Siberia in the 15th-17th centuries briefly. Siberia

Roger PORTAL (1906–1994), French historian, Doctor of Humanities, professor at the Sorbonne, director (1959-1973) of the National Institute of Slavic Studies in Paris, chairman of the Slavic Commission of the International Committee of Historians. Author of over 100 scientific works on the history of Russia and the Slavic peoples, including the monographs “The Urals in the 18th Century: Essays on Socio-Economic History” (1949, Russian translation, 2004), “Slavs: Peoples and Nations” (1965, translation. in English, German and Italian), “Peter the Great” (1969, 1990), “Russians and Ukrainians” (1970), “Russia” (1972), “Russia and the Bashkirs: a history of relationships (1662-1798 gg.)" (published in 2000), etc. Chief editor of the "History of Russia" written by French scientists in 4 volumes (1971-1974).

Introduction

Conquest and colonization of Siberia by Russians in the 17th century. * represents a chain of events that are as historically significant and as colorful as the actions of Europeans on the other side of the ocean. In addition, colonization created numerous economic, social and political problems. The enormous size of this territory, its harsh climate, as well as the weakness of the colonization flow in the first hundred years after the conquest created a unique situation here, where insignificant human resources and a hostile, sometimes deadly nature constantly collided.

Nevertheless, this conquest was distinguished by its specificity and swiftness. By the end of the 16th century. The Russians were firmly entrenched in Western Siberia. Half a century later, in 1648, they appeared on the Pacific coast, reaching the borders of Asia, the Strait, which would later be called the Bering Strait. In 1689, the Russians concluded the Treaty of Nerchinsk with China, which marked the southeastern borders of Russia for almost two centuries. But from the middle of the 17th century. Siberia was completely (except for Kamchatka) in Russian hands; it was a territory located along the 65th parallel 5000 km east of the Urals and along 100° west longitude for 3000 km from north to south, and its climate and natural conditions were unsuitable for human life. A third of Siberia is located outside the Arctic Circle, and its south is dominated by a sharply continental climate. A significant part of the Siberian lands is tundra and forests, where a person can easily get lost. Only the south is suitable for agriculture. The territory west of the Yenisei is convenient for human habitation, but Eastern Siberia is covered with mountains, the height of which increases as you move to the east; some of these mountains were only explored in the 20th century.

Although the natural and geographical conditions in Siberia prevented its settlement, the solution to this problem was facilitated by two factors. Firstly, rivers The region forms a convenient network of waterways. True, when the snow melts, rivers become an almost insurmountable obstacle for the traveler, but this only happens for a short time. The waterway system in Siberia consists of river basins separated by small isthmuses. The second factor that facilitated the settlement of the region was low local population density, unable to effectively resist his conquest. In the vast expanses of Siberia, the Russians encountered nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples: in the north - Finnish, in the south - Tatar or Mongolian, in the east - Paleo-Asian. These were small, weak peoples scattered over a large area who did not know firearms: Samoyed reindeer herders of the coast of the Arctic Ocean; Voguls and Ostyaks of the Ob and Yenisei, who lived by hunting and fishing; the Tungus, who lived between the Yenisei and the Pacific Ocean and also engaged in hunting, fishing and reindeer herding; Yakuts of the Lena basin. Finally, the northeastern peninsula was inhabited by many small peoples who led a semi-nomadic lifestyle: Gilyaks, Koryaks, Kamchadals, etc.

Several thousand people roamed hundreds of thousands of square kilometers; tens of thousands of people did not have their own statehood. In the south the situation was somewhat different: in the 16th century. in the upper reaches of the Tobol and Irtysh there was a Tatar kingdom, which was a remnant of the Golden Horde. Even further east, around Lake Baikal, lived the more numerous Buryat Mongols, who offered some resistance to Russian penetration, both because of their numbers and because they were supported by the Chinese Empire. What was the number of all the indigenous peoples of Siberia? For the middle of the 17th century. on the territory of Russian Siberia it was approximately 200,000 people. Although this figure seems somewhat underestimated, Siberia was still almost deserted. The Russians encountered real resistance only in the south, but this was caused by political reasons. The conquest of Siberia began with a series of campaigns against the Tatar kingdom and ended with the signing of the Treaty of Nerchinsk with China in 1689. In the history of Russian expansion, Siberia was zone of least resistance, where the colonialists had to fight more with nature than with people.

Finally, this territory was also a kind of reserve, isolated from most external influences. In the south, high mountains separated Siberia from the Asian deserts; in the east, the northern border of the Pacific Ocean was filled with a political and demographic vacuum; in the north, Siberia was protected by the Arctic Ocean, through which in the 17th century. Western sailors unsuccessfully tried to pave the way to the east. In other words, the Russians had no external competitors in Siberia 1 . Siberia was a direct continuation of Russian lands in the east, uninterrupted by the ocean. Moreover, this territory was not the object of rivalry between the colonial powers of the time. The conquest of Siberia and its development until the 17th century. were internal matter Russia. Therefore, Russian expansion in Asia differed from the expansion of Europeans into overseas countries.

Conquest of Siberia

To some extent, the conquest of Siberia was the finale of the annexation of vast territories in the east to Muscovy, which became possible after the victories of Ivan the Terrible over the Tatars in the 1550s. (captures of Kazan in 1552 and Astrakhan in 1554). At least, the actions of the Russians in the Urals, which were not a serious obstacle between Europe and Asia - namely, the establishment of direct contacts with the indigenous peoples: the Voguls in the northern Urals and the Siberian Tatars in the southeast - allowed the tsarist government not to limit itself to the latest conquests and force these peoples submit to the Russians.

As a result, the Russians gained access to the main wealth of the then Urals - furs (“soft junk”), mainly sables (as well as foxes, beavers, etc.) - which played a huge role in trade, exchange of gifts and in interstate relations. Let me give just one example: in 1594, the tsar paid the Viennese government 40,000 sable skins to support him in the war with the Turks. There were furs in Western Siberia, but gradually their resources there were dwindling and fishermen and yasak collectors had to go further and further to the east. The Russian government tried to establish its own protectorate over the neighboring peoples, pursuing not so much political as economic goals - the local population expressed their dependence by donating furs to the king, often in large quantities. But if there were no special problems with the Voguls, then the Siberian Tatars, who had their own state, turned out to be a tough nut to crack. In 1557, the ruler of the Siberian Tatars, after long negotiations, nevertheless agreed to send Ivan the Terrible 1000 sable and 160 beaver skins. The tsar was dissatisfied with such a modest gift, but from that time on he added another title to his old titles - “ruler of all Siberian lands,” which testified to his ambitions, in which economics was mixed with politics.

Nevertheless, Russia's Siberian policy cannot be separated from the general course of tsarism. The government had too many problems on its eastern, western and southern borders for it to recklessly plunge into an adventure, the direct benefits of which were rather dubious. Despite the fact that the Tsar was now formally the ruler of Siberia, the colonization of this region was still the lot of private individuals rather than the government.

The conquest of Siberia began with the transfer in 1558 of the salt mines in Sol-Vychegodsk and vast lands in the Kama region to the brothers Yakov and Grigory Stroganov. In 1568 they were granted the Chusovaya pool 2. In these remote places, the Stroganovs began to build forts, establish villages of serfs, monasteries, and gradually move east, to the Trans-Urals. The Russian advance into Siberia, thus, began from the Perm region and the Stroganov possessions, went through the Middle Urals to the lower reaches of the Ob, where the Vogul and Ostyak tribes were conquered, and then slid to the south. In 1587, already quite late, Tobolsk was founded.

It was in the south, on the Irtysh and Tobol, that there was the only state in Siberia that could stop the advance of the Russians. Since 1563, this fragment of the Golden Horde was ruled by the direct descendant of Genghis Khan, Kuchum. Ivan the Terrible, who established diplomatic relations with his predecessor and received from him, as already mentioned, gifts (although it was more like yasak) in sables, wanted to see Kuchum as his vassal, but was faced with an energetic leader who wanted to negotiate on equal terms 3 .

The existence of the powerful Siberian Khanate threatened the security of Russian possessions in the Urals and could prevent Russia from further advancing into Siberia. After the Tatars raided Russian lands (then the Siberians reached Chusovaya, that is, the Western Urals). Ivan IV allowed the Stroganovs to expand their possessions beyond Russian territory and penetrate into Siberia, which means attacking the Tatar state. Then the Stroganovs hired a small detachment of Don Cossacks, which, under the command of Ermak, set out on a campaign on September 1, 1582.

Now let’s dwell on one interesting circumstance, which today is fairly objectively reflected in all textbooks, but which has become a reality since the 16th century. legendary on the pages of patriotic Russian chronicles. As is known, in 1582 Ermak took Siberia - the Tatar capital, or, perhaps, an ordinary nomadic settlement on the Irtysh, east of the future Tobolsk. However, the Tatars soon managed to knock him out of there. While retreating, Ermak drowned in the river. His campaign ended in defeat and only 18 years later, in 1598, the governor of the city of Tara, founded in 1594 on the Irtysh<Андрею Воейкову>managed to defeat Kuchum, who was forced to flee to the south, where he died in 1600.<от рук ногайцев>. In the first quarter of the 17th century. (exact date unknown) The Siberian Khanate ceased to exist.

That's how it really was. But soon after Ermak’s unsuccessful campaign, his actions were presented by Moscow as the “conquest” of Siberia; defeat turned into a national victory. The quasi-patriotic myth later inspired writers and artists, in particular V. Surikov, who painted the famous painting “The Conquest of Siberia by Ermak” (first exhibited in 1895 in St. Petersburg, now in the State Russian Museum) to create numerous works on this topic. The semi-legendary image of Ermak became a symbol of a national hero. Recently, in contradiction with known historical facts, an attempt was even made to declare him a native of the Urals, who became a Cossack only in the Volga region, a free man hired by the Stroganovs, and to present the campaign against Kuchum as the personal initiative of this “superhero” 4. The panegyric and vivid portrait of Ermak in this article has mythical features and is imbued with nationalism, so characteristic of Soviet historiography of the post-war period.

After the defeat of Kuchum's kingdom, the Russian advance into Siberia, suspended during the Time of Troubles (when peasant uprisings and Polish intervention plunged Russia into chaos in 1605-1613), accelerated. Along the rivers and their tributaries, small detachments of Cossacks and armed yasak collectors, supported by tsarist officials, moved to Siberia from Tobolsk in two directions. Going east, they founded cities on the Ob (Surgut, 1594; Narym, 1598; Tomsk, 1604), Yenisei (Yeniseisk, 1613), Lena (Kerensk, 1630; Olekminsk, 1635; Yakutsk, 1631), going north - they built at the mouths of the same rivers Berezov (1593, on the Ob), Mangazeya (1601, on the Taz River), Turukhansk (1607, on the Yenisei), Verkhoyansk (1639 city, on Yaik). In 1648, Okhotsk arose on the Pacific coast. Finally, in the second half of the 17th century. as a result of numerous expeditions, among which we should note the expedition of Pashkov, and the military campaigns of Poyarkov and Khabarov, Transbaikalia (Irkutsk was founded in 1661) was dotted with fortified forts, including one built in 1654 on Shilka Nerchinsk.

What immediately catches your eye when studying the process of the rapid advance of Russians across Siberia is small number of colonizers. It is unlikely that the term “army” is applicable to them. These were small detachments, leaving from previously built fortresses further and further to the east and north, numbering several tens or hundreds of people. The famous army of Ermak consisted of about 800 people. In 1630, only 30 Russians managed to force the Yakuts to pay tribute in furs; the next year, 20 people laid down Yakutsk. In 1649-1653. two detachments under the command of Khabarov marched along the Amur to its confluence with the Ussuri (the Russians managed to annex this area only after 1858; in memory of Khabarov’s expedition, the city of Khabarovsk was founded here in the mid-19th century); the first time the pioneer had 150 people, the second - 330. One can only imagine how difficult it was for the Cossack detachments, separated from their bases for months and surrounded by hostile nature and population. Of course, the small number of the first conquerors of Siberia is explained by the difficult conditions of their existence. But the fact that these tiny detachments were able to subjugate numerous indigenous inhabitants is explained by the presence of firearms and the natives’ fear of the Russians. In addition, the pioneers widely practiced taking hostages from family members of local princes (see below for more on this).

An equally important reason for the success of the Russians was the complex composition of their expeditions, in which “service people” participated, who made up the majority in these detachments and were associated with the authorities (their elite, “children of the boyars,” directly represented the interests of the state). Professional soldiers took part in the conquest of Siberia - “streltsy” (= archers; in reality they were armed with muskets, pikes and halberds), but the majority were still ordinary Cossacks who arrived from European Russia. Among the pioneers were foreign mercenaries– captured Poles, Lithuanians, Swedes, Germans and even French; they were all called “Lithuania,” and one American historian even called them the Siberian Foreign Legion. However, it should be noted once again that against the backdrop of the vast expanses of Siberia, these forces were insignificant. By the middle of the 17th century, when Siberia was almost completely conquered, there were 9,000-10,000 service people, including 3,000 Cossacks, settled in prisons. By the end of the century, the size of the serving population did not exceed 11,000 people.

But the colonialists included not only warriors. The development of Siberia was attended by merchants who were eager to get furs, and by hunters - trade adventurers, reminiscent of adventurers in the American forests. The fishermen were real warriors; They were also resellers who took furs from local residents by force or threats. Sometimes there were people who combined both of these types of pioneers. Bakhrushin cites as an example the wealthy Russian merchant Mikhail Romanovich Sveteshnikov, who in the 1630-1650s. operated throughout Siberia. He organized the exchange of Russian and German goods for Siberian furs; in 1637, a convoy of 38 carts left Verkhoturye for Siberia 5. But the same Sveteshnikov also organized fishing expeditions to Siberian rivers and organized campaigns against the indigenous population in order to force them to supply furs. The stubborn resistance of the local peoples gave these expeditions, which initially aimed to establish trade with the natives, a military appearance. The use of military force, sanctioned by tsarist officials, led to the political subjugation of these territories. “Soft junk” was the engine of Russian expansion into Siberia. And if the state was not directly represented in these expeditions, then as soon as contacts were established with the indigenous population, fur collection points immediately appeared, representatives of the nearest governor immediately arrived to determine the size of the tribute and officially establish relations between the authorities and the natives.

If the expedition was equipped by the state and its number was quite decent, then it included a priest who preached more to the detachment than performed missionary duties: in the 17th century. the government did not encourage the Christianization of the local population. The number of those who converted to Orthodoxy was almost equal to the number of those who avoided paying yasak. However, the advance of the Russians deeper into Siberia caused the construction of churches in the centers of colonization, as well as the construction of a number of monasteries - both religious centers and fortified points. And yet, a few Siberian monasteries - at the end of the 17th century. there were 36 of them, and about 15 were in Western Siberia - they did not play the huge role here in the military mobilization of the population, as happened in European Russia.

Russian power in Siberia relied on a network of fortresses. The rapid conquest of the region, caused by the weak resistance of the local population, did not mean the occupation of these territories (which was in principle impossible in these vast expanses), but creation of fortified forts along the portages. They provided the Russians with power over the surrounding population and control of communications. Between the forts lay vast spaces, increasing as they moved east, where the Russians went only to harvest furs. These separate groups of pioneers lived in winter huts - huts covered with snow and surrounded by ice walls.

Management of Siberia

Siberia was subject to the Siberian Order created in 1637, which was supposed to extract furs, monitor Siberian officials, supply the troops with everything necessary, administer justice and reprisals, collect tribute, facilitate the adaptation of peasants moving to the region and, finally, establish diplomatic relations with neighboring countries . Thus, the Order had very broad powers. Relying on service people and governors, he launched active work. It is incorrect to believe that Siberia was ownerless due to its remoteness and inaccessibility. If the initiative to conquer and develop this region most often came from the localities, then all the threads of its management were in Moscow. The archives preserve over 30,000 various reports sent in the 17th century. to the Siberian order.

The Russian government gradually allowed the Siberian voivodes to extend their power over vast territories, organized into ranks. This is exactly how Tobolsk (in these “gates to Siberia” there were food warehouses, an arsenal, as well as a checkpoint for everyone who moved to Siberian lands, but customs was located to the west, in Verkhoturye; in 1621 Tobolsk also became the religious center of the region, because in an archbishopric was created there), Tomsk, Yakutsk, Irkutsk acquired special significance.

But Tobolsk did not become the capital of Siberia, just as Tomsk, Yakutsk and Irkutsk did not become the centers of their districts. Moscow was connected with them directly, through the governors, whose power was limited by it. Nevertheless, these centers more or less controlled a territory called a “county,” the boundaries of which were amorphous 6 and which, as in European Russia, was divided into volosts consisting of the local population or Russian settlers.

The government was unable to exercise effective control over the voivodes and appointed them for 2-3 years, but there were plenty of candidates for this position, since the legislation of that time and the wide opportunities for abuse allowed the voivodes to quickly enrich themselves; the state preferred to make claims to its governors only after the end of their term of office. Therefore, in Siberia in the 17th century. there was no permanent layer of senior officials. But there were middle managers who stayed in one place for a long time, sometimes for 40-50 years. But there were not so many of these clerks. By the summer of 1640 there were just over 80 people. (of which 22 were in Tobolsk, and 9 in Tomsk).

The position of governor was very lucrative. The type of primitive colonial exploitation that distinguished Russia's Siberian policy in the 17th century even affected the sphere of administration of this region. The governors went to the place of duty with their entire large family, bringing with them carts loaded with food and illegal goods intended for sale. So, in 1635, the governor appointed to the polar Mangazeya brought with him a priest, 32 servants, 200 buckets (about 24 deciliters) of wine, 35 livres<=17,135 л>honey, 35 livres<=17,135 л>oil, 6 buckets of vegetable oil, 150 hams, wheat, flour, as well as contraband, in particular wine. In 1678, the government was forced to limit the transportation of goods by governors to 15-25 carts (depending on the rank).

The Russian government controlled the vast territory of Siberia with the help of a few clerks and small military detachments. The region continued to be the target of extraction of the most valuable wealth - furs. The state was collecting tithes from private fur traders and collecting yasak - evidence of the dependent position of the local natives. It was the yasak that determined the nature of Russia’s presence in Siberia and the relationship of the Russian state with indigenous peoples.

Yasak was collected on untreated sable skins or furs of equivalent value (elk, marten, fox, etc.). Sable skins served as money. All male natives aged 18 to 50 were required to pay yasak, but in each region its collection was determined by local characteristics: it could be collected from the soul or from the volost, directly from the population or through the mediation of native leaders. Convinced that the local aborigines were trying to pay yasak with skins of poor quality, the Russian authorities soon replaced it with payment of an equivalent amount of silver (the wealth and civil status of the payer were taken into account - they took twice as much from married people, from 1 to 4 rubles), which placed a heavy burden on the shoulders of the natives. The latter responded to this innovation with riots and at the end of the 17th century. the government was forced to return to collecting tribute in kind.

Siberia, however, was not completely under the control of the Russian government. Collecting furs was fraught with difficulty. However, yasak was not the only reason for the discontent of the natives. The governors constantly demanded the provision of guides, translators, rowers, carters, and builders. This was complicated by the lack of male population and the vast distances.

In the vast expanses of Siberia, people took refuge from paying yasak and working corvée. To identify such violators, a variety of methods were used, such as turning to tribal leaders for help, whom the Russian authorities bribed with gifts. But the tribal leaders were unreliable, so they had to be forced to take oaths or take hostages from the tribes.

When taking oaths, the Russians took advantage of the superstition of the natives. So, the Ob Ostyaks gathered together, placed the ax with which the bear was killed in the middle, gave each of them a piece of bread from the knife, saying: “If I am not faithful to my sovereign until the end of my life, I will willfully fall away, I will not pay the due yasak, and from my If I leave the land or commit other infidelity, then the bear will tear me to pieces, with this piece of food that I am eating, so that I can choke, with this ax, let them cut off my head, and with this knife, so that I can be stabbed” 7 .

An even greater result was achieved through the taking of hostages. The governors took several respected people from the natives and imprisoned them, periodically replacing them with new ones after 1-3 months. When the natives brought yasak, they were shown the hostages in order to convince them that they were alive and well.

Having achieved the subjugation of the natives, the government began to carry out in relation to them, at least formally, paternalistic politics. The government tried to protect the indigenous population from the abuses of fur traders and officials. However, in practice, the authorities' instructions were ignored. The governors collected additional yasak from the aborigines for their benefit, all tsarist officials tried to purchase furs as cheaply as possible, and Russian traders behaved with the local peoples in the most unscrupulous manner. Facts of abuse of power are reflected in historical sources. So, in 1677, officials took children from rich Tungus and then extorted a ransom for them. On the pages of documents of that time, many facts have been preserved of the abduction of women by Russians, torture, executions of people, burning of villages, captures of prisoners, enslavement of aborigines (although this was officially allowed to be done only at the end of the 17th century).

Therefore, it is not surprising that the 17th century. was marked by incessant riots of the natives, their flight from their places of permanent habitat; this was very serious on the borders with Kazakh or Mongolian lands, where they were ready to gladly accept fugitives. The riots, however, had neither a wide scope nor close unity of their participants, with the exception of Western Siberia - lands that were once part of the Siberian Khanate, the memory of which was still alive among the population. In these places in the 17th century. there were two uprisings, both of which coincided with all-Russian crises: in 1608-1612. (period of the Time of Troubles), having learned “that there is no longer a tsar in Moscow, and there are few Russians in Siberia,” the Tatars, Voguls and Ostyaks rebelled; in 1662-1663, during the period of aggravation of the crisis in European Russia, the Tobolsk Tatars tried to return to the order that existed under Kuchum.

In addition to these uprisings, which ended in defeat, the natives expressed their protest against the Russian policy by fleeing, robberies, murders and robbery of yasak collectors, traders, and Cossacks. The uprisings of the local population were local (for example, the Yakut uprising in 1642) and did not threaten Russian dominance in Siberia. Of course, if these riots began simultaneously with the social unrest of the peasantry of central Russia, and if there was more or less tacit solidarity between both movements, then this was already serious. But as I will show below, the unrest of the Siberian population right up to the very end of the 17th century. never reached a wide scale. The peculiarities of the Siberian borders, demography and cultural level of local peoples were the reason that Siberia remained relative social stability, which was not the case in European Russia, which has repeatedly faced periods of real social chaos.

Economy of Siberia

What was Siberia at that time for the Russian economy? Was this region beneficial for the state, conquered by military means and constantly sending caravans of furs to Russia along rivers and land routes?

Regarding the first question, we can say that governors and merchants quickly made huge fortunes here. True, there is no exact information about the scale of private fur trade. A little more is known about the collection of yasak and tithes, but these figures are not exact: the collection of furs was accompanied by terrible fraud.

And it’s not at all easy to answer the second question. A variety of opinions have been expressed about the income of the Siberian Prikaz. Some figures are clearly exaggerated. A more plausible version is that the share of income in furs was constantly increasing until 1680 and then stabilized, and that they more than covered the costs of developing Siberia. It can be assumed that these expenses during the 17th century. decreased, income from the development of the region increased and by the end of the century the region became self-sufficient. According to R. Fisher's estimates, the income of the Siberian order amounted to 6-10% of the total revenues to the Russian treasury. The net profit was considerable, although it is difficult to estimate reliably, since, as R. Fisher notes, it was calculated based on the price of furs in Siberia, and on the Russian market they were much more expensive.

The question naturally arises: did the “soft junk” in Eastern Europe to some extent play the same role (of course, taking into account certain amendments) that befell America’s precious metals in Western European countries? Yes, furs were the same means of exchange as gold or silver, and their value, which could be considerable and grew as it approached the markets of European Russia, explains the “fur fever” that caused a massive influx of merchants to Siberia. However, over a period of time, the cost of furs varied and varied widely depending on the quality. The fact that the cost of sable was approximately 10-20 rubles, and foxes - 100-200 rubles, does not say anything, since in other cases they could cost 1 ruble. and even less. In 1623, a certain Afanasyev, for two fox skins (as it turned out, also stolen), one worth 30 rubles, and the second - 80 rubles, bought himself 20 hectares of land (though far in the north, near Mangazeya), 5 good horses , 10 heads of cattle, 20 rams, several dozen poultry, wood for building a hut; and even after that he still had half the proceeds from the sale of those two skins. This example shows that furs, or, more precisely, their valuable qualities throughout the 17th century. were an instrument of exchange, despite the fall in their value.

Siberian furs in general were a luxury item and constituted an important part of the wealth exported from Siberia. According to rather conservative estimates by R. Fisher, income from furs of the Siberian order in the best years of its existence (1660-1670) reached 125,000 rubles, and income from private trade in furs exceeded this figure three times, reaching 300,000-325,000 rub. Thus, annual revenues to Russia from the exploitation of Siberian riches reached 500,000 rubles. This was a very significant amount for such an economically backward country as Russia. But these incomes were much less than those that Europe received from America. Colonies undoubtedly played a major role in the genesis of capitalism. Russia did not receive such significant resources from Siberia that could affect the development of the country.

Siberian furs were almost entirely exported 8 . Russians, with the exception of an extremely narrow segment of the population, dressed in sheepskin coats. The largest repository of furs was the royal court. “Soft junk,” which constituted the main article of Russian export, was the element that stimulated the development of the country’s economy, being, as R. Fisher aptly put it, its “yeast.” Furs offset the costs of expensive imports, such as silk, and made it possible to purchase valuable metals. Proceeds from the sale of furs on the foreign market went to the country's budget, but especially to the pockets of private individuals. The exploitation of Siberia did not actually bring much income to the Tsar at that time. Only under Peter the Great will the sovereign’s finances begin to correspond to the level of development of the country and income from yasak and taxes from Siberia will make up a significant share of it. In the 17th century the profit from the development of Siberian spaces was very modest and their conquest had almost no effect on the increase in the political power of the state.

The income of private owners, on the contrary, was quite significant and the state indirectly benefited from this. Capital concentrated in the hands of private individuals was invested in various enterprises. Thus, the fur trade, although its importance should not be exaggerated, stimulated the development of capitalism, but even more contributed to the emergence of its industrial variety. As N.V. Ustyugov showed, large Russian merchants, who became rich in Siberian trade, invested their capital in the salt industry of Salt Kama, ruining small enterprises with the concentration of production and thereby contributing to the development of capitalist relations. In the world of trade in the 17th century, which was the engine of industrial development (I mean the first attempts, often successful, to build metallurgical plants, textile factories, etc., which became increasingly numerous towards the end of the century), furs constituted a familiar and significant source of income. But in order to accurately determine the role of Siberian furs in the Russian economy of that time, it is necessary to carefully study the activities of famous merchant dynasties and find out where they invested their capital.

Colonization of Siberia

Was Siberia just a place for hunting and collecting furs? Being a continuation of Russian lands in the east, did it not cause real colonization? The first problems appeared precisely in the 17th century, when the costs of developing Siberia gradually decreased and the need for sending provisions there decreased. To what extent was Siberia populated by colonists at that time?

You need to imagine the immensity of the Siberian lands, the harsh climate of these places, their inaccessibility in order to understand that beyond the Urals at the end of the 16th century. There was almost no spontaneous colonization, and it was impossible to count on the voluntary arrival of peasants to populate this region. Large Moscow landowners, who, by moving their peasants here, could initiate and then accelerate the colonization of the region, were not attracted to Siberia, which was constantly subject to raids by steppe nomads. Russian rich people preferred to acquire new estates in the south of European Russia, well protected from the Tatars by a fortified line. These lands were more attractive to them, closer and more accessible. Siberia did not interest them. Therefore, large “feudal” property never developed in it.

However, the troops stationed in the Siberian forts had to be maintained. Since their salaries were partially paid in kind, the government decided to begin cultivating the lands around the fortresses, for which it tried to forcibly transfer state peasants here from the central and eastern regions of the country, in particular from near Kazan. But in practice, this turned out to be difficult to achieve, and the costs of moving were too high: in order for the peasant to survive until the first harvest, it was necessary to bring food, seeds and household items for him. Therefore, the forced transfer of people here soon had to be abandoned (the last convoy with peasants probably left in 1621).

If the government was forced to abandon the settlement of Siberia forcibly, it was only because, despite the difficulties, from the beginning of the 17th century. its spontaneous colonization began. Boris Nolde, mentioning the “flow” of peasants heading to Siberia, noted in surprise: “It remains a mystery how, in a country without roads or other means of communication, the news spread so rapidly that vast and fertile lands were already waiting for their owners.” In fact, the speed of news dissemination in a country with a backward economy is not a secret, and if peasants flowed from the western regions of the country to Siberia, this was caused by their difficult social situation and the inability to feed themselves on those pieces of land that they had , regardless of whether these people were serfs or free.

And yet the power of the colonization flow should not be exaggerated. Phrases about the settlement of Siberia denote a reality that is likely to disappoint a researcher eager to obtain information about the huge masses of Siberians. True, there is only approximate information about the population of Siberia itself: the censuses of that time did not cover all categories of the population and only name the number of households 9. According to these data, 288,000 people lived in Siberia in 1662, of which 70,000 were Russians (half of whom were peasants; the second half looked like this - 13,000 soldiers and retirees, 7,500 exiles, 6,000 artisans and merchants, 6,000 officials, priests, etc.). V.I. Shunkov, trying to determine the size of the Russian population of Siberia, proceeds from data on the number of peasants in the era of Peter the Great. But we must remember that the statistics did not take into account “walking people” (non-permanent population), the number of which is impossible to estimate. V.I. Shunkov believes - and this figure is generally accepted in the literature - that by 1700 there were 25,000 families living in Siberia, and 11,000 of them settled in the Tobolsk region. According to the most optimistic estimate, this could be 125,000-150,000 people. However, “walking people” were, by definition, bachelors. Thus, the Russian population of Siberia at the end of the 17th century. can be estimated with a reasonable degree of reliability at 150,000-200,000 people. 10 . Consequently, the Russian colonization of Siberia in fact came down to the settlement at the end of the century of several tens of thousands of people, most of whom settled near the eastern spurs of the Urals.

Nevertheless, the benefits that the government provided to the settlers, temporarily exempting them from taxes and giving them assistance in kind and money, attracted people here. But Siberia was difficult to reach. Russians are not very mobile people, they like any peasants, tied to their land and they leave it only when the conditions of existence become completely unbearable. In addition, there was a clear contradiction between the social structure of the Russians and the policy of colonization. In principle, only “free” people were supposed to move to Siberia, but permission for their move was given by the tsarist administration. Only their landowners could release serfs to Siberia 11 . In practice, most of the settlers were fugitives and, theoretically, they could be returned by force. The peasants who came from the west of the country were a labor force lost both for the landowners and for the treasury. Therefore, throughout the entire 17th century. Russian legislation constantly expands the powers of tsarist officials in Siberia. However, the shortage of workers in Siberia and the need to strengthen the colonization of this region forced the government to turn a blind eye to the problem of escapes. Serfs were rarely returned to their former owners. So, Siberia at that time was a country of freedom?

To answer this question, it is necessary to find out whether Siberian peasants were subjected to enslavement? In other words, was the development of Siberia different from European Russia?

I would like to point out right away that Serfdom in Siberia was underdeveloped. Being part of the Russian lands, Siberia was considered the property of the state, but its territories were not distributed to service people and feudal property was an exception there. High-ranking “service people” in Siberia, whose work was difficult to fully pay for in money and food (because transport was slow and expensive), were allocated small plots of land for temporary use - 5-20 hectares each - which was almost no different from the size of peasant farms. However, there were exceptions: in Yeniseisk, one boyar’s son received 226 hectares, 37 hectares of which were arable land; head of the archers by the middle of the 17th century. had 300 hectares of land. These were medium-sized estates, which, however, formed the basis of large feudal estates that appeared in the 18th century. But this phenomenon did not become widespread in the 17th century. was still insignificant, at least for secular possessions.

The situation with large monastic property was somewhat different. At the end of the 18th century. There were 36 monasteries in Siberia, and the largest, Tobolsk, owned about 60 villages and more than 2000 male souls. In 1698, every tenth Siberian peasant depended on the monastery. However, not all of these people were serfs. Church and secular estates were cultivated by peasants of various statuses: serfs, as well as farm laborers, sharecroppers, and tenants of state-owned lands. It is difficult to say whether serf labor prevailed in Siberia.

There was another category of Siberian peasants who cultivated tithes of their land for the benefit of the state. Were they free? A careful analysis of their lifestyle allows us to conclude that the hardships they bore greatly limited their theoretical freedom. Their connection with the state was very strong. They could not leave the village without permission from the local authorities and were obliged to transport government cargo. When settling Eastern Siberia, the government resettled peasants from previously established settlements, replacing them with new immigrants. So, in 1687, the Tobolsk governor received an order to transfer to Yeniseisk and Irkutsk all the peasants who moved to the Tobolsk district - more than 200 people. But the governor resettled only 600 people. ( so in translation - “SZ”), transporting them on rafts to the Irkutsk district. Some escaped along the way. Thus, colonization turned the settlers into semi-serfs, which forced them to run away from the authorities. Yes, Siberia really saved people from enslavement, but near the centers of Russian colonization, where agriculture existed and there was a permanent population, the same forms of social organization, as in European Russia. However, they developed slowly and belatedly, since large land holdings were rare here, and population density and agrarian colonization remained weak until the 19th century, becoming widespread only after the abolition of serfdom.

In the middle of the 17th century. pockets of the Russian rural population surrounding the Siberian fortresses were concentrated in small spaces. 75% of Russian colonists (approximately 30,000-35,000 people) occupied the lands of Western Siberia - west of the Tobol and its left tributaries 12, as well as near Tobolsk. Another group of peasants settled along the Tom, a tributary of the Ob. The third settled in the upper reaches of the Yenisei, north of Krasnoyarsk. Finally, settlements arose along the upper Lena all the way to Yakutsk, and in Transbaikalia - between Baikal and Amur. By the end of the 17th century. the number of migrants throughout Siberia doubled, but the centers of colonization almost did not increase. But it seems that Western Siberia was populated somewhat faster. It should also be noted that near the northernmost fortresses, agriculture was poorly developed. In general, the agricultural colonization of Siberia was insignificant. But the goal that the authorities set for themselves was probably achieved at the end of the 17th century: Siberia began to provide itself with bread 13.

Let me also note that, generally speaking, it was not the Russians who introduced farming in Siberia. Although most of the Siberian peoples were nomads or semi-nomads and were engaged mainly in hunting and fishing, archaeological finds indicate that in the south of Siberia, for two millennia, primitive slash-and-burn agriculture existed - agrarian nomadism, which was a support for cattle breeding. Nevertheless, agriculture was still poorly developed here, and the Russian conquest led to its even greater reduction 14 . V.I. Shunkov believes that the decline of Siberian agriculture began even before the arrival of the Russians and was caused by the Mongol invasion; Under the blows of the conquerors who came from the east, the Kyrgyz economy underwent evolution and the peoples of Altai lost the skills of using some tools, again adopting them from the Russians in the 19th century. At the same time, although the Russian conquest led to the destruction of native farming, it, again through Russian colonists, gave the peoples of Siberia a plow, a harrow, the use of manure as fertilizer and Western agricultural technology: three-field in Western Siberia and two-field in Eastern (this practice in the 17th century, however, was not yet widespread).

Soviet authors quite actively defend the thesis about the positive impact of Russian conquest on the development of the traditional economy of the peoples of Siberia. V.I. Shunkov, however, carefully notes that in the 17th century. Agriculture existed only among the Tobolsk Tatars, who inhabited the westernmost (and most populated) outskirts of Siberia. It is unlikely that non-Russian peoples radically changed the structure of their economy, so that in any case agriculture constituted a small part of their economy.

Of course, in the 17th century. Siberia was not a country of only hunting grounds and tribute collection. But is V.I. Shunkov right that the colonization of Siberia was mainly of an agrarian nature and that the main occupation of the Russians here was not fur mining? Of course, if we consider Siberia against the background of the economic life of European Russia, then it really looks like a supplier of furs. But few people did this, and the bulk of the Russian population of Siberia were farmers. Moreover, this was done not only by those 45-50% of people who were peasants, but also by a significant number of service people who were forced to cultivate the land in order to either ensure their existence or receive additional income to supplement their irregularly paid salaries. Posadskie (=craftsmen; at the end of the 17th century there were only 2,500 people in all of Siberia) were half peasants. So to some extent V.I. Shunkov is right. However, fur mining and agricultural colonization do not contradict, but complement each other, and ultimately it is the “soft junk” that symbolizes Siberia in the 17th century, and not the seemingly invisible occupations of the peasantry. Fur, which was a measure of value, led to migrations of local peoples, changed the direction of trade routes, the location of local markets, which became the main criterion of wealth and the main plot of all Siberian iconography of that time, determined mass ideas about this region, for which agriculture was considered just a forced necessity.

Social development of Siberia

The structure of Siberian society at that time was very complex and more than once came into crisis. Of course, these upheavals could not threaten the Russian government, but they indicate the presence of social contradictions among the colonists (in the broad sense of the word), which also influenced the native population. In the Siberian “social microcosm” the number of each category of population in a particular locality amounted to hundreds and tens, and sometimes just a few people, but this nevertheless led to their long-term confrontation. This was the case, for example, in Tomsk in 1637-1638, 1648-1650, in Yakutsk in the 40-50s. and in all centers of Eastern Siberia - from Krasnoyarsk to Nerchinsk - in 1695-1700.

Conflicts usually arose among service people, who, however, made up the majority of the local Russian population. In these conflicts, on the one hand, boyar children participated (among whom the heads of ranks, Cossack atamans, and clerks of state lands were recruited), and on the other, ordinary Cossacks. As for the very few townspeople and peasants of all categories (the most numerous of them were state-owned), if they participated in the riots, it was only as an auxiliary force. The Siberian uprisings almost did not go beyond the boundaries of the “instrument army”.

Unrest broke out only in the “cities” where the majority of the service population lived. In 1646 in Tomsk, out of its 1045 inhabitants, there were 606 service people; here we must add 96 townspeople, 89 peasants and 93 without a specific status (these were recent settlers waiting to be assigned to some category). The peasants also processed the “sovereign’s” tithe, which in the first third of the 17th century. was slightly less than 1 hectare, then it was significantly increased and near Tomsk by 1640 it exceeded 1.5 hectares. This responsibility was aggravated by public corvée (transportation of government cargo, maintenance of fortresses and state warehouses). Similar duties were imposed on the townspeople, who in addition paid taxes on their products and on their trade. Wheat grown on state lands was intended for service people, but there was not enough of it and this product had to be imported from Tobolsk. Crop failure and delays in grain supplies threatened the existence of the local population.

Nevertheless, the service population did not rely only on peasants. Many Cossacks cultivated the land themselves (in 1636-1637, 156 people out of 745 who made up the Tomsk garrison did this), but in this case, the distribution of bread, which was part of their salary, was canceled or greatly reduced. So if high-ranking service people could ensure their existence through speculation or trade, then ordinary Cossacks and lower officials had to rely only on their small and irregularly paid salaries and rare distributions of salt and grain. It was because of the grain carts that came from Tobolsk that disputes arose in one of the lean years.

In 1637, the Tomsk governor decided to keep some of the brought products in the warehouse, instead of distributing them to the Cossacks. In conditions of poor harvest, this measure led to rising prices and speculation. Protests of the Cossacks against the actions of the authorities and especially the governor ended with the Cossacks holding a citywide meeting, at which a delegation was chosen to present complaints in the Siberian Order, and a vote of no confidence was passed on the governor. In the end, the Cossacks received the grain they were owed.

Unrest 1648-1650 were much more serious and coincided in time with similar events in Moscow. Their reasons were the same: the crop failure of 1641-1643, 1646, the hardships of corvée and taxes. The actions of the rebels were similar: demands for bread, an appeal to the townspeople. At a citywide meeting in 1648, the governor was removed and another was appointed in his place. The duration of this rebellion was caused by the fact that the government was suppressing the rebellion in Moscow: only in 1650 did the authorities manage to pacify the Tomsk residents by making concessions to the Cossacks.

In both cases, the conflicts had local causes. Both times the reaction of the “people” was expressed in an illegal way - the removal of the governor, but this was only the use of Cossack traditions in practice. The rebels did not set themselves the goal of creating a more democratic autonomous institution, but only advocated for improved living conditions. Nevertheless, these conflicts were social in nature, since they were caused by the contrast between the poverty of the people and the well-being of the minority, who had both the power and the tools to enrich themselves.

The unrest in Northern and Eastern Siberia was similar in nature: in Mangazeya (1631), Yakutsk (1647, 1650, 1658, 1668), Narym (1648). In 1670-1690 There were no riots, but in the 90s. they resumed. The riots of this period, particularly in the administrative centers of Eastern Siberia, testified to major changes in the economy and government that took place a hundred years after the Russians arrived there. Siberian fur resources were exhausted and fur collection fell. The native population was forced to switch from paying tribute in the skins of fur-bearing animals to the supply of livestock and cash rent, which became possible thanks to the spread of money circulation. Many natives were hired to work for wealthy Russian colonists in order to avoid paying tribute. But they also came into contact with the lower strata of Russian society, and also participated with them in uprisings caused not by colonial, but by social reasons.

However, the further strengthening of tax oppression at a time when the exploitation of the wealth of Siberia was no longer so profitable for tsarist officials affected even high-ranking service people. Thus, the governors forced their clerks to pay taxes. Discontent gripped not only the common people, but also higher categories of the population. Only governors invested with great power, who had common interests and were connected by family ties could successfully profit from their position. For example, in the 90s. The Gagarins were governors of Irkutsk, Yakutsk, and Nerchinsk. The Bashkovskys held the post of Krasnoyarsk governor from 1686 to 1696. It was even more profitable to serve as a governor in Eastern Siberia, where even more significant profits from smuggling with China were added to the usual bribes and income from the fur trade at that time. That is why the governors were the main object of complaints and discontent. It was the voivode who had to be responsible for the rebellion in the territory entrusted to him, and it was his lot that received the most severe punishments at the beginning of the reign of Peter the Great, when an investigation into voivode abuses in Siberia in 1696-1702. was carried out by a special commission.

The study of popular protests against the abuses of the governors suggests that the royal governors were opposed by a single mass, in which class contradictions were smoothed out, and all anger was directed at the local administration. Over the years that lasted almost from 1695 to 1700. The uprising in Krasnoyarsk was replaced by 6 governors, who were either forced to flee or were arrested by the city Cossacks, sometimes supported by the townspeople, Russian residents and neighboring aborigines. In 1697, residents of nearby villages forcibly released the voivode’s prisoners who were in prison. Thus, unity was manifested in the organization of uprisings, in the existence of a “Duma” of the entire population and a “Council” of service people. Finally, the cities presented a united front. At the very end of the century, unrest swept across Eastern Siberia. Of course, the solidarity of the governors, strengthened by their kinship, contributed to the coordination of their activities and, as a result, caused the spread of protests of the common population from one city to another. But this is just a detail. The unity of the uprisings even manifested itself, albeit in a slightly different form, in Western Siberia. In the Tobolsk region, many peasants refused to obey the authorities, filed a petition about their claims, and some simply ran away. But in Western Siberia there were no major uprisings, and the unrest gripped the peasantry without affecting the urban population, where service people predominated. In the most populated areas, in some ways more reminiscent of European Russia, officials and military officers were subordinate to the voivode. The peasants blamed the deterioration of their situation not on the landowner, but on the state, that is, on the entire administrative and military apparatus.

The situation in Eastern Siberia was different because the peasantry in this remote area was extremely small and lived more freely here, so the motives for the peasants’ discontent coincided with the claims of the service people to the governor. The lands east of the Yenisei were considered new and attracted the most energetic and greedy senior officials, as evidenced by the stories associated with the Gagarins and Bashkovskys. Nevertheless, the scale of resistance in Eastern Siberia was wider due to one circumstance, namely the presence of exiles and their descendants, who numbered 10% of the total population of Siberia in the 17th century. These were not only high-ranking dignitaries who fell out of favor (they, however, often went over to the side of the governor during uprisings), but also a large number of people sentenced to exile for committing state crimes, such as participation in major Russian uprisings, schism, Cossack riots. Siberia was a repository, where the government hid troublemakers out of sight. Where there was a shortage of people, exiles often occupied responsible positions, made up part of the service people, and occupied lower and middle bureaucratic positions. They played a big role in the history of Eastern Siberia and were the most adapted to organized resistance 15.

Caused by deteriorating social conditions and directed against the highest authorities, the Siberian uprisings of the end of the century were mainly a reaction to abuses due to the nature of the functioning of the colonial system in remote conditions and having a certain independence from the center. Russian legislation of the period 1695-1697. pays great attention to the situation in Siberia, regulating in detail all aspects of life in this region (the powers of the governor, the collection of yasak, customs rules, trade), trying to strengthen the centralization of the local administration and, in the conditions of incessant riots, trying to strengthen the position of service people to the detriment of the peasant masses.

But is it possible to talk about any “mass” of the population in relation to this region? Siberia, in terms of its population by both colonists and natives, was semi-deserts. The presence of many diverse populations scattered over a large area makes it extremely difficult to identify the causes of uprisings. The Siberian riots bear little resemblance to the major social movements in European Russia. “Microanalysis” of local social groups is, of course, an interesting activity, but only on its basis it is risky to draw any analogies and draw conclusions about the problem as a whole.

Exploring Siberia

The conquest of Siberia proceeded simultaneously with the slow and difficult exploration of this vast space. Kamchatka is a topic for a separate discussion; its study began only at the very end of the 17th century.

The study of the coast of the Arctic Ocean and nearby islands within European borders, that is, up to Novaya Zemlya, was initially carried out not only by Russians. At a time when English navigators were looking for the famous northwest passage 16 in the north of America, similar attempts were made in the northeast, in the direction of Novaya Zemlya. The starting point in this matter was the English expedition of H. Willoughby and R. Chancellor, which was supposed to establish direct trade contacts between England and Russia across the White Sea and obtain permission from the Tsar for the passage of English caravans through Russia to Persia. In 1554 this expedition reached the mouth of the Northern Dvina.

However, after a short period of cooperation, the Tsar refused to allow the British to transit their goods to the East through Russia. In total, 6 caravans were carried out, the last one in 1579. The new privilege granted to the British in 1586 did not provide for the possibility of using Russian territory to transport their goods to Persia. A distinctive feature of the policy of the Russian tsars was that they sought to prohibit or at least limit the attempts of the Dutch and English to explore Russian lands. Soon after Chancellor's mission, the British began to organize numerous expeditions to the northeast, which reached Novaya Zemlya and came into contact with Russian hunters there. In 1607, G. Hudson, who went missing three years later while searching for the northwest passage, tried to find a way to the northeast and reached the Spitsbergen area, rising to more than 80º north latitude (this barrier would not be overcome until 1806 .). In turn, the Dutch (Barents expedition) appeared in these same places at the very end of the 16th century.

These sea voyages brought foreigners to Siberian ports, where they met with Russian explorers of the Arctic Ocean coast, who came from fortresses such as Mangazeya (on the Taz River). In the summer, trade was carried out on the ocean coast, in which Dutch and English merchants participated. However, soon, in 1619, the tsar banned all trade operations outside the strait between Novaya Zemlya and the coast (where the customs outpost stood), fearing that it would bypass Arkhangelsk (founded in 1584) and, especially, would become inaccessible to the tax authorities. taxes. To block smuggling, in 1667 the sea route from Tobolsk to Mangazeya (that is, navigation from the mouth of the Ob to Taz) was closed. Communications between Mangazeya and Western Siberia were now supposed to be carried out along rivers or along highways, bypassing the ocean coast. Thus, Siberia was completely closed from any economic influence from outside.

Russian expeditions introduced the world to the Far East. Stadukhin in 1644 sailed between the mouths of the Lena and Kolyma. Dezhnev, leaving the mouth of the Kolyma in 1648, unknowingly crossed the strait between Asia and America, and then again rose to Anadyr. Although inland Siberia was traveled far and wide by yasak collectors, significant areas of it still remained unknown until the 20th century. Along with the pioneers, whose names have been preserved in history, many ordinary people contributed to the study of Siberia, who often prepared large expeditions with their exploration campaigns. On the other hand, unlike scientific expeditions of the 18th century. these campaigns were not of an academic nature and were closely connected with the conquest of the region and the extraction of furs, that is, with mercantile purposes; There were no scientists in the pioneering teams. Perhaps only sailors had technical knowledge. Even the Moscow expeditions - Poyarkov and, especially, Pashkov in the Amur region - were not at all engaged in scientific research.

Pashkov’s campaigns, compared to the usual raids of servicemen and industrialists, stand out in their scope, however, few people took part in them and they differed little from the forays initiated locally. However, organized in Moscow, they still indicated that the government had certain plans to conquer these territories. Pierre Pascal notes that the royal order issued to Pashkov described the sovereign’s colonial policy in great detail and characterizes this personality with the following words: “the Moscow type of great pioneers of the 16th century, devoid of any doubts, greedy, rude, ignorant, but devoted to their work and merciless in relation to to himself and his subordinates" 17.

By the end of the 17th century. Almost all of Siberia was covered by running up and down. “Running”, because knowledge about these lands remained very superficial until Bering’s expeditions in the 18th century. it was unclear whether this continent was separate from America or not. So, the route to the east brought the Russians not only to almost uninhabited areas hidden from international competition, such as the northern Pacific coast, but also to the borders of the Chinese Empire. And soon after Pashkov’s expedition, the problem of establishing the Russian border in the Amur region arose.

This was also important because the Manchu Qing dynasty, which came to power in China in 1644, began to pursue an expansionist policy. In particular, the Khalkha Mongols (living in the territory of what is now Outer Mongolia), who already in the 16th century. moved from paganism to Buddhism in its Lamaistic form, and became more and more dependent on China. During his second expedition to the Sungari region in 1652, Khabarov barely managed to repel the onslaught of the Chinese. This Russian campaign did not lead to their conquest of these lands. Even Russian posts in Transbaikalia were of little use for defense. Pashkov tried to gain a foothold in the Middle Amur, but the hostile attitude of the natives, supported by Chinese troops, led in 1658 to a massacre of Russians. The desire to establish regular trade with China and avoid conflicts in this remote and inaccessible area forced the Russian government to conclude the Treaty of Nerchinsk with the Chinese in 1689.

This agreement, signed through the mediation of the Jesuits, who were very influential at the Chinese court (it was drawn up in Latin and Russian), was discussed for a long time, because both sides, but especially the Chinese, did not have an exact idea of ​​where the border should be drawn. On the maps there were two mountain ranges starting from the Apple Mountains (in the Upper Amur region) - one ran parallel to the Amur and went east to the Pacific Ocean south of the river. Udy, and the other rose to the northeast (Stanovoy Range). The Chinese wanted to include a second mountain range in their empire and were very surprised when they learned that it ended several thousand kilometers away, near Kamchatka, which, however, was still little studied. After a long discussion, they decided that the entire territory located between the two mountain ranges would not be divided, and the second chain, south of the river, would become the border of China. Ouds. This was recorded in Latin text of the agreement, but in Russian In the variant, the mention of the first mountain range (which was supposed to become the border of Russia) was omitted and a few words were added (not present in the Latin text) that the border between the two countries would pass south of the river. Udy, parallel to the Amur. Despite the protests of the Chinese government throughout the 18th century, the Russians always believed that there was no undivided territory north of Uda. This border was changed only in the middle of the 19th century, after Russia acquired possessions.

conclusions

To see the results of the conquest of Siberia and their results, it is necessary to consider the situation that developed at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries, when the Siberian possessions of the Russians received a clear demarcation and until the 19th century. constituted a territory of colonial exploitation and agrarian colonization recognized by all. In Siberia, completely conquered by the middle of the 17th century. and still remaining a region for hunting fur-bearing animals and collecting furs, new trends are gradually beginning to appear, which will develop in the next century.

The first thing that catches your eye in this regard is that it began simultaneously with the stagnation and then the decline in fur production agrarian colonization, of course, then still weak, focal, more intense in Western Siberia and less intense in Eastern Siberia, but it laid the foundation for the settlement of Siberia in the next century. This should also include the beginning regular influx of exiles to these parts, who made up a significant proportion of the Siberian population and gave the region a certain originality.

The settlement of Siberia took place along river and land routes, but especially along its southern border from west to east, along the fertile steppe, which was the main direction of penetration into these lands. Since most of the natives lived or roamed north or south of this line, Russian contact with them was not as close as could be expected, with the exception of the territory of Western Siberia. The conditions for the voluntary conversion of natives to Orthodoxy and their assimilation, caused by the contact of two unequal civilizations in terms of development, were minimal. That's why Siberian aborigines, very few in number and weak, have retained their individuality. Of course, they were protected by nature and long distances. But unlike America, mineral resources in Siberia began to be developed only in the 18th century, and until then it remained, I repeat once again, a hunting ground, where it was possible to receive income from the indigenous population only if they preserved their traditional Lifestyle. There was no attempt to attract local labor to the mines. Of course, there were attempts to use native serfs in agriculture, but these were isolated cases, and the very nature of land ownership in Siberia did not contribute to the development of serfdom here.

Was the lifestyle of the Russian population of Siberia different from the inhabitants of European Russia? To answer this question, first of all, it should be noted that Russian Siberians were all emigrants. Secondly, among them there were many who fled here from the oppression of tsarism. From the very beginning they were “dissidents” in the broad sense of the word. The government welcomed their resettlement, hoping to use this category of population for the development of Siberia. This is exactly how the Old Believers ended up in Siberia, the most unusual rumors of which were able to exist more or less secretly here until the present day. Therefore, we can talk about a special Siberian character, a special Siberian nation. But for the period I am considering, it is too early to talk about these signs. At that time, many groups of the population of Siberia could not yet develop a single type of human character.

Siberia gave rise to great hopes among the peasantry, but for the unfortunate serfs of European Russia it was more mythical than real paradise. Those few who moved to Siberia soon discovered that living conditions in the new place closely resembled those in their homeland. It would be wrong to believe that Siberia liberated Russian peasants in the 17th and especially in the 18th centuries. Siberia did not reduce the social tension that was so characteristic of Russia at that time. Probably, the difference between dream and reality further contributed to the worsening of the situation.

Translation from French by L. F. Sakhibgareeva, candidate of philological sciences, according to: Portal R. La Russes en Sibérie au XVII siècle // Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine. 1958. Janvier-Mars. P. 5-38. Notes in square brackets and additions in angle brackets - Candidate of Historical Sciences I. V. Kuchumova. Subheadings were introduced by the editors of SZ.

Notes

* In the French original, the article is preceded by a list of literature on the problem of colonization of Siberia. It is omitted in the Russian translation, since today the bibliography of this issue has expanded significantly. For new domestic literature, see: Nikitin I. I. The Siberian epic of the 17th century: the beginning of the development of Siberia by Russian people. pp. 169-174. For an overview of the factual material, see: It's him. Development of Siberia in the 17th century. M., 1990; Tsiporukha M. I. Conquest of Siberia: from Ermak to Bering. M., 2004. From the latest publications, see also: The Russian population of Siberia in the era of feudalism: a collection of documents from the 17th – first half of the 19th centuries. Novosibirsk, 2003.

1. With the exception of the southeastern outskirts, near the border with China.
2. The initial stage of the Stroganovs’ economic power became the subject of a study by A. Vvedensky “Anika Stroganov in her Solvychegodsk farm” (Collection of articles on Russian history, dedicated to S. F. Platonov. Pg., 1922). The salt industry of the Kama Salt (in the north of Perm), which was mainly in the hands of the Stroganovs, was devoted to a remarkable study by N.V. Ustyugov ( Ustyugov N.V. Salt production industry of Kama Salt in the 17th century: on the question of the genesis of capitalist relations in Russian industry. M., 1957).
3. In this regard, B. E. Nolde cites a very interesting letter from Kuchum to Ivan IV ( Nolde B. La formation de l'empire Russe. Paris, 1952. T. I. P. 157).
4. Voronikhin A. To the biography of Ermak // Questions of history. 1946. No. 10. P. 98.
5. Bakhrushin S.V. Scientific works. T. 2. M., 1954. P. 229.
6. The Tobolsk category, the most significant in terms of population and activity, included 6 districts - Verkhoturye, Turinsk, Tara, Tobolsk, Pelym. Most of the population of the category was concentrated in Verkhoturye and Tobolsk districts.
7. Cm.: Pallas P.S. Traveling through different provinces of the Russian state. St. Petersburg, 1788. Part III. Half first. P. 74.
8. A significant portion of these exports were government gifts (such as offerings to foreign rulers).
9. The number of inhabitants of each yard differs among different authors (4.5 and even 6 people).
10. In a remarkable study by D. Tredgold ( Treadgold D.W. The great Siberian migration: government and peasants in resettlement from emancipation to the First World War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957. P. 32<новое изд.: Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976>) the number of all Siberians is estimated at 229,227 people, which seems overestimated for 1709, but the error of 40,000-50,000 people is significant in relation to such a small population. quite acceptable, given the vast expanses of this region.
11. Theoretically, both sides solved the resettlement problem based on their interests. The settlement of Siberia from now on was carried out “by device” (free hiring).
12. The main agricultural lands occupy the space between Tobol and Tura with an area of ​​approximately 80,000 square meters. km.
13. By the middle of the century, Siberia was supplied to a large extent from the northern regions of European Russia: Salt Kama, Vyatka, Ustyug, Sol-Vychegodsk. But the importation of bread, long and labor-intensive, doubled and even tripled its cost. At the end of the 17th century. its supplies to Siberia were completely stopped.
14. During his campaigns of 1643-1644. In the Amur region, Poyarkov observed that the natives had sown fields capable of feeding the garrison, but they were later destroyed by two Khabarov expeditions.
15. Only towards the end of the century was hard labor in mines and factories legalized. With the help of this measure, it was possible to recruit a lot of working people for the first industrial enterprises built on the eastern spurs of the Urals (for example, for the Nevyansk plant in 1698).
16. See Kenneth Roberts's excellent novel Northwest Passage.
17. Pascal P. La conquête de l’Amour // Revue des études slaves. 1949. P. 17.

Notes by I. V. Kuchumov

1. In 1648, the expedition of S.I. Dezhnev, F.A. Popov and G. Ankudinov reached the Chukotka Peninsula.
2. The Treaty of Nerchinsk (August 27, 1689) between Russia and the Manchu Qing Empire determined the system of trade and diplomatic relations between the two states. The border line along it was not clearly defined. It existed until the middle of the 19th century. For more details see: Yakovleva P. T. The first Russian-Chinese treaty of 1689. M., 1958; Alexandrov V. A. Russia on the Far Eastern borders (second half of the 17th century). M., 1969; Demidova N. F. From the history of the conclusion of the Nerchinsk Treaty of 1689 // Russia during the period of reforms of Peter I. M., 1973; Melikhov G.V. Manchus in the Northeast (XVII century). M., 1974; Myasnikov V.S. The Qing Empire and the Russian state in the 17th century. M., 1980; He's the same. The contractual articles were approved. Diplomatic history of the Russian-Chinese border of the 17th–20th centuries. M., 1996; Besprozvannykh E. L. The Amur region in the system of Russian-Chinese relations. XVII – mid-XIX centuries. M., 1983; Artemyev A. R. Controversial issues of border demarcation between Russia and China under the Nerchinsk Treaty of 1689 // Siberia in the 17th–20th centuries: Problems of political and social history: Bakhrushin readings 1999–2000. Novosibirsk, 2002.
3. In the 17th century “Siberia” meant the Urals and the Far East.
4. We are obviously talking about the research of S.V. Obruchev in 1929-1930. Kolyma-Indigirsky region and L.L. Berman in 1946 of the Suktar-Khayata ridge (see: Essays on the history of geographical discoveries. M., 1986. T V. S. 89, 91).
5. The most ancient inhabitants of Siberia are the Paleo-Asians (Chukchi, Koryaks, Itelmens, Yukaghirs, Gilyaks and Kets). The most common in Siberia by the 16th–17th centuries. turned out to be Altai languages. They are spoken by Turkic (Tatars, Yakuts), Mongol-speaking (Buryats, Kalmyks), and Tungus-speaking peoples. The Khanty, Mansi, and Samoyeds belong to the Uralic language family. The Ket language differs sharply from all languages ​​of Northern Asia; an opinion was expressed about its distant relationship with the Tibeto-Burman languages. The questions of linguistic affiliation and ethnogenesis of the Siberian peoples are extremely complex, and at present they are far from a final solution. The first in Siberia, the Russians met the Nenets, already familiar to them from the European North and the Urals, who, together with the Enets and Nganasans, were at that time called “Samoyeds” or "self-eater". Once upon a time, the word “Samoyeds” was mistakenly associated with cannibalism (when translated literally from Russian). There are currently several scientific explanations for the origin of this word. Most often it is derived from “same-emne”, i.e. “land of the Sami”. The Khanty and Mansi (“Ostyaks” and “Voguls”) were also familiar to the Russians. The Samoyeds roamed the tundra from the Mezen River in the west to Khatanga in the east. “Ostyaks” and “Voguls” lived in the Middle Urals up to the upper reaches of the Pechora and tributaries of the Kama, along the lower reaches of the Ob and Irtysh. “Samoyeds” numbered about 8,000 people, Ostyaks and Voguls – 15,000-18,000. Along the middle reaches of the Irtysh, in the lower reaches of Tobol, Tura, Tavda, Iset, Ishim, along Tara and Omi, Turkic-speaking tribes settled, whom the Russians called Tatars (their there were 15,000-20,000 people). Along the Ob, above the Khanty, lived the Samoyed Selkup tribes (about 3,000 people). The Russians also called them “Ostyaks,” apparently due to their closeness to the Khanty in lifestyle and culture. Further up the Ob and its tributaries settled Turkic tribes that differed greatly in their economic activities and way of life - Tomsk, Chulym and Kuznetsk Tatars (5000-6000 people), “White Kalmyks” or Teleuts (7-8 thousand people), Yenisei Kirghiz with tribes dependent on them (8000-9000 people), etc. To the east and northeast lived the Keto-speaking tribes (4000-6000 people), which in the upper Yenisei the Russians also called “Tatars” (these were Kotty, Asan, Arin and etc.), and on the middle Yenisei - “Ostyaks” (including the Inbaki, Zemshaks, etc.). At that time, Russians also called “Tatars” the Samoyed and Turkic tribes of the Sayan Highlands - Motors, Karagas, Kachins, Kaisots, etc. (there were about 2000 people). In Eastern Siberia, a surprisingly large territory was occupied by the Tungus tribes (Evenks and Evens): 30,000 people. settled throughout the taiga zone from the Yenisei to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. The middle reaches of the Lena River were inhabited by the Yakuts, a Turkic-speaking people who, unlike the Tungus hunters around them, were engaged in breeding horses and cattle. A small and also isolated group of Yakuts settled on the upper Yana. Later, the Yakuts settled along other rivers of Eastern Siberia - along the Vilyuy, Indigirka, Kolyma. There their main occupations became reindeer herding, hunting, and fishing. In total there were about 28,000 Yakuts. The northeast of Siberia from the lower reaches of Anadyr to the lower reaches of the Lena was occupied by Yukaghir tribes (about 5 thousand people). In the north of the Kamchatka Peninsula and on the adjacent coast of the Bering and Okhotsk Seas lived the Koryaks (9,000-10,000 people). On the Chukotka Peninsula (mainly in its inner part) and west of Kolyma in the area of ​​the Bolshaya Chukochya River, the Chukchi lived (presumably 2,500 people). The Russians did not distinguish the Eskimos (about 4,000 of them settled throughout the entire coastal strip of Chukotka in the 17th century) from the Chukchi. About 12,000 Itelmens (Kamchadals) lived in Kamchatka. The most numerous people in the south of Eastern Siberia were the Buryats. The Russians called them “brotherly people” or “brothers”. There were about 25,000 Buryats. and they settled in the area of ​​Lake Baikal, as well as to the south of it and to the west - along the Angara and its tributaries, where among the taiga there was another island of forest-steppe. On the Amur, the Russians met the Daurs and Duchers. Natks (ancestors of the Nanai) and Gilyaks (Nivkhs) lived lower along the Amur River and on Sakhalin. Hunting and fishing were the main occupations of most Siberian tribes, and as an auxiliary trade they were found everywhere. At the same time, fur mining became especially important in the economy of the Siberian peoples. They traded it, paid tribute; only in the most remote corners were furs used only for clothing (For more details, see: Dolgikh B. O. The clan and tribal composition of the peoples of Siberia in the 17th century. M., 1960; Boyarshinova Z. Ya. Western Siberia on the eve of joining the Russian state. Tomsk, 1967; Nikitin I. I. Development of Siberia in the 17th century. pp. 5-9).
6. We are talking about the Siberian (Tyumen) Khanate - a state in Western Siberia, formed at the end of the 15th century. as a result of the collapse of the Golden Horde. At the end of the 16th century. it was annexed to Russia.
7. By the end of the 16th century. on an area of ​​10 million square meters. km lived 200,000-220,000 people. ( Nikitin I. I. The Siberian epic of the 17th century: the beginning of the development of Siberia by Russian people. P. 7).
8. Modern researchers draw attention to the fact that Siberia was the object of expansion not only of Russia, but also of the Asian civilizations of the south: Alekseev V.V., Alekseeva E.V., Zubkov K.I., Poberezhnikov I.V. Asian Russia in geopolitical and civilizational dynamics: XVI-XX centuries. M., 2004. pp. 37-40.
9. For more information on assessments of this phenomenon, see: Zuev A. S. The nature of the annexation of Siberia in the latest domestic historiography // Eurasia: cultural heritage of ancient civilizations. Novosibirsk, 1999. Issue. 1.
10. According to G.V. Vernadsky, “...events of the 1550s. ... laid the foundation of the Russian Eurasian Empire" ( Vernadsky G.V. Moscow kingdom. Tver; M., 1997. Part 1. P. 10).
11. As G.V. Vernadsky notes, before the arrival of the Russians, the Siberian peoples hunted fur-bearing animals with bows and arrows, so the annual production was not so significant and could not lead to a reduction in animals. The Russians used snares and traps, which led to the disappearance of sable populations (Ibid. p. 273).
12. For more details see: Vilkov O. N. Essays on the socio-economic development of Siberia at the end of the 16th – beginning of the 18th centuries. Novosibirsk, 1992.
13. Kuchum (d. ca. 1598) - Khan of the Siberian Khanate from 1563. In 1582-1585. fought with Ermak.
14. In 1582, the Siberian prince Alei, together with detachments of Perm Vogulichs, crossed the Urals and invaded the Stroganov estates, and on September 1 attacked the main fortress of the Perm region, Cherdyn.
15. According to R. G. Skrynnikov’s version, Ermak’s performance in Siberia took place on September 1, 1582: Skrynnikov R. G. Siberian expedition of Ermak. Novosibirsk, 1986. S. 169, 203.
16. Modern historiography connects the final cessation of the existence of the Siberian Khanate with the death of Kuchum: Skrynnikov R. G. Siberian expedition of Ermak. P. 278.
17. For more details see: Blazhes V.V. Folk story about Ermak. Ekaterinburg, 2002. Romodanovskaya E.K. Selected works: Siberia and literature. 17th century Novosibirsk, 2002.
18. Vasily Ivanovich Surikov (1848-1916) - Russian painter. In monumental paintings dedicated to turning points in Russian history, the main character was the masses: “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution”, 1881; “Menshikov in Berezovo”, 1883; “Boyarina Morozova”, 1887; “Conquest of Siberia by Ermak”, 1895.
19. Cm.: Kopylov D. I. Ermak. Irkutsk, 1989; Skrynnikov R. G. Siberian expedition of Ermak; He's the same T . Ermak: a book for students. M., 1992T.
20. Mangazeya is a Russian city, trade and fishing center and port in Western Siberia, on the right bank of the river. Taz, existed in 1601-1672. Named after the local Nenets tribe.
21. For more details see: Kochedamov V. I. The first Russian cities of Siberia. M., 1978; Rezun D. Ya., Vasilievsky R. S. Chronicle of Siberian cities. Novosibirsk, 1989.
22. Vasily Danilovich Poyarkov - Russian explorer of the 17th century, in 1643-1646. led a detachment that first penetrated the river basin. Cupid, opened the river. Zeya, Amur-Zeya Plain, middle and lower reaches of the river. Amur to the mouth.
23. Erofey Pavlovich Khabarov (nicknamed Svyatitsky) (c. 1607-1671) - Russian explorer. Sailed along the rivers of Siberia. In 1649-1653. made a number of campaigns in the Amur region, compiled a “Drawing of the Amur River”.
24. For more details see: Artemyev A. R. Cities and forts of Transbaikalia and the Amur region in the second half of the 17th-18th centuries. Vladivostok, 1999.
25. According to the latest data, Ermak’s detachment consisted of 540 Volga Cossacks: Skrynnikov R. G. Siberian expedition of Ermak. P. 203.
26. Today, for more information about this, see: Sokolovsky I. R. Serving “foreigners” in Siberia in the 17th century. (Tomsk, Yeniseisk, Krasnoyarsk). Novosibirsk, 2004.
27. Today see: Vilkov O. N. Craft and trade in Western Siberia in the 17th century. M., 1967; Pavlov P. N. Commercial colonization of Siberia in the 17th century. Krasnoyarsk, 1974.
28. For winter huts, see: Nikitin I. I. The Siberian epic of the 17th century: the beginning of the development of Siberia by Russian people. P. 60.
29. Siberian Order - the central government institution in 1637-1710, 1730-1763. to control Siberia. He also had some foreign policy functions in relations with border states.
30. For more details see: Alexandrov V. A., Pokrovsky N. N. Power and society. Siberia in the 17th century. Novosibirsk, 1991; Vershinin E. V. Voivodeship administration in Siberia (XVII century). Ekaterinburg, 1998.
31. For more details see: Nikitin I. I. The Siberian epic of the 17th century: the beginning of the development of Siberia by Russian people. pp. 122-123.
32. For more details see: Nikitin I. I. The Siberian epic of the 17th century: the beginning of the development of Siberia by Russian people. P. 71.
33. According to G.V. Vernadsky, annual income from private trade in Siberian furs in the 17th century. amounted to at least 350,000 rubles, which corresponds to 6,000,000 gold rubles. at the 1913 exchange rate ( Vernadsky G.V. Decree. op. P. 280).
34. Shunkov V. I. Essays on the history of colonization of Siberia in the 17th – early 18th centuries. M.; L., 1946; It's him. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia: XVII century. M., 1956. See also: It's him. Questions of the agrarian history of Russia. M., 1974. Viktor Ivanovich Shunkov (1900-1967) - Soviet historian, bibliographer, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. His main works are devoted to the history of peasant colonization and local history of Siberia, archaeography, source studies, bibliography and library science.
35. To date, it has been established that the majority of Siberian colonists were not fugitives, but peasants who received official permission: Preobrazhensky A. A. The Urals and Western Siberia at the end of the 16th – beginning of the 18th centuries. M., 1972. S. 57-68.
36. Cm.: Nikitin I. I. The Siberian epic of the 17th century: the beginning of the development of Siberia by Russian people. pp. 124-125.
37. For more information about the specifics of social performances in Siberia, see: Nikitin I. I. The Siberian epic of the 17th century: the beginning of the development of Siberia by Russian people. pp. 130-132.
38. Hugh Willoughby (Willoughby) (?-1554) - English polar navigator. In 1553-1554. led an expedition to search for the Northeast Passage. Of the three ships of the expedition, two spent the winter on the Kola Peninsula, where Willoughby and his companions died, the third ship (R. Chancellor) reached the mouth of the Severnaya. Dvina. Richard Chancellor (Chancellor) (?-1556) – English navigator. Member of the H. Willoughby expedition to search for the Northeast Passage. Was received in Moscow by Ivan IV. He left notes about the Moscow state.
39. Henry Hudson (c. 1550-1611) – English navigator. In 1607-1611. in search of the northwest and northeast passages from the Atlantic to the Pacific, he made 4 voyages in the Arctic seas. In North America he discovered a river, bay and strait named after him.
40. Willem Barents (c. 1550-1597) – Dutch navigator. In 1594-1597. led 3 expeditions across the Arctic Ocean in search of a northeast passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Expedition 1596-1597 discovered the islands of Bear and Spitsbergen (repeatedly). Buried on Novaya Zemlya.
41. Mikhail Vasilyevich Stadukhin (?–1665) – Yakut Cossack foreman, polar sea traveler and explorer. In 1630, in order to collect yasak, he moved from the Yenisei to the Lena, in 1642 - from the Lena to Indigirka (to Oymyakon). In 1643, he sailed on a kocha from the mouth of the Indigirka into the East Siberian Sea, turned east and, following along the coast, discovered the mouth of the Kolyma River.
42. Cm.: Magidovich I. P., Magidovich V. I. Decree. op. pp. 81-95.
43. We are talking about the modern Mongolian People's Republic.
44. Andrei Aleksandrovich Vvedensky (1891-1965) - Soviet historian.
45. Kenneth Roberts (1885-1957) – American writer. Based on his novel “Northwest Passage” (1937), a film of the same name was made in the USA in 1940 (script by T. Jennings and L. Stallings, directors K. Vidor and D. Conway), considered one of the best Westerns of all time.

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After the end of the Time of Troubles, the Russian administration in Siberia actively began exploring and “bringing under the high sovereign’s hand” new lands that lay in the east. Expeditions are being sent out from Western Siberia one after another to “explore” new lands. As a rule, the group of explorers included servicemen whose task was to gain a foothold in new places and tax the local population, as well as industrialists interested in new rich lands. Sometimes industrialists were ahead of government officials. However, the government sought to establish a city or at least a winter hut on each of the “newly discovered” rivers, which would make it possible to control the hunting of fur-bearing animals and establish regular relations with local residents.

Even at the beginning of the 17th century, Russian industrialists and service people knew the Yenisei basin. They got there in two ways - in the south from the upper reaches of the Ob, and in the north through Mangazeya, along the Taz and Turukhan rivers. After the end of the Time of Troubles, cities appeared here, the most important of which was Yeniseisk, founded in 1619. For several years, detachments of servicemen explored the entire basin of the new river and the large right tributaries of the Yenisei.

In the 1620s, explorers took two routes - along the Angara and along the Lower Tunguska - to reach the Lena. After the first reconnaissance campaigns in 1631, the Streltsy centurion Pyotr Beketov was sent there, who managed to gain a foothold in the newly explored region and founded the Yakut fort in 1632. The struggle for lands and yasak payers between the Yenisei, Tobolsk and Mangazeya servicemen, which sometimes led to armed clashes, led the government in 1641 to the decision to create a special voivodeship in Yakutsk.

Having reached the ocean along the Lena, the explorers moved east along the sea. In 1633-1641, Ivan Rebrov reached the Yana River, founded a winter hut there, and then made a trip to the Indigirka River. In 1641, Mikhail Stadukhin settled on the Kolyma River. His successor in Kolyma, the Cossack Semyon Dezhnev, in 1648, together with the merchant Fedot Popov, organized a new expedition to the east. An exceptionally difficult voyage, during which six of the seven kochas (ships) and most of the participants perished, led to one of the largest geographical discoveries of the 17th century - Dezhnev rounded the “Big Stone Nose”, the northeastern tip of Asia, which now bears his name, and went to the mouth of the Anadyr River, where he founded a winter quarters. Subsequently, an easier land road to Anadyr from Kolyma was opened, and Dezhnev’s voyage was forgotten. At the same time, explorers ascending the Aldan and its tributaries reached the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, where Okhotsk was founded in 1649.

In 1643, Kurbat Ivanov’s detachment went along the Angara to Lake Baikal; in the late 1640s - early 1650s, detachments of servicemen explored Transbaikalia. The inclusion of this troubled region, due to the Mongol invasions, into Russia was secured by the construction of a number of forts - Barguzinsky, Balagansky, Irkutsky, Udinsky, Nerchinsky and others. In 1643-1646, a detachment of Vasily Poyarkov set off from Yakutsk up the Aldan to explore the Amur basin. Having crossed the Stanovoy Ridge, the explorers reached the Amur, descended along it to the sea and, moving along the coast to the north, reached previously explored places on the Okhotsk coast. Poyarkov's campaign marked the beginning of the Russian development of the Amur region.

In 1649, a major industrialist Erofey Khabarov organized a new large expedition to the “Amur Land” in Yakutsk. Having crossed the Olekma to the Amur, he tried to gain a foothold in its middle reaches, but encountered resistance from both the local “princes” and the Manchu rulers who laid claim to these lands. Khabarov was recalled to Moscow in 1653, and most of his detachment in 1658 encountered superior forces of the Manchus and died.

Despite this, news of the rich land of the Amur region attracted Russian settlers. In 1665, the service people of the Ilimsk district, who rebelled against the governor’s abuses and killed him, fled to the Amur and founded the city of Albazin here. Soon the participants in the uprising were forgiven, and Albazin became the center of the new district. The last major expedition of explorers in the 17th century was the exploration of Kamchatka in 1697-1699 by the expedition of Vladimir Atlasov, which marked the beginning of its inclusion in Russia.

In the second half of the 16th century. The Russian state was overcoming the consequences of feudal fragmentation and was finally taking shape as a centralized state, covering the lands of the European part of the country with Russian and non-Russian populations. Long-standing ties and communication of the Russian people with the inhabitants of the Trans-Urals, the routes laid to the east by industrial and trading people, prepared the process of annexing the Siberian region to Russia.

The desire to find a permanent source of furs, which at that time constituted a significant share of the country’s budget revenue and was valued on the foreign and domestic markets, intensified the Russian government’s attempts to advance the state’s borders to the east. This was also facilitated by those established since the end of the 15th century. diplomatic relations with the Tyumen Khan and tributary dependence of some Ugric tribal associations of the lower Ob region. In the middle of the 16th century. Relations were established with the rulers of the Siberian Khanate, who further expanded the Russian government’s understanding of the fur riches of Siberia and strengthened the hope of making a constant supply of Siberian fur to the royal treasury. The conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan and the voluntary accession of a number of peoples of the Volga region and the Middle Urals to the Russian state opened up the opportunity for the government to advance in the Trans-Urals.

On the other hand, unfolding in the second half of the 16th century. English and Dutch expeditions in the waters of the Arctic Ocean, intensified searches by foreign merchants for the “northern route to India” alarmed the government of Ivan IV, who feared the transformation of the northern part of Asia into an English or Dutch trading post.

At the same time, the elimination of the dominance of the descendants of the Mongol conquerors on the Volga, the entry of the Bashkirs and other peoples of the Middle Urals into Russia opened up shorter and more convenient routes to the east for the Russian people and especially for the peasants who were looking for liberation from feudal oppression and exploitation in flight to the outskirts .

The beginning of the annexation of the huge Siberian region to the Russian state dates back to the end of the 16th century, when the resettlement of Russians in the Trans-Ural region and its development began, primarily by peasants and artisans. This process, which generally marked the spread of socio-economic relations new to Siberia and the introduction of new types of economic activity, did not always proceed in the same way in different regions.

The official beginning of the colonization of Siberia can be considered January 22, 1564. The Tsar's charter, dating from this date, ordered the richest entrepreneurs, the Stroganovs, who had estates in the Perm region, to build a new fortified point on the Kama below the town of Kankora (later called Orel-gorodok or Kardegan) in order to Kuchum’s military detachments could not pass through the Perm land “unknown”. The fortresses of Kankor and Kardegan were actually defensive structures on the eastern borders of the state, built at the direction of the government.

At the beginning of the annexation of Western Siberia to the Russian state, its indigenous inhabitants were still at the stage of a primitive communal system, more or less affected by the process of decomposition. Only the so-called Tobolsk Tatars eliminated tribal relations and formed their own primitive statehood - the Siberian Khanate.

In the early 60s of the 16th century. (1563) the territory of the Siberian Khanate was captured by Genghisid Kuchum, who overthrew the rulers of the local Tatar dynasty (Taibugins), moved his central headquarters to the fortified town of Kashlyk (Siberia) on the banks of the Irtysh, imposed tribute (yasak) on the local population of the khanate, and conquered the Ugric tribes along the lower Irtysh and the Turkic-speaking population of the Barabinsk steppe.

Khan Kuchum skillfully used for his own purposes the strengthening of the Crimean Tatars, behind whom stood the Sultan's Turkey, as well as rumors about the failures and defeats of Russian troops on the fronts of the Livonian War. But, apparently, he did not yet have sufficient strength to openly fight against the Russian state, so he agreed to vassalage from the Russian Tsar and promised to collect tribute from the population of the Khanate to the treasury of Ivan IV.

Kuchum's open hostile actions began in the summer of 1573. His armed detachments began to group on the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains, on the border of the Kuchum nomads and the Nogai Murzas. Kuchum completely eliminated the vassalage relationship of the Siberian Khanate to the Russian Tsar. There was a threat of separation from Russia of those regions of the Trans-Urals, the population of which had been considered tributaries of Russia since the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries.

At the same time, the situation in the Kama region also became more complicated. Taking advantage of the Mansi's dissatisfaction with the Stroganovs, the Mansi Murza Begbeliy Agtaev in 1580 plundered Russian villages on the banks of the river. Chusovoy, and in 1581 Prince Kihek captured and burned Solikamsk, destroyed settlements and villages in the Kama region, and took away their inhabitants.

In this situation, the Stroganovs, using the right given to them by the government to recruit military men, formed a hired Cossack detachment. The detachment was commanded by Ataman Ermak Timofeevich. In the history of Ermak’s campaign in Siberia, much remains unclear and controversial. Information about the biography of Ermak himself is scanty and contradictory. Some historians consider Ermak a Don Cossack who came with his detachment to the Stroganovs from the Volga, others consider him a resident of the Urals, a townsman Vasily Timofeevich Alenin (Olenin)-Povolsky. The chronology of the campaign and the number of its participants are far from clear. According to most researchers, the campaign began in 1581.

The Cossack squad began offensive operations in September 1582. In the 20th of October, as a result of battles on the Chuvashevsky Cape (Cape Podchevash), Kuchum’s army was defeated, and he himself with his closest relatives and Murzas, having captured the most valuable property and livestock, fled from his stakes in the steppe. Ermak's Cossacks immediately occupied the deserted Kashlyk (the town of Siberia).

The news of the defeat and flight of Kuchum quickly spread among the indigenous population of Western Siberia. The Khanty and Mansi leaders of territorial-tribal associations, the Tatar Murzas, hastened to come to Ermak with gifts and declare their desire to accept Russian citizenship.

Meanwhile, Kuchum, who fled to the steppe, did not lay down his arms. Roaming with his ulus in the steppes, Kuchum gathered forces, summoned the Tatar Murzas to him, demanding their help to fight the Russians. Having deceived Ermak's squad from the prison, on the banks of the Irtysh near the mouth of the Vagai, Kuchum's detachment attacked them at night. Almost all the Cossacks were killed. Ermak, wounded in hand-to-hand combat with the Tatars, drowned. This event, according to chroniclers, occurred on the night of August 5-6, 1585.

But as a result of the actions of the Cossack squad, an irreparable blow was dealt to Kuchum’s dominance in the Siberian Khanate. Kuchum, who fled to the Ob steppes, continued to fight against the Russian state for several more years, but the Siberian Khanate, after Ermak captured the Khan’s headquarters, virtually ceased to exist. Some Tatar uluses migrated with Kuchum, but most of the West Siberian Tatars came under the protection of Russia. Russia included the Bashkirs, Mansi, Khanty, who had previously been subject to Kuchum, who lived in the basins of the Tura, Tavda, Tobol and Irtysh rivers, and the Khanty and Mansi population of the left bank of the lower Ob region (Ugra land) was finally assigned to Russia.

Further information about Kuchum is contradictory. Some sources say that Kuchum drowned in the Ob, others report that the Bukharans, having lured him “to Kolmaki, killed him by deception.”

The defeat of Kuchum on the Ob in 1598 had a great political effect. The peoples and tribes of the forest-steppe zone of Western Siberia saw in the Russian state a force capable of protecting them from the devastating raids of the nomads of Southern Siberia and the invasion of Oirat, Uzbek, Nogai, and 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 Terenin Tatars, who had previously paid tribute to Kuchum, accepted Russian citizenship.

Since one of the main incentives for Russian colonization of Siberia at the initial stage was fur, then, naturally, the advance went first and foremost to the taiga and tundra regions of Siberia, the richest in fur-bearing animals. Advancement in this direction was also due to the extremely weak population of the taiga and tundra and the threat of devastating raids on the forest-steppe and steppe regions of Southern Siberia from the nomads of the Kazakh and Mongolian steppes.

Things developed somewhat differently in the south of Western Siberia. With the formation in the mid-30s of the 17th century. The Dzungar Khanate, which united many Oirat feudal possessions, the situation on the southern borders of Russian possessions in Western Siberia became less tense. Trade and diplomatic ties were established between Russia and Dzungaria. Kalmyk horses and cattle found sales among the Russian population of Tyumen, Tarsk, Tobolsk and Tomsk counties. The clashes that arose were resolved largely peacefully.

But the main contradiction that gave rise to conflicts between Russia and Dzungaria was the issue of collecting tribute from the Yenisei Kirghiz, Tuvans, Chulym Turks, Altaians, Barabins and other inhabitants of this area. Even the idea of ​​dual citizenship and dual citizenship arose, put forward in 1640 by the Dzungar ruler Batur-Khuntaiji. In practice, in the southern districts of Western Siberia, residents for a long time paid massive tribute to the royal treasury and at the same time alman to the Dzungarian collectors. Disputes between the Russian and Dzungarian authorities were resolved, as a rule, peacefully. But armed conflicts were also frequent. After the destruction of the Dzungar kingdom as a result of the Sino-Dzungar war, the peoples of Altai were also under threat of capture. They offered stubborn resistance to the conquerors, but their forces were unequal. Fleeing from enslavement or extermination, the Altaians fled to the Russian border, making their way to it with fierce battles. Sometimes, out of thousands of detachments, only tens of people reached the target. On behalf of all the zaisans, the zaisan Naamky went to the Russians. He offered to pay yasak in advance and took an obligation to field two thousand soldiers at the request of the Russian government. On May 2, 1756, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna issued a decree on the admission of the Altai people to Russia. Tyva (Tuva People's Republic) became part of Russia only on August 17, 1944.

The annexation of Western Siberia to the Russian state was not only a political act. A more significant role in the process of incorporating Siberia into Russia was played by the economic development of the territory by the Russian people, the development of productive forces, and the disclosure of the production capabilities of the region, which is rich in natural resources.

Along with the advance of the Russians, fortified cities and forts were built: Verkhoturye, Turinsk and Tyumen, located on the banks of the Tura River, Pelym on the banks of the Tavda River, Tara and Tobolsk on the banks of the Irtysh River, Berezov, Surgut and Narym on the Ob River, Ket fort on the Keti river; Tomsk and Kuznetsk on the Tom River. Many of them are from the 17th century. became the centers of the formed counties. At the beginning of the 18th century. economic development of the tributaries of the Ob - Oyash, Umreva and Chausa began. In 1709, the Russian Bikatun fortress (Biysk) was founded at the source of the Ob River, which was soon destroyed by nomads and restored in 1718 somewhat higher than the mouth of the Biya River.

Since the 90s of the 16th century. There was a massive influx of immigrants from the European part of the country to Siberia. Black farmers, landowners and monastic peasants fled here to escape the growing feudal oppression. Having broken with feudal taxation at their old place of residence, they were called “walking people.” Posad people and peasants from the northern districts, as well as exiles, were recruited by the governors of Siberian cities and arrived in Siberia.

By the end of the 17th century. in Western Siberia, the predominant group of Russian residents were no longer service people, but peasants and artisans engaged in production activities.

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Russian colonization of Eastern Siberia

The article uses materials from the site protown.ru

In the vast expanses of the Siberian tundra and taiga, forest-steppe and black soil expanses, a population settled that hardly exceeded 200 thousand people by the time the Russians arrived. In the regions of the Amur and Primorye by the middle of the 16th century. about 30 thousand people lived there. The ethnic and linguistic composition of the population of Siberia was very diverse. The very difficult living conditions in the tundra and taiga and the exceptional disunity of the population determined the extremely slow development of productive forces among the peoples of Siberia. Most of them by the time the Russians arrived were still at one or another stage of the patriarchal-tribal system. Only the Siberian Tatars were at the stage of forming feudal relations.
In the economy of the northern peoples of Siberia, the leading place belonged to hunting and fishing. A supporting role was played by the collection of wild edible plants. Mansi and Khanty, like the Buryats and Kuznetsk Tatars, mined iron. More backward peoples still used stone tools. A large family (yurt) consisted of 2 - 3 men or more. Sometimes several large families lived in numerous yurts. In the conditions of the North, such yurts were independent villages - rural communities.
Por. Ostyaks (Khanty) lived on the Ob. Their main occupation was fishing. Fish was eaten and clothing was made from fish skin. On the wooded slopes of the Urals lived the Voguls, who were mainly engaged in hunting. The Ostyaks and Voguls had principalities headed by tribal nobility. The princes owned fishing grounds, hunting grounds, and, in addition, their fellow tribesmen brought them “gifts.” Wars often broke out between the principalities. Captured prisoners were turned into slaves. The Nenets lived in the northern tundra and were engaged in reindeer herding. With herds of deer, they constantly moved from pasture to pasture. Reindeer provided the Nenets with food, clothing and housing, which was made from reindeer skins. A common activity was fishing and hunting arctic foxes and wild deer. The Nenets lived in clans led by princes. Further, to the east of the Yenisei, lived the Evenks (Tungus). Their main occupation was hunting fur-bearing animals and fishing. In search of prey, the Evenks moved from place to place. They also had a dominant tribal system. In the south of Siberia, in the upper reaches of the Yenisei, lived the Khakass cattle breeders. Buryats lived near the Angara and Lake Baikal. Their main occupation was cattle breeding. The Buryats were already on the path to the formation of a class society. In the Amur region lived the Daur and Ducher tribes, which were more economically developed.
The Yakuts occupied the territory formed by Lena, Aldan and Amga. Separate groups were located on the river. Yana, the mouth of Vilyuy and the Zhigansk region. In total, according to Russian documents, the Yakuts at that time numbered about 25 - 26 thousand people. By the time the Russians appeared, the Yakuts were a single people with a single language, common territory and common culture. The Yakuts were at the stage of decomposition of the primitive communal system. The main large social groups were tribes and clans. In the Yakut economy, iron processing was widely developed, from which weapons, blacksmithing utensils and other tools were made. The blacksmith was held in high esteem by the Yakuts (more than the shaman). The main wealth of the Yakuts was cattle. The Yakuts led a semi-sedentary life. In the summer they went to winter roads and also had summer, spring and autumn pastures. In the Yakut economy, much attention was paid to hunting and fishing. The Yakuts lived in yurt booths, insulated with turf and earth in the winter, and in the summer - in birch bark dwellings (ursa) and light huts. Great power belonged to the ancestor-toyon. He had from 300 to 900 head of cattle. The Toyons were surrounded by chakhardar servants - slaves and domestic servants. But the Yakuts had few slaves, and they did not determine the method of production. Poor relatives were not yet the object of the emergence of feudal exploitation. There was also no private ownership of fishing and hunting lands, but hayfields were distributed among individual families.

Khanate of Siberia

At the beginning of the 15th century. During the collapse of the Golden Horde, the Siberian Khanate was formed, the center of which was initially Chimga-Tura (Tyumen). The Khanate united many Turkic-speaking peoples, who united within its framework into the Siberian Tatar people. At the end of the 15th century. after lengthy civil strife, power was seized by Mamed, who united the Tatar uluses along the Tobol and middle Irtysh and located his headquarters in an ancient fortification on the banks of the Irtysh - “Siberia”, or “Kashlyk”.
The Siberian Khanate consisted of small uluses, headed by beks and murzas, who made up the ruling class. They distributed nomadic and fishing grounds and turned the best pastures and water sources into private property. Islam spread among the nobility and became the official religion of the Siberian Khanate. The main working population consisted of “black” ulus people. They paid the murza, or bek, annual “gifts” from the products of their farm and tribute-yasak to the khan, and performed military service in the detachments of the ulus bek. The Khanate exploited the labor of slaves - “yasyrs” and poor, dependent community members. The Siberian Khanate was ruled by the khan with the help of advisers and a karachi (vizier), as well as yasauls sent by the khan to the uluses. Ulus beks and murzas were vassals of the khan, who did not interfere in the internal routine of life of the ulus. The political history of the Siberian Khanate was full of internal strife. The Siberian khans, pursuing a policy of conquest, seized the lands of part of the Bashkir tribes and the possessions of the Ugrians and Turkic-speaking inhabitants of the Irtysh region and the river basin. Omi.
Siberian Khanate by the middle of the 16th century. was located on a vast expanse of forest-steppe in Western Siberia from the river basin. Tours in the west and to Baraba in the east. In 1503, Ibak's grandson Kuchum seized power in the Siberian Khanate with the help of Uzbek and Nogai feudal lords. The Siberian Khanate under Kuchum, which consisted of separate, economically almost unrelated uluses, was politically very fragile, and with any military defeat inflicted on Kuchum, this state of the Siberian Tatars was condemned to cease to exist.

Annexation of Siberia to Russia

The natural wealth of Siberia - fur - has long attracted attention. Already at the end of the 15th century. enterprising people penetrated the “stone belt” (Ural). With the formation of the Russian state, its rulers and merchants saw in Siberia the opportunity for great enrichment, especially since the efforts undertaken since the end of the 15th century. The search for precious metal ores has not yet been successful.
To a certain extent, Russia's penetration into Siberia can be put on a par with the penetration of some European powers into overseas countries that was taking place at that time in order to pump out jewelry from them. However, there were also significant differences.
The initiative in developing ties came not only from the Russian state, but also from the Siberian Khanate, which in 1555, after the liquidation of the Kazan Khanate, became a neighbor of the Russian state and asked for protection in the fight against the Central Asian rulers. Siberia entered into vassal dependence on Moscow and paid it tribute in furs. But in the 70s, due to the weakening of the Russian state, the Siberian khans began attacks on Russian possessions. On their way stood the fortifications of the Stroganov merchants, who were already beginning to send their expeditions to Western Siberia to buy furs, and in 1574. received a royal charter with the right to build fortresses on the Irtysh and own lands along the Tobol to ensure a trade route to Bukhara. Although this plan was not carried out, the Stroganovs managed to organize the campaign of the Cossack squad of Ermak Timofeevich, who went to the Irtysh and by the end of 1582, after a fierce battle, took the capital of the Siberian Khanate, Kashlyk, and expelled Khan Kuchum. Many of Kuchum’s vassals from among the Siberian peoples subject to the khan went over to Ermak’s side. After several years of struggle, which continued with varying success (Ermak died in 1584), the Siberian Khanate was finally destroyed.
In 1586 the fortress of Tyumen was erected, and in 1587 - Tobolsk, which became the Russian center of Siberia.
A stream of trade and service people rushed to Siberia. But besides them, peasants, Cossacks, and townspeople, fleeing from serfdom, moved there.

The beginning of the development of Siberia by the Russians is associated with the campaign of Ermak’s squad. This campaign took place in 1581 - 1585, at the very end of the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible. At this time, Russia pursued an active foreign policy aimed at expanding the territory of the state. This process sometimes developed into wars. And wars were accompanied by large financial costs and led to the impoverishment of the state treasury.

The financial situation of Russia during this period could have been improved, for example, by the sale of domestic furs to Western Europe. The fur of fur-bearing animals was in high demand in the West at that time, and therefore it was not by chance that it was called “soft gold.”

In European Russia there were already few fur-bearing animals, which is explained by centuries-old hunting for them, which sometimes took on the character of predatory extermination.

But Siberia in this sense was a completely undeveloped and inexhaustible region, as it seemed then. Therefore, the eyes of the Moscow government were turned to the east.

The initiative to organize Ermak’s campaign came not only from the tsar, but also from the wealthy merchants and salt industrialists Stroganovs, who in the 50-60s of the 16th century were “granted” by Ivan the Terrible lands in the middle reaches of the Kama to the mouth of the Chusovaya and along the Chusovaya from the mouth to the sources . This is the territory of the Urals and the Urals proper.

Immediately the tsar ordered the Stroganovs to strengthen their “towns”, recruit and maintain military people to protect against raids by the Nogais and “Siberians” Letter from Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich to Chusovaya Maxim and Nikita Stroganov about sending Volga Cossacks Ermak Timofeevich and his comrades to Cherdyn // Ekaterinburg, 2004 - P.7-8.. Attacks on the lands of the Stroganovs along the Kama and Chusovaya began during the construction of their fortresses. Local peoples took part in the raids - Cheremis, Bashkirs, Ostyaks and Voguls, led by their “princelings”. But since the 70s, these attacks have become more frequent and more devastating.

In 1573, Mametkul, the nephew of the ruler of the Siberian Khanate Kuchum, “Mametkul - Kuchum’s son,” came to Chusovaya. See "Siberian Chronicles". St. Petersburg. 1907. - P. 53, . He destroyed the yasak Voguls and Ostyaks, and took their wives and children captive. These were representatives of the local population who transferred to Russian citizenship and paid tribute - yasak. Also during this raid, members of the Russian embassy led by Tretyak Chubukov were exterminated. This embassy was sent to the Kazakh Horde.

But Mametkul did not dare to attack the Stroganov fortresses, and the Stroganovs, in turn, did not pursue him without the royal decree.

The main source for Ermak’s campaign is the Siberian chronicles. According to the Stroganov Chronicle, it turns out that it was after Mametkul’s raid, in 1573, that Grigory and Yakov Stroganov asked the Tsar to send a decree allowing him to pursue the enemy on his territory, that is, in the Siberian Khanate, and to build fortified points there, to bring the Siberian peoples into Russian citizenship, collect the "sovereign's tribute" from them G. Krasinsky. Conquest of Siberia and Ivan the Terrible. “Questions of History”, 1947, No. 3. - P. 80-81..

Compliance with certain formalities was necessary because here we were talking about an invasion of foreign territory, and this would inevitably lead to a war with the Siberian Khanate.

But first it was necessary to protect the Stroganovs' possessions from the attacks of the "Siberians".

For this purpose, in 1579, the Stroganovs “summoned” Cossacks from the Volga under the command of Ataman Ermak. Most Siberian chronicles indicate the number of Cossacks at 540 people. Ermak had four chieftains equal to him - Ivan Koltso, Yakov Mikhailov, Nikita Pan, Matvey Meshcheryak. The “Kungur Chronicler” also mentions Ataman Ivan Groza. Atamans commanded units of about 100 people. And Ermak was considered the “eldest” of the atamans. Ermak’s squad had both a military organization and strict discipline A. A. Vvedensky. The Stroganovs, Ermak and the conquest of Siberia. “Historical collection”, No. 2. Kiev State University named after T. G. Shevchenko. Kyiv. 1949..

The Cossacks were engaged in robbery on the Great Volga trade route. There they plundered merchant ships, and before leaving for the Stroganovs they attacked the tsar's ambassador, killed him, and plundered the treasury, cash and gunpowder. The Tsar began to pursue the Cossacks, and they had no choice but to accept the Stroganovs’ proposal to protect their possessions from attacks by the “Siberians.” They repelled enemy attacks quite effectively.

At the same time, preparations were underway for an expedition to Siberia. This preparation was entrusted to Maxim Stroganov, who supplied the Cossacks with food, ammunition, and weapons. The Stroganovs gave Ermak an additional detachment of 300 people, providing them with everything they needed.

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