Ataman Yermak and the beginning of the conquest of Siberia. Accession of Western Siberia to the Russian state

Ermak's hike to Siberia

Perhaps the most confusing from the source study point of view was the question of the beginning of the Siberian expedition. So, the early texts of Siberian origin - the Synodik to Ermakov to the Cossacks, the first edition of which was created on the initiative of the Tobolsk Archbishop Cyprian around 1622, and the Main edition of the Esipov Chronicle, which appeared from the pen of the Tobolsk archbishop clerk Savva Yesipov, attributed the beginning in 1636 - a campaign by the fall of 7089 (1580), and the capture of the capital of Kuchumov's "kingdom" of Siberia - by October 26 of the same year. This dating became decisive not only for the chronicles of the Esipov tradition, but also for some works of Moscow origin, including for the chronological story "On the Victory at the Siberian Tsar Kuchum of the Sermen ..." (written in the late 1620s) , The New Chronicler (compiled around 1630) and the Code of 1652.

The author of the Stroganov Chronicle adheres to a different chronology in this matter, the main edition of which appeared, apparently, in the 1630s. in Solvychegodsk: Ermak and his comrades appeared in the Urals at the invitation of the Stroganovs in the summer of 7087 (1579), lived "in their towns for two summers and two months," years they took possession of the "hail of Siberia".

In the "History of Siberian" Tobolsk son of the boyar Semyon Ulyanovich Remezov, written at the turn of the XVII-XVIII centuries, it is stated that after the "theft" in 7086-7087 (1578-1579). "to the mouth of the Volga River" Yermak's Cossack band went to the Kama, where they took "many supplies from the Stroganovs" and moved beyond the Urals. Having reached the "Tagil river ... in the summer of 7088", the Cossacks stopped "in the tract of the Abugaya river" for the winter. Thus, if you follow the Remezian chronology, it turns out that the campaign should have begun in late summer - early autumn 7087-7088 (1579). The next year, the Yermakites entered Tura, fought here in the summer with a local prince named Epancha, and 1 August "having taken the city of Tyumen ... and that winter too." Apparently, this took place in 7088 (1580). In May 7089 (1581), they fought farther and only on October 26, 7090 "entered the city of Siberia." It is easy to see that, as in the Stroganov Chronicle, the initial stage of Yermak's Siberian expedition covers the period from the summer of 1579 to the fall of 1581 at Remezov, but it is filled with completely different events.

Included in Remez's "History" "The Siberian Short Kungurskaya Chronicle", which, according to many researchers, is based on the true memories of the participants in the events recorded in the Urals, also stretches the initial stage of the expedition for several years. After the robberies "on the Oka and the Volga and at the sea" in 7085-7086 (1577-1578), it is said here, Ermak "with the Don and Eitsky" Cossacks at the end of August 7086 (1578) fled, fleeing from the tsar's pursuers, "along the Volga and up the Kama". Passing further at the mouth of the Chusovaya, on September 26, he turned to Sylva and overwintered here. At the end of spring 7087 (1579), the Cossacks returned to Chusovaya, took "supplies" and weapons from Maxim Stroganov, and on June 12 continued their journey up the Chusovaya. Having reached the Tagil railroad, they "spent the winter on Buya settlement," and on June 13 they set off further. From this place in the Kungur Chronicle, an obvious chronological failure begins, for wintering on the Tagil portage takes place here, as in the Remezov Chronicle, all in the same 7087-7088 (1579), although, according to the logic of things, it should already be about 7088 -7089 (1580). Further it is said that by August 1, 7087 (1579), the Yermakovites arrived at the mouth of the Tobol and defeated the Tatars "on Lake Karachin", after which "desiring to return back to Russia" and left for Tavda, they fought here until late autumn with the Voguls and only by November 8 "arrived at Karachino", where they hibernated. The next episode of the Kungur Chronicle refers to the events of the campaign to Belogorye, which is dated in it in the spring of 7090 (1582), from which it can logically be concluded that the "capture of Siberia" should have taken place a few months before that, that is, in the fall of 7090 (1581) This dating coincides with the indications of both the Stroganov and Remezov chronicles. And this, in turn, allows us to suggest that information about wintering on the Tagil portage was included in the Kungur chronicle by S.U. Remezov, who forgot to correct the dates.

In this review, far from all are given, but only the most frequently drawn by historians chronicle versions about the beginning of Yermak's campaign to Siberia. Meanwhile, already at the beginning of the last century, since the discovery of the first (and, as it turned out, the earliest) list of the Main Edition of the Stroganov Chronicle, the full text of the famous "disgraced" letter of Ivan the Terrible, sent by Stroganov on November 16, 7091 (1582), became known to the scientist. , from which, from the words of the Cherdyn governor Vasily Pelepelitsyn, it directly followed that the Stroganovs "sent ... from the prisoners of their Volk atamans and Cossacks Ermak with goods to fight the Votyaks and Vogulichs and Tatars and Pelym and Siberian places 91 (1582 - A.Sh. .) in the year of September on 1 day (italics mine. - A.Sh.), and on the same day the Pelymsky prince gathered together with the Siberian people and from the Vogulichs came to war in our Perm places and to the city to Cherdyn and to the prison ... “Judging by the fact that this letter was addressed not only to Maxim Yakovlevich and Nikita Grigorievich Stroganov, who owned land in the Kama region, but also to their uncle Semyon Anikievich, it was sent to Solvychegodsk. It was here, in the ancestral archive of salt producers, that the author of the Stroganov Chronicle found and included this letter in his work. The original of the Solvychegodsk letter itself has not survived, but its authenticity is easily verified, for another letter that has come down to us in the original and is similar to it in content, but addressed only to M. Ya. And N.G. Stroganov and therefore delivered, obviously, to their Perm estates, was discovered in the Stroganov archive by GF Miller and later published.

The question arises: why, having this document, the author of the Stroganov Chronicle moved the date of the beginning of Yermak's campaign to Siberia a year earlier? There can be only one explanation: in the Solvychegodsk archive, he found several more royal letters (some of them survived and were later published), which contained information that September 1 ("about the Seed days") 7090 (1581) the Permian possessions of the Stroganovs were attacked by the Pelym prince and ruined them. Having familiarized himself with these documents, the chronicler simply combined in his story two different raids, 1581 and 1582, counting them as the same, and the answer to the question why, during the attack of the Pelymians, the Kama region, where, according to his information, was Ermak's squad , turned out to be without protection, he found in the royal "disgraced" letter. Not paying attention to the difference in dates, which he nevertheless reproduced mechanically, the chronicler came to the conclusion that by the time the Pelym prince arrived in 1581, the Yermakovites were no longer "in the towns", for on the eve of "the same year, Semyon and Maxim and Mikita to the Siberian land at the Siberian Saltan ".

Since the time of N.M. Karamzin, the version set forth in the Stroganov Chronicle has become almost generally accepted. True, at the same time, the question remained unresolved: how to avoid a contradiction in the dates related to the Pelym raid? It was proposed, in particular, to amend the dating and the text of the "disgraced" letter of Ivan the Terrible, that is, to read everywhere not 7091, but 7090. The opinion was also expressed that this letter was a belated response to a reply to Moscow from the Cherdyn voivode V. I. Pelepelitsyn, who for some reason reported about the events of the fall of 1581 only in 1582.Later, the Pelym raids with the light hand of A.A. Vvedensky began to be represented as follows: in the summer of 1580, the Trans-Ural Murza Begbeliy Agtagov (he is also described in the Stroganov Chronicle, but his attack is dated here on July 22, 1581), and on September 1, 1581, that is, immediately after Ermak went to Siberia, he came to Perm the Great with the army of the Pelym prince Kihek.

Relatively recently, RG Skrynnikov, relying on the tsarist letters of the Stroganovs and on the data of the Pogodinsky chronicler (more on this work will be discussed below), came to the conclusion that we should be talking about two different attacks on the Permian lands - 1581 and 1582. The first of them was headed by the Pelym prince Ablegirim, and the second was headed by Alei, the eldest son of Kuchum. Ermak arrived at the Stroganovs shortly before the second raid. Some historians support RG Skrynnikov's version, others criticized it.

In connection with the above, one more source deserves attention, which in the context of these disputes is practically out of sight of scientists. We are talking about the so-called. Vychegodsk-Vym (Misailo-Evtikhievskaya) Chronicle.

The history of its text is complex. In the late 1580s. The black priest Misail, the builder of the Ust-Vymsk Arkhangelsk Hermitage, began work on this work with the blessing of the Vologda and Great Perm Archbishop Anthony (who held the chair in 1582-1586). After his death, he continued to keep chronicle records at the beginning of the 17th century. Ustvym priest Eutykhiy of the Annunciation, who did this until 1619, when "Vladyka Macarius of Vologotsk [and] Velikopermsk did not order the little priests and clergymen for nothing." In the future, the chronicle was kept first in Ust-Vym, and then in Okvada. In 1813, by order of the Vologda Bishop Eugene, she was sent to Vologda, where she disappeared without a trace. However, before that, a certain Vologda seminarian A. Shergin removed a copy from the chronicle, which for many years was first in the Vvedenskaya Church in Okvada, then in private hands, and since 1915 - in the Ust-Vymskaya Annunciation Church. In 1927 this copy was found in Ust-Vymi by a novice writer and local historian P.G. Doronin and made a list from it. Subsequently, the Shergin copy was also lost somewhere, and P.G. Doronin 30 years later prepared the text of the chronicle according to his list for publication.

It should be said right away that the Vychegda-Vymskaya Chronicle contains a number of unique news. Some of them are verifiable, while others are questionable. A typical example is the message available here that in 1451 "the great prince Vasily Vasilyevich sent to the Perm land the governor from the line of the Vereisk princes (italics mine. - A.Sh.) Yermolai and after him Yermolai and his son Vasily to rule the Perm land Vychehotskoy; and the eldest son of Tov Ermolai, Mikhail Ermolich, sent to Great Perm to Cherdynia. " Some researchers perceived this text uncritically, as a result of which in the literature, including in the educational, there was a statement that in this case we are really talking about the representatives of the specific Vereian princes. But, as A. A. Zimin justly noted, “the Verei prince Mikhail Andreevich had no relatives of Yermolai and“ Yermolichi ””. This news is also contradicted by the Vychegodsk-Vymskaya Chronicle itself, where under 1462 it is said that "Vladyka Jonah will additionally (additionally - A.Sh.) baptize Great Perm, put them churches and priests and the princes of Mikhailovs baptize (italics mine. - A .Sh.) ". Moreover, in the Typographical Chronicle, which contains a similar episode, it is indicated that Jonah baptized “their prince,” that is, Mikhail Velikopermsky himself. And in the Ustyug chronicles of the first quarter of the 16th century, in the story that Ivan III in 1504 (in the Vychegod-Vymskaya chronicle - Vasily III in 1505) "brought the patroness of Prince Matvey Mikhailovich from Great Perm, and in his place sent Prince Andrei Vasilyevich Kovr ", the latter is directly said:" Sei was the first from the Russian princes. " Given the complex history of the text of the Vychegda-Vymskaya Chronicle, it can be assumed that either in its protograph there was another word (for example, "Erensky"), which the black priest Misail read as "Vereiskih", or later a similar error in relation to its text was made by one of the scribes chronicles. In any case, the more correct is the traditional version that the Vymsk and Great Perm princes came from the local tribal nobility and had no kinship with the house of Ivan Kalita.

One of the main sources of unique information about the analyzed site can be identified with a greater or lesser degree of probability. So, B.N.Florya, who devoted a special study to the early (before the beginning of the 16th century) news of the Vychegda-Vymskaya Chronicle (he calls it the Komi-Vymskaya Chronicle), came to the conclusion that in addition to the sources pointed out by the first of its compilers, Misail (the grand-ducal and royal letters kept in the "caskets" of the Ust-Vymsk Arkhangelsk Hermitage; the letters that he "opened" in Vologda "on the order" from the archbishop; the "lives" of the Perm bishops Stephen, Gerasim, Pitirim and Jonah), to the compilation of the work the early list of the Ustyug chronicle collection was involved, perhaps the Nikonovsky chronicle collection and the Perm Vladychnik chronicle that has not come down to us, which is also reflected in the Vologda-Perm chronicle. At the same time, according to the observations of BN Flory, the information of the Perm Vladyka Chronicle in the process of working on the Vychegod-Vym Chronicle, "was probably subjected to distortions and were greatly abbreviated, and the local names were updated."

In this regard, it can be assumed that the Perm Archbishop Chronicle, which, according to M.N. Tikhomirov, was conducted in Ust-Vymi under Bishop Philotheus (he occupied the cathedra in 1472-1501), was continued in the following time. And although in 1564 the residence of the Perm ruler was transferred to Vologda, the chronicle tradition in Ust-Vymi, apparently, was not interrupted until 1586, i.e. until the time when the black priest Misail took over this baton and began compiling his own chronicle. Working on it, he used as one of the sources not only the Perm Archbishop Chronicle, which covered the events of the 12th - early 16th centuries, but also its continuation. It was from here that, obviously, three articles came into the Vychegod-Vymskaya chronicle, which should be mentioned separately.

The first of them says that in 1558 “the great prince Grigoria and Maxima granted the children of the Anikievs Stroganov (hereinafter italics mine. - A.Sh.) a patrimony for the Great Perm's latrine lands for a hundred versts on both sides of the Kama River and ordered they build little bitches, set brews, cook salt, save up settlements for the sovereign. " Meanwhile, Ivan the Terrible's letter of grant of April 4, 1558 says not 100, but 88 versts, and it was given only to Grigory Anikievich. Where the mysterious Maxim Anikievich came from in the chronicle is unknown, because Grigory had only two brothers, Yakov and Semyon, and his nephew, Maxim Yakovlevich, was only two years old in 1558.

"Leta 7081 (1573. - A.Sh.), - says the second article, - I will come as an army to Perm the Great Mametkul, the son of the Siberian tsar, the cities and towns (my italics. - A.Sh.) robbed and burned." The same event is described in another letter of gratitude from Ivan the Terrible, given to Yakov and Grigory Stroganov on May 30, 1547, where, according to the salt producers, a slightly different picture is drawn: "and in 81 (1573 - A.Sh.) For days Ilyin's brother Mametkul came from Tobol de Siberian Saltan, gathered with his army, roads to visit, where to go with the army to Perm, but they beat many of our given Ostyaks, and their wives and children led them to a full, and our envoy Tretyak Chebukov and the serving Tatars, some went to the Cossack Horde, the Siberian one, and beat them; and to their de (Stroganovs - A.Sh.) prison, where our salary, their trades, the Siberian one did not reach for 5 versts ". Consequently, the Russian population of Perm was not affected by the Great raid of Mametkul.

Finally, the third article, which is directly related to our topic, looks in the Vychegda-Vymskaya Chronicle as follows: "In the summer of 7089 (1581 - A.Sh.) the Siberian king came (hereinafter, italics mine. - A.Sh.) with Vogulichs and Ugra people to Perm the Great, to towns on Sylvensky and Chusovsky, robbed the estates of the Stroganovs. The same summer, the Pelynsky prince Kikek came from Totara, Bashkirians, Ugras, Vogulichs, burned and plundered the towns of Perm and Sylvensky Volgorodsky and Volgograd, Ivyveno-Pozh, Solikamsk and Volgograd. , and Cherdynia proceeded, but did not take it. The same summer the shell Maxim and Grigorey Stroganovs of the Cossack vatamans and with them the hunting people fought the Siberian land and the Cossacks fought the whole Siberian for the single-plane, for the great prince they led. "

Establishing the reliability of this information, let us first turn to the details. First, the Pelym prince is named here by the name of Kikek. A similar spelling of this name (in the form of "Kihek") was reflected in the late Solikamsk chronicle tradition. At the same time, it turned out to be included in the corresponding story, borrowed in an abridged form from the Stroganov Chronicle, where the name of the Pelym prince was absent from the very beginning. From the Solikamsk sources, this story migrated to the chronicle compilation of V. N. Berkh and to the "Perm Chronicle" by V. N. Shishonko. As a result, the name of Kihek has become firmly established in historiography, although from the documents of the end of the 16th century. it has long been known that the Pelym prince was actually called Ablegirim. Sometimes, due to a misunderstanding, Ablegirim is confused with Ablegair (Abu-l-Khair), the son of Kuchum, who was captured by Russia in 1591. "Where did the authors of the" Solikamsk news "get information about Kihek, - writes RG Skrynnikov about this, - remains unknown. "

Now, it seems, this source has been established, because for two centuries the Vychegda-Vym Chronicle was probably read, as a result of which the name of the Pelym prince fell first into the oral and then into the written tradition. But how did "Kikek" appear in the annals itself? If initially the Vologda seminarian A. Shergin and the local lore writer P. G. Doronin, who were related to the history of her text, were taken out of suspicion, then the only "creator" of this name could only be the black priest Misail himself, who did this in the process of processing and reduction of the facts stated in the continuation of the Perm Archbishop Chronicle. Here, apparently, a classic case of "second lieutenant Kizhe" took place: under the pen of Misail, the misinterpreted relative pronoun in the meaning of "which" of the type "like", "that same", etc., which was read, judging by phrase constructions, in the protograph.

Another obvious mistake in the article of the Vychegod-Vymskaya chronicle about the events of 1581 is the mention of the name of Grigory Stroganov, who, together with Maxim, allegedly "equipped" a Cossack expedition to Siberia. It is known that Grigory Anikievich Stroganov died on November 5, 1577. In addition to Maxim Yakovlevich and, according to the Stroganov Chronicle, Semyon Anikievich, Nikita, the son and heir of Grigory Anikievich, was involved in the Yermakov campaign. If, at the same time, we recall the article of 1558, then we can conclude: the black priest Misail knew by name only two representatives of the Stroganovs' surname - Grigory and Maxim, whom he inserted into his chronicle to the right place and out of place.

At the same time, unlike the Stroganov Chronicle, the Vychegodsk-Vymskaya Chronicle, not knowing about the speech of Begbeliy Agtagov, quite definitely names not one, but two raids in the Kama region, although it refers them, as well as the campaign to to the same 7089 (1581). It is curious that one of the raids is headed, according to the chronicle, by the "Siberian tsar", and the other - by the "Pelym prince". Also noteworthy is the indication that the Cossacks conquered Siberia "for a single plane".

It is easy to see that the author of this article (and he, obviously, is the same Misail, who "creatively" reworked some information contained in the continuation of the Perm Vladychnaya Chronicle), for unknown reasons, rearranged the leaders of the campaigns, as a result of which the "Siberian tsar "was not in the army of the Tatars, but the" Pelynsky prince "came" from the Totara, the Bashkirs, the Ugra people "and only in the last place from the" Vogulichi ". If we make the reverse rearrangement and dilute during the raids (the "Pelym" one is attributed to 1581, and the "Siberian" one - to 1582), coinciding with the last campaign of Ermak, then we will get a version close to the one that is built on the basis of royal letters 1581-1582, addressed to the Stroganov.

Regardless of these documents, another narrative source adheres to a similar chronology and sequence of events - the so-called. Pogodinsky chronicler who has come down to us in the only list of the late 17th century. Since the first publication of its text in 1907, this monument of Siberian chronicle, containing unique information about Yermak's campaign, was considered by researchers to be the latest revision of the Esipov Chronicle. R.G. Skrynnikov, who put forward the assumption that the chronicler's text was compiled at the end of the 17th century. Moscow scribe, who had access to the archive of the Ambassador Prikaz, from where he borrowed a number of facts about the Siberian expedition. However, the textual study of the monument, carried out by E.K. Romodanovskaya, allowed her to conclude that the Pogodinsky chronicler dates back to an early protograph that preceded the Esipov Chronicle. It was the so-called. Cossack "Writing", transferred around 1622 to the first Tobolsk Archbishop Cyprian by the surviving Yermakovites. The author of this protograph, according to E.K. Romodanovskaya, was a participant in the Siberian campaign Cherkas Aleksandrov (Ivan Aleksandrov, son of Korsak, nicknamed Cherkas).

Additional investigations in this direction, carried out by the author of these lines, generally confirmed, and in some ways clarified the hypothesis of E.K. Romodanovskaya. As it was possible to establish, the text of the Pogodinsky chronicler through his protographer, which appeared after 1636, goes back to the "Chronicle Tale", created around 1601 by the head of the Tobolsk Yurt Tatars Cherkas Alexandrov, an eyewitness and participant in Yermak's campaign to Siberia. Not only Siberian and Ural works (Synodik Ermakov to the Cossacks, the Esipov and Stroganov Chronicles), but also the monuments of the all-Russian chronicle of the 17th century, including the chronographic story "On the Victory at the Besermen Siberian Tsar Kuchum .." . ", New Chronicler and Code of 1652.

Thus, with the deduction of the later editorial layers, which are easily isolated, the text of the Pogodinsky chronicler is by far the most reliable source on the topic under study. Based on it, one can reconstruct the chronology and sequence of events contained in Cherkas Aleksandrov's "Tale of the Chronicle". This reconstruction, supplemented by data from other sources, makes it possible to build the next version of Yermak's Siberian campaign.

In the 20th of July 1581, the Vogul rebellion, led by Begbeliy Agtagov, began in the Stroganov possessions. Its participants, "came to the Chyusovsky towns and Sylvensky ostrozhek, began to ravage their surroundings, but were soon defeated. This performance was only one of the links in the chain of events that unfolded on the eastern outskirts of the Moscow state, in which the Siberian khan was obviously involved Kuchum: in the Middle Volga region, "meadow" and "mountain" cheremis were agitated, the connection with which was maintained by the Nogai prince Urus, and at the end of the summer of the same 1581, passing through the "Stone" by the old Siberian road along Lozva and Vishera, a vassal invaded the Urals of the Siberian "tsar" the Pelym prince Ablegirim. His path, marked by pogroms, is accurately recorded by the petition of S. A. and M. Ya. Stroganov, preserved in the statement of the letter of Ivan the Terrible from December 20, 1581: "now the ninetieth (7090. - A. Sh.) In the year about Semen days (September 1 - A.Sh.) the Pelymsky prince came in an army, and with him seven hundred people, their de-settlements on Koiva, and on Obva, and on Yayva, and on Chyusova, and on Sylva the villages were all burned out, both people and They beat the Yesyan, they beat the jones and the children to the full, and drove away the horses and the beast. " Judging by the tsar's letter sent on November 6, 1581 to N. G. Stroganov, in September the "Pelymsky prince from the Vogulichi" still stood "near the Chyusovsky prison."

In the same 7089 (1581), according to the Pogodinsky chronicler, God was the "ambassador of the" Cossacks "to defeat Tsar Kuchyum" (Pogodinsky p. 130). The events that preceded this are well known. In mid-July 1581, the tsar's ambassador V. I. Pelepelitsyn, who was in the Nogai Horde with Prince Urus, went to Moscow, accompanied by the Nogai embassy with a guard of 300 horsemen and a trade caravan of Bukhara merchants, "Ordobazarians". In early August, at the crossing of the Volga near Sosnovy Island (in the area of ​​the Samara River), all of them were ambushed and defeated. The attack was attended by "the Cossacks Ivan Koltso, yes Bogdan Borbosha, yes Mikita Pan, yes Sava Boldyrya with goods". The same pogrom is mentioned from the words of the Cherdyn governor V. I. Pelepelitsyn - a former ambassador robbed by "thieves" - and in the "disgraced" tsarist letter of November 16, 1582: "And those chieftains and Cossacks (who went to" fight ... Siberian places ". - A.Sh.) previously quarreled us with the Nagai horde, the ambassadors of the Nagai on the Volga were beaten on transports, and the Ordobazarians were robbed and beaten, and our people repaired many robberies and losses."

Attention is drawn to the fact that the list of "thieves" chieftains who attacked the Nogai-Russian embassy does not include the name of Yermak. RG Skrynnikov found the following explanation for this: from the summer of 1581 to the spring of 1582, he fought with his village on the fronts of the Livonian War, after which he united on Yaik with the Volga Cossacks, who had previously destroyed the embassy. From here, having accepted M. Ya. Stroganov's offer to serve in his estates, Yermak's squad set off for the Urals.

If, in fact, the version that "Ermak Timofeevich, Cossack ataman", mentioned in the letter of the Polish commandant P. Stravinsky, is among those who were part of the Russian army near Mogilev at the end of June 1581, and the conqueror of Siberia, Ermak Timofeev, is true nicknamed Tokmak (see: Pog. S. 130) is one and the same person, then, given the chronology of the Pogodinsky chronicler, the events of the eve of the Siberian expedition can be presented in a slightly different way.

In the summer of 1580, Ermak and his comrades "drove off a thousand horses from the Volga" belonging to the Nogai Murza Urmagmet, while killing his "karachee Batugai-baatyr". In the spring of 1581, preparing to march to the western theater of military operations, Yermak's Cossacks stole another 60 horses from the same Murza. On June 25, 1581, the Russian corps under the command of the voivode Prince. MP Katyrev-Rostovsky, which included the Yermakov detachment, crossed the Dnieper to the region of Mogilev and Orsha. By August 1581, the hostilities here were basically over, and the regiments were "ordered to stay in Rzhev."

Meanwhile, in early May of the same 1581, the Moscow authorities became aware of the attack on the Russian possessions not only of the Crimean and Azov Tatars, but also of the Nogai Tatars. In response to these treacherous actions on the part of Prince Urus, "Urmagmety-Murza and other Murza", the government of Ivan the Terrible actually gave the Volga Cossacks freedom of action against the Nogais. As a result, the Cossack freemen, which included I. Koltso and his comrades, in late June - early July 1581 was burned and plundered Saraichik - the capital of the Nogai Horde, located in the lower reaches of the Yaik. At the same time, military units were sent against the Tatars, who were plundering the Russian lands. Obviously, one of them was the equestrian village of Ermak, transferred from the western borders to the Volga region. In mid-August 1581, pursuing a 600-strong Nogai detachment leaving with booty from Temnikov and Alatyr, the Yermakovs reached the Volga ferry near Sosnovy Island, where there was still a band of "free" Cossacks who had defeated the Nogai-Russian embassy the day before. ... Clamped on both sides, the Nogais were defeated. Probably, some of them managed to escape from the encirclement and went to Yaik. The united detachment of Cossacks on horseback rushed after them in pursuit.

Having reached Yaik, the Cossacks began to decide the question: what to do next? It was clear that the Moscow government would not forgive them for the embassy robbed on the Volga. After long disputes, part of the detachment led by ataman Bogdan Borbosha remained in the Yaik region, and the remaining 540 people, including atamans Ivan Koltso, Nikita Pan, Matvey Meshcheryak, Yakov Mikhailov and Savva Boldyr, decided to leave with Ermak in the Urals. It was the end of August, it ended in 7089 (1581), and the Cossacks remembered this well.

According to the Pogodinsky chronicler, from Yaik the Yermakovs moved to the upper reaches of the Irgiz, and from there they went to the Volga (see Pog. P. 130). Apparently, they made this journey on horseback. Already on the Volga, the Cossacks moved into plows, hidden in one of the secret piers (possibly in the area of ​​the same Pine Island), and moved up the river, "and from the Volga to the Kama river and the Kama river upwards" (Ibid.). Reaching the mouth of the river. Chusovoy, turned to Sylva (according to the Kungur Chronicle, this happened, as mentioned above, on September 26), where, obviously, they collided with the rearguard of Ablegirim and defeated him. Echoes of these events were reflected later in the stories about the battles of the Yermakites with the Voguls at the very beginning of their march to Siberia, which are read in the chronographic story "On the Victory on the Besermen Siberian Tsar Kuchum ..." chronicler, etc. Cossacks met the onset of winter in a fortified camp on Sylva.

The only written source reporting on the wintering of the Yermak people in these places is the Kungur Chronicle, which says: "... and they buried up the Sylva and in the frost reached the tract, the Ermakov settlement is now a word; and when they walked they robbed the residents of bread and supplies and here they hibernated, and along the Kamenyi Vogulich fighters and enrichers fought, and they fed themselves with bread from Maxim Stroganov. And 300 people went on a campaign to the Vogulichs and returned with wealth to their homes and to Siberia and to this seasoned plenty of light plows with supplies. "

The credibility of this story is confirmed by the following facts. In September 1581, when the warriors of the Pelym prince were still standing "near the Chyusovsky prison," S. A. and M. Ya. Stroganovs asked the tsar "to grant them, to order them to date military men from the Great Perm." A month or a month and a half later, they turned to him for permission to recruit "eager people" into their patrimonial army. At the same time, from the context of their petition, even in the presentation of the royal charter, it becomes clear that they had in mind some real military contingent that they were going to use in the war against the Voguls: “Semyon dei da Maxim of eager Cossacks and his people (italics mine. - A Sh.) They dare not come to the Vogul uluses without our decree. " This suggests that the Stroganovs only needed a formal sanction from above, which would allow them to semi-legally recruit the wanted "thieves" who, by chance, ended up in Sylva. Knowing the tough temper of the tsar, the salt producers were well aware of the riskiness of this enterprise and therefore slyly kept silent about whom they decided to attract to defend their possessions. As a result, the Stroganovs achieved their goal: by a letter of December 20, 1581, addressed to the Perm and Solikam elders and kiselniks, all zemstvo "eager people" were allowed to go "to hire them." "And those who vogulich on their (Stroganovs. - A.Sh.) ostroges come by war and repair ardor," said the same letter, "and they would come to those (the Stroganovs - A.Sh.) forts, and they would be hunted over them ... (to the Vogulichs - A.Sh.) it was unwise [it was] to steal. " While allowing military actions against the Voguls, the Moscow government put forward only one condition - not to provoke a major war in the Urals as a result of such actions.

Meanwhile, in December 1581 in Cherdyn arrived a new voivode V.I.Pelepelitsyn, who replaced Prince. I.M.Eletsky. Soon, news began to reach him about what was happening in the Stroganov estates, but the governor for the time being preferred to keep silent about it, not wanting to quarrel with powerful neighbors even because of the insults and insults inflicted on him by the Cossacks on the Volga ferry. However, when in late summer - early autumn 1582 the Perm Territory was still engulfed in the flames of a great war, V. I. Pelepelitsyn, trying to shield himself, remembered everything. “And that (the raid of the Siberian-Pelym army. - A.Sh.) became your betrayal,” Stroganov said from the words of his formal reply in the “disgraced” letter, “you took Vogul and Votyaks and Pelymians away from our salary, and they were bullied by the war. people came to them (hereinafter, italics mine. - A.Sh.), and with that enthusiasm they quarreled with the Siberian Saltan, and the Volga chieftains (who, as follows from the context of the letter, carried out these actions. - A.Sh.), having called upon themselves, they hired the thieves in their prison without our decree. "

But all this will be later. In the meantime, the Yermakites were carrying out winter raids on the "Vogul uluses" from their Sylven camp, not really caring about their consequences. At the same time, the Stroganovs, who in late January - early February 1582 received the tsar's permission to recruit "willing people" into their patrimonial army, still postponed the final conclusion of an agreement with Yermak and his retinue on service. They decided to take this step only in the spring.

"In the summer of 7087 (1579. - A.Sh.)," says the Stroganov Chronicle, "April 6th (hereinafter italics mine. - A.Sh.), I hear the fear of Semyon and Maxim and Nikita Stroganov from reliable people about the riot and courage of the Povolsky Cossacks and atamans Ermak Timofeev with goods, how on the Volga on the transport Nagays are beaten and Ardobazarians are robbed and beaten ", and sent to them" their people with scriptures and gifts from many ", inviting the Cossacks" to Chyusovsky towns and in jests to help them ". Apparently, the chronicler constructed this news from various sources. So, the indication of the arrival of the Yermakovites "from the great Volga rivers", which is read in the title of this article, goes back, obviously, to the chronicle protographer, and the information about the Cossack "exploits" is clearly borrowed from the "disgraced" royal charter of 1582. Where did the first part of the date come from? (7087), unknown. But its second part (April 6) has, most likely, some kind of documentary basis. Also noteworthy is the date of the arrival of "Yermak Timofeev with goods to Chyusovskie gorodki", placed in the following article: "June 28, in memory of the saints the miracle worker and bezsrebrennik Cyrus and John."

According to the Kungurovsky Chronicle, the departure of Yermak's squad from the camp on Sylva took place at about the same time: “And in May, on the 9th day, a promise was made to a chapel in the settlement in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. on the fortified settlement with their wives and children, forever settling. " And before June 12 or 13, the Cossacks were already taking supplies and weapons from Maskim Stroganov in the Nizhnechusovsky town. Obviously, in the summer of 1582, Yermak also visited Orel-Gorodok (Kergedan) - the capital of the Kama possessions of N.G. Stroganov. This is evidenced by the copied in the XIX century. the inscription on the trunk of the later lost squeaky squeak: "In the city of Kergedan on the Kama river, I present, Maxim Yakovlev, son of the Stroganov, to the ataman Ermak in the summer of 7090 (1582. - A.Sh.)".

During the winter raids on the encampments of the Voguls, the Yermakovites gathered a lot of information about the lands behind the "Stone". The Stroganovs and their people also told them a lot. As a result, at the end of the summer, a campaign was planned against the Pelym principality, which promised rich booty. July 1582 passed in training, and in August, on the very eve of the Cossack expedition, "Kuchyumov's son Alei came to war on Chyusovaya." The attack was carried out through the so-called. Tyumen portage near Sylva with access to the Stroganov towns. Along with Alei, the Pelym prince Ablegirim took part in the raid, eager for revenge. Since the Yermakians did not allow the Siberian Chyusova to fight (Pog. C 130), the Tatar-Pelym army moved on, ravaging Russian settlements along the Kama River, burned down the Kama Salt, and on September 1, 1582 besieged Cherdyn. After an unsuccessful attempt to take the capital of Perm, the Great "curse", according to the Stroganov Chronicle, "I went to the town of Kai, and that great dirty trick". The Vychegod-Vymskaya Chronicle also reports that the enemy "the Vymsk revost Kaigorod and Volosenets burned," as mentioned above. At this time, Ermak's squad, which repulsed the attack of Alei's army on the Nizhnechusovsk fortress and thereby fulfilled its obligations to M. Ya. Stroganov, changed its plans regarding the campaign against Pelym. “And from that place,” Cherkas Aleksandrov recalled, “taught one, Yermak with goods, to think and climb, as if they could reach the Siberian land to Tsar Kuchyum” (Pog. P. 130). Not later than mid-August of the same 1582, they set off up the Chusovaya, making their own way beyond the Urals. As in the case of the defeat of Saraichik, the Volga Cossacks decided to respond with blow for blow. Therefore, their main goal was now Siberia - the capital of "Tsar Kuchyum".

From Chusovaya, Yermakovs turned to the mouth of the river. Serebryanka that "came from the Siberian countries to the Chyusovaya river on the right side." Having climbed it, they dragged the courts over the pass by a 25-verst drag "on themselves" to the river. The sheep have already swam along it, without stopping, "down into the river in Tagil", which flows into the Tura (Ibid.).

Thus began the impetuous and daring campaign of the Cossack detachment of Yermak Timofeevich to Siberia. The events that preceded him (the pogrom of the Nogai-Russian embassy on the Volga, the departure of Ermak's squad from Yaik through the Irgiz, Volga and Kama in the Urals, wintering on Sylva, the invitation of the Stroganovs to defend their possessions from the Vogul raids, preparation of the Pelym expedition and, finally, the rebuff given to the army of Alei and Ablegirim on Chusovaya) indicate that the main initiators of this campaign were not the Stroganovs, and even less the state, but the Cossacks themselves, accustomed to acting according to circumstances. They had neither the time nor the opportunity to move slowly, "with skill", to spend the winter on the Tagil portage or on the Tour. From the very beginning, it was a typical predatory raid ("with a return they planned to flee to Siberia to smash"), which unexpectedly for the Cossacks themselves led to the collapse of the formidable Siberian "kingdom" and, due to various circumstances, subsequently dragged on for three whole years.

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For a long time, one of the important tasks of the foreign policy of Ivan IV the Terrible was the development of vast territories in the east. In 1558, after the capture of Astrakhan and Kazan, the tsar bestowed the charter for the possession of vast territories along the Tobol River to the wealthy merchants Stroganov. Those, in turn, by 1579 gathered a detachment of 600 to 840 people to defend the borders of their possessions from the Voguls (modern Mansi) and Ostyaks (Khanty). The core of the detachment was made up of representatives of the free Cossacks, and ataman Ermak Timofeevich was put in charge. It is interesting that the detachment was formed without the knowledge of the royal authorities.

At the beginning of September 1581, the entire army, loaded on 80 sailing and rowing ships - the plow, having climbed the tributaries of the Kama, reached the Tagil Pass in the Ural Mountains. From there, the ships had to be transported by land, overcoming rocky terrain and dense forest. According to eyewitnesses, the Cossacks cut down the glades on their own, and built skating rinks from the fallen trees, making it easier to drag heavy ships through the rocky terrain. Where the advance was especially difficult, the Cossacks had to carry the ships on their own shoulders. Finally, by the onset of winter, the detachment founded Kokui-gorod - an earthen fortification for a halt. Having survived the cold season, the Cossack army floated down the Tagil River, and from there got to Tura.

By mid-spring, when the army found itself in the area of ​​the modern Sverdlovsk region, the first skirmishes with the Siberian peoples began. The first Murza, defeated by the army of Ermak, was Yepancha. After that, the fame of a strong and formidable army so influenced the minds of the local population that the small town of Chingi-Tura surrendered without a fight, as soon as Yermak approached its walls. Later, Tyumen was founded on the site of this settlement.

On October 4, Khan Kuchum, having gathered an army of 15 thousand people, met a Cossack detachment at the Chuvash cape near the confluence of the Irtysh and Tobol rivers. However, already in the course of the battle, most of the troops that promised support to the khan left him and fled. Kuchum himself had to flee the Ishim steppe.

In 1582, on October 26 (November 5), a detachment under the command of Yermak occupied the capital of the Siberian Khanate, the city of Kashlyk. The local population has since been obliged to pay tribute with valuable fur - yasak. Gradually, representatives of various Siberian villages began to bow to Ermak, asking for protection in exchange for obedience. Yermak supported such conditions, and from the tribal nobility took an oath that her people would pay yasak on time. These treaties made the Siberian peoples subjects of the Russian tsar.

Despite the fact that during Yermak's life it was not possible to defeat Kuchum, after the death of the ataman, the Russian troops defeated the khan. It was this event that became the point in the long process of the annexation of Siberia.

The family of wealthy Ural merchants and salt producers Stroganovs in the middle of the 16th century. Tsar Ivan IV granted land holdings bordering on the Siberian Khenstvo. The Stroganovs were obliged to build small towns with jails (fortifications) here, not their own means, to recruit gunners and beepers (shooters) to protect themselves from warlike neighbors. In the early 80s. In the 17th century, the Stroganovs hired a detachment of Volga Cossacks led by ataman Ermek Timofeevich.

At that time, the Siberian khenstvo was hostile and, moreover, malignant toward Russia. Detachments of the Tatar princes - vassals of the Siberian hené Kuchume - often harassed the lands of the Stroganovs' raids and in earnest "proceeded to a prison" in Cherdyn - an angry stronghold of Russia in the Urals.

In response to this, in the fall of 1582, the Ermake Cossacks set out on a campaign against Kuchum. The chieftain had at his disposal only 540 people or a little more, but these were experienced, seasoned warriors, armed with squeaks - heavy gunpowder guns, which were a novelty for their enemy. A handful of kezeks were opposed by troops that outnumbered them many times over, but not in the face of combat discipline and did not have any experience in handling firearms: Kuchume had his own cannons, but neither he nor his soldiers were able to use them in battles with Yermak. Within a few months, the armed forces of the Siberian Khanate were defeated in parts. Ermak and his comrades occupied the capital of the khanate - the city of Kashlyk. This is not to say that the victory was easy and bloodless. Particularly stubborn was the cutting off near Lake Abalak with the elite warriors to Tsarevich Mametkule in December 1582; in this battle, several dozen Cossacks fell before success was achieved.

In the summer of 1583 Yermak sent his people to Ivan IV himself with the news that his kezeks "took the Siberian kingdom and many foreign-speaking people living here brought the imperial high hand under his sovereign ...".

After a series of defeats in the Livonian War, reports of successes in Siberia were received in Moscow with great joy. The tsar presented the envoys with money and cloth, and a detachment of Prince Semyon Volkhovsky soon set out to help Ermak. However, like Sem Volkhovskaya, Tek and many of his archers and some Cossacks died in Kashlyk in the winter of 1584 from acute malnutrition and terrible frosts that winter. Despite this, Ermak managed to retain the Siberian capital for a year and a half and repel new raids of the Tatars.

Kuchum blocked the paths for the supply of bread from Bukhara to Kashlyk. Ermak was forced to set off on a new campaign to remove Kuchumov's barrier - the Inche Cossacks were threatened with starvation. On the night of August 5-6, 1585, Kuchum unexpectedly attacked the Cossack camp, who for some reason did not set up guards. Many companions-in-arms of Ermake fell, while others rushed to the plows (ships) in order to get away from the pursuit along the river. The chieftain covered the retreat of his comrades to the end and at the last moment tried to jump into the outgoing plow. But the jump of the tired, wounded warrior was wrong - Ermak fell into the water, and the heavy chain mail pulled him to the bottom. So the conqueror of Siberia ended his life.

After the death of Ermak, the struggle for Siberia continued for quite some time. The Russians again managed to occupy Kashlyk only a few years later, and the remnants of the Kuchum horde were defeated by the detachment of Andrei Voeikov in 1598.

Ermak Timofeevich (Timofeev) (born about 1532 - death on August 6 (16), 1585) - Cossack chieftain in the service of the Stroganov merchants of Perm, who conquered the Siberian kingdom (khanate) for Russia, a fragment of the Golden Horde.

Origin

There are several versions of Yermak's origin. According to one version, he came from the Don Cossack village of Kachalinskaya. According to another version, he came from the banks of the Chusovaya River. There is also a version about the Pomor origin of Ermak. It is believed that his surname is Timofeev, although as a rule the Cossack chieftain is called Ermak Timofeevich, or simply Ermak.

1552 - Ermak commanded a separate Cossack detachment from the Don in the army of Tsar Ivan the Terrible during the conquest of the Kazan Khanate. He distinguished himself in the Livonian War of 1558-1583, being personally known.

Stanitsa chieftain

When Ermak Timofeevich returned from Livonia to the village of Kachalinskaya, the Cossacks elected him as the village chieftain. Soon after his election, he, with several hundred Cossacks, went to "libertine" on the Volga, that is, to plunder on its banks. The capital of the Nogai Horde was destroyed in the steppe town of Nagaichik. It was around 1570.

The tsar instructed to clear the Volga from river robbers to the Kazan voivode - the head Ivan Murashkin with several streltsy regiments, put on river ships. 1577 - the tsarist voivode Murashkin cleared the Middle and Lower Volga of the robber Cossack freemen. Many large and small Cossack detachments were defeated and scattered. Several captured chieftains were executed.

A Tsar's decree was sent from Moscow to the Don so that the Don army would stop the "robbery" of its Cossacks, and seize those guilty of this "theft" and send them under strong guard to the capital for trial. Messengers sent from the Don, who had with them the decision of the Army Circle, found Ermak's detachment and other surviving detachments of robber Cossacks in Yaik (Ural). Most of the Donets obeyed the order of the circle and dispersed to their "yurts", that is, to the villages.

In the service of the Stroganovs

In the detachment of Ataman Yermak, there remained those Don and Volga Cossacks who "fell into the Tsar's disgrace." They gathered their "circle" to decide how to live further. The decision taken was this: to leave the Volga for the Kama and enter the "Cossack service" to the richest salt merchants Stroganovs. They needed the protection of their huge possessions from the raids of Siberian foreigners.

After wintering on Sylva and having built a sufficient number of light plows, the Cossacks (540 people) in the spring of 1759 arrived at the Stroganovs in the town of Orel. The salt-mining merchants "went out of their way", that is, they did everything for a successful campaign against the hostile Siberian kingdom and its ruler Kuchum. Ataman Ermak Timofeevich led not 540 Cossacks, but an army of 840 soldiers. The Stroganovs gave three hundred of their warriors. About a third of the Cossacks owned firearms.

Ermak - the conquest of Siberia

Taking everything they needed, the Cossacks on June 13, 1579 set out as a ship's army up the Chusovaya to the Tagil port. Further the path lay to the Serebryanka river. The drag from the mouth of the Serebryanka River to the headwaters of the Tagil (Tagil) River - to the Narovlya River stretched for almost 25 versts of complete impassability. The Cossacks dragged light ships “to the other side of the Stone,” that is, the Ural Mountains.

By 1580, the squad of the ataman Ermak Timofeevich went to Tagil. In a forest tract, a camping camp was built for wintering. Cossacks all winter "fought the possessions of the Pelym Khan." 1580, May - on old plows and newly built ships, the Cossacks left Tagil on the Tura River and began to "fight the surrounding uluses." Ulus Khan Yepancha was defeated in the first battle. Ermak occupied the town of Tyumen (Chingi-Tura). A new wintering took place there.

1581, spring - going further along the Tura River, in its very lower reaches, they were able to defeat the militia of six local princelings in battle at once. When the Cossack flotilla along the Tura River went out into the vastness of the much more full-flowing Tobol, there they met the main forces of Khan Kuchum. The Siberians occupied the Babasan (or Karaulny Yar) tract, where the river narrowed in high steep banks. According to the chronicle, the river in this place was blocked with an iron chain.

The khan's troops were commanded by the heir of Kuchum, prince Mametkul. When the Cossack plows approached the river narrowness, arrows fell on them from the bank. Ataman Yermak accepted the battle, landing part of his squad on the shore. The other part remained on the plows, firing at the enemy from the cannons. Mametkul, at the head of the Tatar cavalry, attacked the Cossacks who landed on the shore. But they met the Kuchumites with a "fiery battle".

Yermak's shipmen moved further down the Tobol. Soon there was a 5-day clash with the army of Tsarevich Mametkul. And again the victory of the Cossacks was convincing. According to legend, they were inspired to fight by the vision of Nicholas the saint. The Khan's army in all its multitude occupied a high cliff on the right bank of the Tobol, which was called Dolgiy Yar. The flow of the river was blocked with felled trees. When the Cossack flotilla approached the obstacle, from the shore it was greeted with clouds of arrows.

Conquest of Siberia

Ermak Timofeevich took the plows back and for 3 days prepared for the upcoming battle. He went for a military trick: some of the warriors with stuffed animals made of brushwood and dressed in a Cossack dress remained on the plows, clearly visible from the river. Most of the detachment went ashore to attack the enemy, if possible, from the rear.

The ship's caravan, on which only 200 people remained, moved again along the river, firing from the "fiery battle" the enemy on the bank. And at this time, the main part of the Cossack squad went into the rear of the khan's army at night, unexpectedly fell on him and put him to flight. Soon, on August 1, the army of Khan Kharachi was defeated at Lake Tara.

Now Isker was on the way of the Cossacks. Khan Kuchum gathered all the available military forces to defend his capital Isker. He skillfully chose the Irtysh bend, the so-called Chuvash Cape, as a place for the battle. The approaches to it were covered with markers. The khan's army had two cannons brought from Bukhara.

The battle on October 23 began with the fact that a Tatar cavalry detachment approached the camp of the Cossack squad and fired at it from bows. The Cossacks defeated the enemy and, pursuing him, faced the main forces of the khan's army, commanded by Tsarevich Mametkul. On the victorious battlefield, 107 of Ermak's comrades fell, noticeably belittling his already small Cossack army.

Khan Kuchum fled from Isker on the night of October 26, 1581. On October 26, the Cossacks occupied it, calling the town Siberia. He became the main headquarters of the ataman Yermak. Ostyak, Vogul and other princes voluntarily arrived in Siberia and there they were accepted into the citizenship of the Russian tsar.

From Siberia (Isker) Ermak informed the Stroganov merchants about his victories. At the same time, preparations began for an embassy ("stanitsa") to Moscow, headed by the ataman Ivan Koltso - "to beat the king with the Siberian kingdom with his forehead." 50 "best" Cossacks were sent with him. That is, it was about joining the Russian state of another (after Kazan and Astrakhan) "fragment" of the Golden Horde.

Ermak's campaign map

Siberian prince

He said to the conquerors of Siberia his words of thanks: "Ermak and his comrades and all the Cossacks" were forgiven all their previous guilt. The chieftain was granted a fur coat from the tsar's shoulder, battle armor, including two shells, and a letter in which the autocrat bestowed the title of Siberian prince on Ermak.

1852 - the Cossacks were able to assert the power of the Moscow sovereign "from Pelym to the Tobol River", that is, in all regions along the course of these two large rivers of Western Siberia (in the modern Tyumen region).

But soon the death of two Cossack detachments gave the fugitive Khan Kuchum new strength. Khan Karacha became the head of the rebellion. He and his troops approached the wooden walls of Siberia. From March 12, 1854, the Cossacks were able to withstand a real enemy siege for a whole month. But the chieftain found the right way out of a really dangerous situation.

On the night of May 9, on the eve of the patron saint of the Cossacks, Nicholas the saint, Ataman Matvey Meshcheryak with a detachment of Cossacks was able to sneak through the enemy guards unnoticed and attacked the camp of Khan Karachi. The attack was distinguished by both suddenness and audacity. The khan's camp was defeated.

Death of Ermak

Then Khan Kuchum went to the trick, which he quite succeeded. He sent loyal people to Yermak, who informed the ataman that a merchant caravan from Bukhara was moving up the Vagai River, and that Khan Kuchum was holding them back. Ermak Timofeevich with a small detachment of only 50 Cossacks sailed up the Vagai. On the night of August 6, 1585, the detachment stopped to rest at the confluence of the Vagai with the Irtysh. Tired of the hard work at the oars, the Cossacks did not send out sentries. Or, more likely, they simply fell asleep on a bad night.

In the middle of the night, the khan's cavalry detachment crossed over to the island. Kuchum's warriors crept up to them unnoticed. The attack on the sleeping people was unexpected: few people managed to grab their weapons and engage in an unequal battle. Of the entire Cossack detachment of 50 people, only two survived in that massacre. The first was a Cossack who managed to get to Siberia and tell the sad news of the death of his comrades and the chieftain.
The second was Yermak Timofeevich himself.

Wounded, dressed in a heavy chain mail donated by the tsar (or a carapace?), He covered the retreat of a few Cossacks to the plows. Unable to climb onto a plow (apparently, he was already alive only one), Ermak Timofeevich drowned in the Vagai River. According to another version, Ermak died at the very edge of the coast, when he fought off the attackers. But those did not get his body, carried away into the night by a strong river current.

The advance of the Russians into the limits began Siberian Khanate, another shard of the Golden Horde. Here, in Western Siberia, along the Irtysh, Tobol, Ob and their tributaries lived Siberian Tatars, Khanty (Russians called them Ostyaks), Mansi (Voguls), Nenets (Samoyeds, Yuraks), Selkups and other small peoples. In total, no more than 200-220 thousand inhabitants lived in what was then Siberia, right up to the Pacific Ocean. These were cattle breeders (southern regions), hunters and fishermen (taiga and tundra belts). Small in number and backward, they often became the object of attacks and robberies from neighbors, exploitation of Siberian khans and princelings. Civil strife and mutual attacks were frequent.

Siberian peoples and their rulers from the middle of the XVI century ., after, more and more often enter into contacts with Moscow, raise the question of citizenship. This request was made in 1555 by the Siberian Khan Edigar, who suffered a lot from the raids of the Bukhara rulers. Ivan IV agreed, and the Siberian "yurt" began to pay tribute (yasak) to his treasury with furs. But after 1572 (the Crimean attack on Russia), the new Khan Kuchum broke off relations with Russia.

As before, Russian industrial and commercial people went "Over-stone" by way (along the Pechora and its tributaries, through the Kamen (Ural) to the tributaries of the Ob and further) or "Sea-okyanom" to the east for fur animals and other riches. The Stroganovs, the Solvychegodsky industrialists, equipped the detachments of "eager people", the Cossacks. One of them was headed by Ermak. According to one version, he is a free Cossack, "Walking man" from the Volga, on the other - a native of the Urals, named Vasily Timofeevich Alenin.

Conquest of the Siberian Khanate

Ermak's detachment in 1582 came from the Chusovaya river, passing through the Ural ridge, to Tura, "Tu be and Siberian country"... Then he moved, “with a fight and without a fight,” along the Tobol and Irtysh. At the end of October, brave warriors-pioneers approached Kashlyk, the capital of Khan Kuchum, not far from modern Tobolsk. The city has begun "Slashing evil"... Kuchum's army (from Tatars, Khanty and Mansi) was defeated and fled. Khan migrated south to the steppe. Local residents began to pay tribute to Moscow.

The following year, the tsar sent 500 people to help Ermak, led by Prince S. Volkhovsky. But they came only at the end of 1584. Clashes between local residents and newcomers took place throughout the khanate. The heavily thinned detachment of Ermak was ambushed, he himself drowned in the waters of the Irtysh (August 1585). The remnants of the detachments of Ermak and Volkhovsky went home. But soon new detachments appeared - the governor I. Mansurov, V. Sukin, and others. They set up fortified forts, strengthen the garrisons. Tyumen (1586), Tobolsk (1587), which for a long time became the capital of Russian Siberia, and other cities were founded. By the end of the century, Kuchum, attacking Russian troops and forts from the depths of the steppes, suffers a final defeat. Siberian Khanate ceases to exist.

The eastern borders of the state were greatly expanded. Fur, fish and other goods flowed from Western Siberia to European Russia.