataman was selective. Today Ermak - historical hero Russia, whose main merit is the annexation of the Siberian lands to the Russian state.

The idea and goals of the trip

Back in 1579, the merchants Stroganovs invited the Cossacks of Yermak to their Perm region to protect the land from the raids of the Siberian Khan Kuchum. In the second half of 1581, Yermak formed a detachment of 540 soldiers. For a long time, the opinion prevailed that the Stroganovs were the ideologists of the campaign, but now they are more inclined to believe that this was the idea of ​​Yermak himself, and the merchants only financed this campaign. The goal was to find out what lands lie in the East, make friends with the local population and, if possible, defeat the khan and annex the lands under the hand of Tsar Ivan IV.

The great historian Karamzin called this detachment "a small gang of vagabonds." Historians doubt that the campaign was organized with the approval of the central authorities. Most likely, such a decision became a consensus between the authorities, who wanted to get new lands, the merchants, who were concerned about safety from Tatar raids, and the Cossacks, who dreamed of getting rich and showing their prowess in the campaign, only after the khan's capital fell. At first, the tsar was against this campaign, about which he wrote an angry letter to the Stroganovs demanding that Yermak be returned to protect the Perm lands.

Trek Mysteries: It is widely known that the Russians first penetrated into Siberia in quite ancient times. Quite definitely, Novgorodians sailed along the White Sea to the Yugorsky Shar Strait and further beyond it, to the Kara Sea, as early as the 9th century. The first chronicle evidence of such voyages dates back to 1032, which in Russian historiography is considered the beginning of the history of Siberia.

The basis of the detachment was the Cossacks from the Don, headed by the glorious chieftains: Koltso Ivan, Mikhailov Yakov, Pan Nikita, Meshcheryak Matvey. In addition to the Russians, a certain number of Lithuanians, Germans and even Tatar soldiers entered the detachment. Cossacks are internationalists in modern terminology, nationality did not play a role for them. They accepted into their ranks everyone who was baptized into the Orthodox faith.

But the discipline in the army was strict - the ataman demanded the observance of all Orthodox holidays, fasts, did not tolerate laxity and revelry. The army was accompanied by three priests and one monk. The future conquerors of Siberia embarked on eighty plow boats and set sail towards dangers and adventures.

Crossing the "Stone"

According to some reports, the detachment set out on 09/01/1581, but other historians insist that it was later. The Cossacks moved along the Chusovaya River to the Ural Mountains. On the Tagil Pass, the fighters themselves cut the road with an ax. It was the Cossack custom to drag ships along the ground in the passes, but here it was impossible because of a large number boulders that could not be removed from the path. Therefore, people had to carry the plows up the slope. At the top of the pass, the Cossacks built Kokuy-gorod and spent the winter there. In the spring they rafted down the Tagil River.

The defeat of the Siberian Khanate

The "acquaintance" of the Cossacks and local Tatars happened on the territory of the present Sverdlovsk region. The Cossacks were fired from bows by their opponents, but repelled the impending attack of the Tatar cavalry with cannons, occupied the city of Chingi-tura in the present Tyumen region. In these places, the conquerors obtained jewelry and furs, participating in many battles along the way.

• On May 5, 1582, at the mouth of the Tura, the Cossacks fought with the troops of six Tatar princes.
• 07.1585 - the battle on the Tobol.
• July 21 - the battle at the Babasan yurts, where Yermak, with volleys of his cannon, stopped a cavalry army of several thousand horsemen galloping at him.
• At the Long Yar, the Tatars fired again at the Cossacks.
• August 14 - the battle near Karachin-gorodok, where the Cossacks captured the rich treasury of Murza Karachi.
• On November 4, Kuchum, with a fifteen thousandth army, organized an ambush near the Chuvash Cape, with him were hired squads of Voguls and Ostyaks. At the most crucial moment, it turned out that best squads Kuchum went on a raid on the city of Perm. The mercenaries fled during the battle, and Kuchum was forced to retreat to the steppe.
• 11.1582 Yermak occupied the capital of the Khanate - the city of Kashlyk.

Historians suggest that Kuchum was of Uzbek origin. It is known for sure that he established power in Siberia by extremely cruel methods. It is not surprising that after his defeat, the local peoples (Khanty) brought gifts and fish to Yermak. As the documents say, Yermak Timofeevich met them with "kindness and greetings" and saw them off "with honor." Having heard about the kindness of the Russian ataman, Tatars and other nationalities began to come to him with gifts.

Trek Mysteries: Yermak's campaign was not the first military campaign in Siberia. The very first information about the Russian military campaign in Siberia dates back to 1384, when the Novgorod detachment went to the Pechora, and then, on a northern campaign through the Urals, to the Ob.

Yermak promised to protect everyone from Kuchum and other enemies, overlaying them with yasak - an obligatory tribute. From the leaders, the ataman took an oath of tribute from their peoples - this was then called "wool". After the oath, these peoples were automatically considered subjects of the tsar and were not subjected to any persecution. At the end of 1582, part of Yermak's soldiers were ambushed on the lake, they were completely exterminated. On February 23, 1583, the Cossacks responded to the Khan by capturing his chief commander.

Embassy in Moscow

Yermak in 1582 sent envoys to the tsar, headed by a confidant (I. Koltso). The purpose of the ambassador was to tell the sovereign about the complete defeat of the khan. Ivan the Terrible graciously endowed the messengers, among the gifts were two expensive chain mail for the ataman. Following the Cossacks, Prince Bolkhovsky was sent with a squad of three hundred soldiers. The Stroganovs were ordered to select forty of the best people and attach them to the squad - this procedure was delayed. The detachment reached Kashlyk in November 1584, the Cossacks did not know in advance about such replenishment, so the necessary provisions were not prepared for the winter.

Conquest of the Voguls

In 1583, Yermak conquered the Tatar villages in the basins of the Ob and Irtysh. The Tatars put up fierce resistance. Along the river Tavda, the Cossacks went to the land of the Vogulichi, extending the power of the king to the river Sosva. In the conquered town of Nazim already in 1584 there was a rebellion in which all the Cossacks of ataman N. Pan were slaughtered. In addition to the unconditional talent of a commander and strategist, Yermak acts as a subtle psychologist who was well versed in people. Despite all the difficulties and difficulties of the campaign, not a single chieftain faltered, did not change his oath, until his last breath he was Yermak's faithful companion and friend.

Chronicles have not preserved the details of this battle. But, given the conditions and method of war used by the Siberian peoples, apparently, the Voguls built a fortification, which the Cossacks were forced to storm. From the Remezov Chronicle it is known that after this battle, Yermak had 1060 people left. It turns out that the losses of the Cossacks amounted to about 600 people.

Takmak and Yermak in winter

Hungry winter

The winter period 1584-1585 turned out to be extremely cold, the frost was about minus 47 ° C, winds were constantly blowing from the north. It was impossible to hunt in the forest because of the deepest snow, wolves circled in huge flocks near human dwellings. All archers of Bolkhovsky, the first governor of Siberia from the famous princely family died of starvation along with him. They did not have time to participate in battles with the Khan. The number of Cossacks of Ataman Ermak also greatly decreased. During this period, Yermak tried not to meet with the Tatars - he took care of the weakened fighters.

Trek Mysteries: Who needs land? Until now, none of the Russian historians has given a clear answer to a simple question: why Yermak began this campaign to the east, to the Siberian Khanate.

The uprising of Murza Karach

In the spring of 1585, one of the leaders who submitted to Yermak on the Tura River suddenly attacked the Cossacks I. Koltso and Y. Mikhailov. Almost all the Cossacks died, and the rebels in their former capital blocked Russian army. 06/12/1585 Meshcheryak and his comrades made a bold sortie and threw back the army of the Tatars, but the Russian losses were enormous. At Yermak, at that moment, only 50% of those who went on a campaign with him survived. Of the five atamans, only two were alive - Yermak and Meshcheryak.

The death of Yermak and the end of the campaign

On the night of 08/03/1585, Ataman Ermak died with fifty fighters on the Vagae River. The Tatars attacked the sleeping camp, in this skirmish only a few soldiers survived, who brought terrible news to Qashlyk. Witnesses to Yermak's death claim that he was wounded in the neck, but continued to fight.

During the battle, the ataman had to jump from one boat to another, but he was bleeding, and the royal chain mail was heavy - Yermak did not jump. It was impossible even for such a strong man to swim out in heavy armor - the wounded drowned. The legend says that a local fisherman found the corpse and delivered it to the khan. For a month, the Tatars shot arrows into the body of the defeated enemy, during which time no signs of decomposition were noticed. The surprised Tatars buried Yermak in a place of honor (in modern times it is the village of Baishevo), but outside the cemetery fence, he was not a Muslim.

After receiving the news of the death of the leader, the Cossacks gathered for a meeting, where it was decided to return to their native lands - wintering again in these places was like death. On August 15, 1585, under the leadership of Ataman M. Meshcheryak, the remnants of the detachment moved in an organized manner along the Ob to the west, home. The Tatars were celebrating the victory, they did not yet know that the Russians would return in a year.

Campaign results

The expedition of Ermak Timofeevich established Russian power for two years. As often happened with the pioneers, they paid with their lives for the conquest of new lands. The forces were unequal - several hundred pioneers against tens of thousands of opponents. But everything did not end with the death of Yermak and his soldiers - other conquerors followed, and soon all of Siberia was a vassal of Moscow.

The conquest of Siberia often took place with "little bloodshed", and the personality of Ataman Yermak was overgrown with numerous legends. The people composed songs about the brave hero, historians and writers wrote books, artists drew pictures, and directors made films. Yermak's military strategies and tactics were adopted by other commanders. The formation of the army, invented by the brave ataman, was used hundreds of years later by another great commander - Alexander Suvorov.

His perseverance in advancing through the territory of the Siberian Khanate is very, very reminiscent of the perseverance of the doomed. Yermak simply walked along the rivers of an unfamiliar land, counting on chance and military luck. Logically, the Cossacks had to lay down their heads in the campaign. But Ermak was lucky, he captured the capital of the Khanate and went down in history as a winner.

The conquest of Siberia by Yermak, painting by Surikov

Three hundred years after the events described, the Russian artist Vasily Surikov painted a painting. This is truly a monumental picture of the battle genre. The talented artist managed to convey how great the feat of the Cossacks and their chieftain was. Surikov's painting depicts one of the battles of a small detachment of Cossacks with a huge army of the Khan.

The artist managed to describe everything in such a way that the viewer understands the outcome of the battle, although the battle has just begun. Christian banners with the image of the Savior Not Made by Hands fly over the heads of the Russians. The battle is headed by Yermak himself - he is at the head of his army and at first glance it catches the eye that the Russian commander is of remarkable strength and great courage. Enemies are presented as an almost faceless mass, whose strength is undermined by fear of the alien Cossacks. Ermak Timofeevich is calm and confident, with the eternal gesture of the commander, he directs his soldiers forward.

The air is filled with gunpowder, it seems that shots are heard, flying arrows whistle. In the background, hand-to-hand combat is taking place, and in the central part, the troops raised the icon, turning to higher powers for help. In the distance, the Khan's fortress-stronghold is visible - a little more and the resistance of the Tatars will be broken. The atmosphere of the picture is imbued with a sense of imminent victory - this became possible thanks to the great skill of the artist.

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The conquest of Siberia is one of the most important processes in the formation of Russian statehood. The development of the eastern lands took more than 400 years. Throughout this period, there were many battles, foreign expansions, conspiracies, intrigues.

The annexation of Siberia is still the focus of attention of historians and causes a lot of controversy, including among members of the public.

Conquest of Siberia by Yermak

The history of the conquest of Siberia begins with the famous This is one of the atamans of the Cossacks. There is no exact data on his birth and ancestors. However, the memory of his exploits has come down to us through the centuries. In 1580, the wealthy merchants Stroganovs invited the Cossacks to help protect their possessions from constant raids from the Ugric peoples. The Cossacks settled down in a small town and lived relatively peacefully. The bulk of the total amounted to a little more than eight hundred. In 1581, a campaign was organized with the money of merchants. Despite the historical significance (in fact, the campaign marked the beginning of the era of the conquest of Siberia), this campaign did not attract the attention of Moscow. In the Kremlin, the detachment was called simple "bandits".

In the autumn of 1581, Yermak's group embarked on small ships and began to sail up to the very mountains. Upon landing, the Cossacks had to clear their way by cutting down trees. The beach was completely uninhabited. The constant rise and mountainous terrain created extremely difficult conditions for the transition. Ships (plows) were literally carried by hand, because due to continuous vegetation it was not possible to install rollers. With the approach of cold weather, the Cossacks set up camp on the pass, where they spent the whole winter. After that, the rafting began

Siberian Khanate

The conquest of Siberia by Yermak met the first resistance from the local Tatars. There, almost across the Ob River, the Siberian Khanate began. This small state was formed in the 15th century, after the defeat of the Golden Horde. It did not have significant power and consisted of several possessions of petty princes.

The Tatars, accustomed to a nomadic way of life, could not equip cities or even villages well. The main occupations were still hunting and raids. The warriors were mostly mounted. Scimitars or sabers were used as weapons. Most often they were locally made and quickly broke down. There were also captured Russian swords and other high quality equipment. The tactics of swift horse raids were used, during which the riders literally trampled the enemy, after which they retreated. Foot soldiers were mostly archers.

Equipment of the Cossacks

Yermak's Cossacks received modern weapons at that time. These were gunpowder guns and cannons. Most of the Tatars had not even seen this before, and this was the main advantage of the Russians.

The first battle took place near modern Turinsk. Here the Tatars from the ambush began to shower the Cossacks with arrows. Then the local prince Yepanchi sent his cavalry to Yermak. The Cossacks opened fire on them with long guns and cannons, after which the Tatars fled. This local victory made it possible to take Chingi-tura without a fight.

The first victory brought the Cossacks many different benefits. In addition to gold and silver, these lands were very rich in Siberian fur, which was highly valued in Russia. After other servicemen learned about the booty, the conquest of Siberia by the Cossacks attracted many new people.

Conquest of Western Siberia

After a series of quick and successful victories, Yermak began to move further east. In the spring, several Tatar princes united to repulse the Cossacks, but were quickly defeated and recognized Russian power. In the middle of summer, the first major battle took place in the modern Yarkovsky region. Mametkul's cavalry launched an attack on the positions of the Cossacks. They sought to quickly get close and crush the enemy, taking advantage of the horseman in close combat. Yermak personally stood in the trench, where the guns were located, and began to fire on the Tatars. Already after several volleys, Mametkul fled with the whole army, which opened the way for the Cossacks to Karachi.

Arrangement of occupied lands

The conquest of Siberia was characterized by significant non-combat losses. Difficult weather conditions and severe climate caused many diseases in the camp of forwarders. In addition to the Russians, there were also Germans and Lithuanians in Yermak's detachment (as people from the Baltic were called).

They were the most susceptible to disease and had the hardest time acclimatizing. However, there were no such difficulties in the hot Siberian summer, so the Cossacks advanced without problems, occupying more and more territories. The settlements taken were not plundered or burned. Usually jewels were taken from the local prince if he dared to put up an army. Otherwise, he simply presented gifts. In addition to the Cossacks, settlers participated in the campaign. They walked behind the soldiers along with the clergy and representatives of the future administration. In the conquered cities, prisons were immediately built - wooden fortified forts. They were both civil administration and a stronghold in the event of a siege.

The conquered tribes were subject to tribute. The Russian governors in prisons were supposed to follow its payment. If someone refused to pay tribute, he was visited by the local squad. In times of great uprisings, the Cossacks came to the rescue.

The final defeat of the Siberian Khanate

The conquest of Siberia was facilitated by the fact that the local Tatars practically did not interact with each other. Different tribes were at war with each other. Even within the Siberian Khanate, not all princes were in a hurry to help others. Tatar had the greatest resistance. To stop the Cossacks, he began to gather an army in advance. In addition to his squad, he invited mercenaries. They were Ostyaks and Voguls. Among them met and know. In early November, the khan led the Tatars to the mouth of the Tobol, intending to stop the Russians here. It is noteworthy that the majority of local residents did not provide Kuchum with any significant assistance.

Decisive battle

When the battle began, almost all the mercenaries fled from the battlefield. Poorly organized and trained Tatars could not resist the battle-hardened Cossacks for a long time and also retreated.

After this crushing and decisive victory, the road to Kishlyk opened before Yermak. After the capture of the capital, the detachment stopped in the city. A few days later, representatives of the Khanty began to arrive there with gifts. The ataman received them cordially and communicated kindly. After that, the Tatars began to voluntarily offer gifts in exchange for protection. Also, everyone who knelt down was obliged to pay tribute.

Death at the peak of fame

The conquest of Siberia was initially not supported from Moscow. However, rumors about the success of the Cossacks quickly spread throughout the country. In 1582, Yermak sent a delegation to the tsar. At the head of the embassy was the ataman's companion Ivan Koltso. Tsar Ivan IV gave a welcome to the Cossacks. They were presented with expensive gifts, among which - equipment from the royal forge. Ivan also ordered to assemble a squad of 500 people and send them to Siberia. The very next year, Yermak subjugated almost all the lands on the coast of the Irtysh.

The famous chieftain continued to conquer uncharted territories and subjugate more and more nationalities. There were uprisings that were quickly suppressed. But near the Vagay River, Yermak's detachment was attacked. Taking the Cossacks by surprise at night, the Tatars managed to kill almost everyone. great leader and Cossack ataman Yermak is dead.

Further conquest of Siberia: briefly

The exact burial place of the ataman is unknown. After the death of Yermak, the conquest of Siberia continued with renewed vigor. Year after year, more and more new territories were subordinated. If the initial campaign was not coordinated with the Kremlin and was chaotic, then subsequent actions became more centralized. The king personally took control of this issue. Well-equipped expeditions were regularly sent out. The city of Tyumen was built, which became the first Russian settlement in these parts. Since then, the systematic conquest continued with the use of the Cossacks. Year after year they conquered more and more new territories. In the cities taken, the Russian administration was set up. sent from the capital educated people to do business.

In the middle of the 17th century there was a wave of active colonization. Many cities and settlements are founded. Peasants arrive from other parts of Russia. Settlement is gaining momentum. In 1733 the famous northern expedition. In addition to conquest, the task of exploring and discovering new lands was also set. The data obtained after were used by geographers from around the world. The end of the annexation of Siberia can be considered the entry of the Uryakhansk region into the Russian Empire.