Only when Yermak's Cossack squad crossed the "Stone Belt" of the Ural Mountains and defeated the Siberian Khanate, one of the last fragments of the Golden Horde, was the foundation of Asian Russia laid. And although the Russian people got acquainted with Siberia long before this event, our ideas about the beginning of Russian Siberia are connected with Ermak and his associates.
After the formidable Siberian Khan Kuchum, one of the royal descendants of Genghis Khan, was "knocked out of the kuren" by a handful of ordinary Cossacks, an unprecedented, swift, grandiose movement began to the east deep into Siberia. In just half a century, the Russian people made their way to the Pacific coast. Thousands of people walked "to meet the sun" through mountain ranges and impenetrable swamps, through impassable forests and boundless tundra, making their way through sea ice and river rapids. It was as if Yermak had broken a hole in the wall that held back the pressure of the colossal forces that had awakened among the people. In Siberia, mobs of people thirsting for freedom, harsh, but infinitely hardy and unrestrainedly courageous people poured into Siberia.
It was incredibly difficult to advance through the gloomy expanses of North Asia with its wild, harsh nature, with a rare, but very warlike population. All the way from the Urals to the Pacific Ocean is marked by numerous unknown graves of explorers and sailors. But the Russian people stubbornly went to Siberia, pushing the boundaries of their Fatherland further and further to the east, transforming this desolate and gloomy land with their labor. The feat of these people is great. In one century, they tripled the territory of the Russian state and laid the foundation for everything that Siberia gives and will give us. Now Siberia is called a part of Asia from the Urals to the mountain ranges of the Okhotsk coast, from the Arctic Ocean to the Mongolian and Kazakh steppes. In the 17th century, the concept of Siberia was more significant and included not only the Ural and Far Eastern lands, but also a significant part of Central Asia.
Map of Siberia by Peter Godunov, 1667
Coming out into the vastness of North Asia, the Russian people entered a country that had been inhabited for a long time. True, it was populated extremely unevenly and poorly. By the end of the XVI century, on an area of 10 million square meters. km inhabited only 200-220 thousand people. This small population, scattered over the taiga and tundra, had its own ancient and complex history, very different in language, economic structure and social development.
By the time the Russians arrived, the only people that had their own statehood were the Tatars of the "Kuchumov kingdom" destroyed by Yermak; some ethnic groups developed patriarchal-feudal relations. Most of the Siberian peoples were found by Russian Cossacks-explorers at various stages of patriarchal-clan relations.
The events of the late 16th century turned out to be a turning point in the historical fate of North Asia. "Kuchum's kingdom", which blocked the closest and most convenient way deep into Siberia, collapsed in 1582 from a daring blow of a small group of Cossacks. Nothing could change the course of events: neither the death of the "Siberian conquistador" Yermak, nor the departure of the remnants of his squad from the capital of the Siberian Khanate, nor the temporary accession of the Tatar rulers to Kashlyk. However, only government troops were able to successfully complete the work begun by the free Cossacks. The Moscow government, realizing that Siberia cannot be seized with one blow, proceeds to tried-and-true tactics. Its essence was to gain a foothold in a new territory, building cities there, and, relying on them, gradually move on. This “urban offensive” strategy soon yielded brilliant results. From 1585, the Russians continued to press the indomitable Kuchum and, having founded many cities, conquered Western Siberia until the end of the 16th century.
In the 20s of the 17th century, Russian people came to the Yenisei. A new page began - the conquest of Eastern Siberia. From the Yenisei deep into Eastern Siberia, Russian explorers advanced swiftly.
In 1627, 40 Cossacks led by Maxim Perfiliev, having reached the Ilim along the Verkhnyaya Tunguska (Angara), took yasak from the neighboring Buryats and Evenks, set up a winter hut and a year later returned to the steppe to Yeniseisk, giving impetus to new campaigns in the northeastern direction. In 1628 Vasily Bugor went to Ilim with 10 Cossacks. The Ilimsky prison was built there, an important stronghold for further advance to the Lena River.
Rumors about the riches of the Lena lands began to attract people from the farthest places. So, from Tomsk to Lena in 1636, a detachment of 50 people was equipped, led by ataman Dmitry Kopylov. These service people, having overcome unheard-of difficulties, in 1639 were the first Russian people to go out into the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.
In 1641, the Cossack foreman Mikhail Stadukhin, equipping a detachment at his own expense, went from Oymyakon down to the mouth of the Indigirka, and then sailed by sea to the Kolyma, securing its annexation by building a stronghold for new campaigns. A detachment of Cossacks of 13 people left in prison, led by Semyon Dezhnev, withstood a brutal attack by the Yukaghir army numbering over 500 people. Following this, the Cossack Semyon Dezhnev took part in the events that immortalized his name. In June 1648, a hundred Cossacks in 7 kochi left the mouth of the Kolyma in search of new lands. Sailing to the east, overcoming inhuman difficulties, they rounded the Chukchi Peninsula and entered the Pacific Ocean, proving the existence of a strait between Asia and America. After that, Dezhnev founded the Anadyr prison.
Having reached the natural limits of the Eurasian continent, the Russian people turned south, which made it possible in the shortest possible time to develop the rich lands of the Okhotsk coast, and then move to Kamchatka. In the 50s, the Cossacks reached Okhotsk, founded earlier by the detachment of Semyon Shelkovnik who came from Yakutsk.
Another route for the development of Eastern Siberia was the southern route, which became more and more important after the Russians were consolidated in the Baikal region, attracting the main flow of immigrants. The beginning of the annexation of these lands was laid by the construction of the Verkholensk prison in 1641. In 1643-1647, thanks to the efforts of the atamans Kurbat Ivanov and Vasily Kolesnikov, most of the Baikal Buryats took Russian citizenship and the Verkhneangarsky prison was built. In subsequent years, Cossack detachments went to Shilka and Selenga, founding the Irgen and Shilkinsky forts, and then another chain of fortresses. The rapid annexation of this region to Russia was facilitated by the desire of the indigenous people to rely on Russian fortresses in the fight against the raids of the Mongol feudal lords. In the same years, a well-equipped detachment led by Vasily Poyarkov made its way to the Amur and went down to the sea along it, clarifying the political situation in the Daurian land. Rumors about the rich lands discovered by Poyarkov spread throughout Eastern Siberia and stirred up hundreds of new people. In 1650, a detachment led by ataman Erofei Khabarov went to the Amur and, being there for 3 years, emerged victorious from all clashes with the local population and defeated a thousand-strong Manchu detachment. The general result of the actions of the Khabarovsk army was the annexation of the Amur region to Russia and the beginning of the mass resettlement of Russian people there. Following the Cossacks, already in the 50s of the 17th century, industrialists and peasants poured into the Amur, who soon made up the majority of the Russian population. By the 80s, despite its border position, the Amur region turned out to be the most populated in the entire Transbaikalia. However, further development of the Amur lands turned out to be impossible due to the aggressive actions of the Manchu feudal lords. Small Russian detachments with the support of the Buryat and Tungus population more than once inflicted defeat on the Manchus and their allied Mongols. The forces, however, were too unequal, and under the terms of the Nerchinsk peace treaty of 1689, the Russians, having defended Transbaikalia, were forced to leave part of the developed territories in the Amur region. The possessions of the Moscow sovereign on the Amur were now limited only to the upper tributaries of the river.
At the end of the 17th century, the beginning of the annexation of vast new lands to Russia in the northern regions of the Far East was laid. In the winter of 1697, a detachment led by the Cossack Pentecostal Vladimir Atlasov set off to Kamchatka from the Anadyr prison on reindeer. The hike lasted 3 years. During this time, the detachment traveled hundreds of kilometers across Kamchatka, defeating a number of clan and tribal associations that resisted it and founding the Verkhnekamchatka prison.
In general, by this time, Russian explorers had collected reliable information about almost all of Siberia. Where on the eve of "Ermakov vytya" European cartographers could only deduce the word "Tartaria", the real outlines of the giant continent began to emerge. Such a huge scale, such speed and energy in the study of new countries has not been known in the history of world geographical discoveries.
Small Cossack detachments passed through most of the Siberian taiga and tundra without encountering serious resistance. Moreover, local residents supplied the Cossack detachments with the main contingent of guides to new lands. This was one of the main reasons for the phenomenally rapid advance of the explorers from the Urals to the Pacific Ocean. The ramified river network of Siberia, which made it possible to move from one river basin to another, up to the Pacific Ocean, favored the successful movement to the east. But overcoming the drags presented great difficulties. This required several days and it was a journey "through great mud, swamps and rivers, and in other places there are drags and mountains, and the forests are dark everywhere." Apart from people, only pack horses and dogs could be used to transport cargo, "and there never is a carriage through the portage for mud and swamps." Due to the lack of water in the upstream rivers, it was necessary to raise the water level with the help of sail and earthen dams or to overload it repeatedly. On many rivers, navigation was hampered by numerous rapids and rifts. But the main difficulty of navigating the northern rivers was determined by the extremely short navigation period, which often forced them to spend the winter in uninhabitable places. The long Siberian winter frightens the inhabitants of European Russia with its frosts even now, while in the 17th century the cold was more severe. The period from the end of the 15th century to the middle of the 19th century is designated by paleogeographers as the "Little Ice Age". However, the hardest trials fell to those who chose the sea routes. The oceans washing Siberia had deserted and inhospitable shores, and strong winds, frequent fogs and a heavy ice regime created extremely difficult navigation conditions. Finally, the short, but hot summer plagued not only heat, but also inconceivably bloodthirsty and numerous hordes of gnats - this scourge of taiga and tundra spaces, capable of driving an unfamiliar person to a frenzy. “Abomination is all the flying filthy filth that devours people and animals day and night in the summer. This is a whole community of bloodsuckers working in shifts, around the clock, all summer. His possessions are immense, his power is limitless. He infuriates horses, drives moose into a swamp. He leads a person into a gloomy, dull bitterness."
Cossacks of Siberian Cossack troops
The picture of the annexation of Siberia will be incomplete if one does not highlight such a factor as armed clashes with the local population. Of course, in most parts of Siberia, resistance to the Russian advance could not be compared with the fighting within the Kuchumov Yurt. In Siberia, Cossacks more often died from hunger and disease than from clashes with the natives. Nevertheless, during armed clashes, Russian explorers had to deal with a strong and experienced enemy in military affairs. Contemporaries were well aware of the warlike inclinations of the Tungus, Yakuts, Yenisei Kirghiz, Buryats and other peoples. They often not only did not shy away from battles, but they themselves challenged the Cossacks. Many Cossacks were killed and wounded at the same time, often for several days they "sat under siege from that self-poison." The Cossacks, possessing firearms, had a great advantage on their side and were clearly aware of it. They were always very worried if the stocks of gunpowder and lead came to an end, realizing that "one cannot be in Siberia without fiery shooting." At the same time, they were instructed "so that the foreigners would not be allowed to examine the squeaky and should not indicate the squeaky fire". Without the monopoly possession of the "fiery battle", the Cossack detachments would not have been able to successfully resist the immeasurably superior military forces of the indigenous Siberian population. Squeaks in the hands of the Cossacks were a formidable weapon, but even a skilled shooter could not make more than 20 shots of them in a whole day of fierce battle. Hence the inevitability of hand-to-hand combat, where the advantage of the Cossacks was nullified by the large number and good weapons of their opponents. With constant wars and raids, the inhabitants of the taiga and tundra were armed from head to foot, and artisans produced excellent cold and protective weapons. The Russian Cossacks especially highly appreciated the weapons and equipment of the Yakut artisans. But the Cossacks had the hardest time in clashes with the nomadic peoples of Southern Siberia. The everyday life of a nomadic cattle breeder made the entire male population of nomads professional warriors, and their natural belligerence made their large, highly mobile and well-armed army an extremely dangerous enemy. A one-time action by the aboriginal population against the Russians would have led not only to a halt in their advance deep into Siberia, but also to the loss of already acquired lands. The government understood this and sent out instructions "to bring foreigners under the sovereign's hand with affection and greetings, as far as possible not to mend fights and fights with them." But the slightest mistake in organizing the expedition in such extreme conditions led to tragic consequences. So during the campaign of V. Poyarkov on the Amur, more than 40 people out of 132 died from hunger and disease in one winter, and the same number died in subsequent skirmishes. Of the 105 people who went with S. Dezhnev around Chukotka, 12 returned. Of the 60 who went on a campaign with V. Atlasov to Kamchatka, 15 survived. There were also completely lost expeditions. Siberia cost the Cossack people dearly.
And with all this, Siberia was traversed by the Cossacks along and across for some half a century. Boggles the mind. There is not enough imagination to realize their grueling feat. Whoever imagines even a little of these great and disastrous distances cannot but suffocate with admiration.
The annexation of the Siberian lands cannot be separated from their active development. This became part of the great process of transformation of Siberian nature by Russian man. At the initial stage of colonization, Russian settlers settled in the winter huts, towns and forts built by the pioneering Cossacks. The knocking of axes is the first thing that the Russian people announced about their settlement in any corner of Siberia. One of the main occupations of those who settled beyond the Urals was fishing, since due to the lack of grain, fish initially became the main food. However, at the first opportunity, the settlers strove to restore the traditional bread and flour basis of food for the Russians. To provide the settlers with bread, the tsarist government massively sent peasants from central Russia to Siberia and made up Cossacks. Their descendants and the Cossack pioneers gave in the future the root of the Siberian (1760), Transbaikal (1851), Amur (1858) and Ussuri (1889) Cossack troops.
The Cossacks, being the main support of the tsarist government in the region, were at the same time the most exploited social group. Being in the conditions of an acute shortage of people, they were extremely busy with military affairs and administrative assignments, they were widely used as a labor force. As a military estate, for the slightest negligence or by evil slander, they suffered from the arbitrariness of local chiefs and governors. As a contemporary wrote: "No one was flogged as often and so zealously as the Cossacks." The answer was the frequent uprisings of the Cossacks and other service people, accompanied by the murders of the hated governors.
Despite all the difficulties in the time allotted to one human life, the vast and richest land has changed radically. By the end of the 17th century, about 200 thousand settlers lived beyond the Urals - about the same number as the aborigines. Siberia emerged from centuries-old isolation and became part of a large centralized state, which led to the end of the communal-clan anarchy and internal strife. The local population, following the example of the Russians, in a short time significantly improved their life and food ration. Extremely rich in natural resources of the land were entrenched for the Russian state. Here it is appropriate to recall the prophetic words of the great Russian scientist and patriot M. V. Lomonosov: "Russian power will grow in Siberia and the Northern Ocean …". And after all, the prophet said this at a time when the initial stage of the development of North Asia had hardly ended.
The history of the Siberian Cossacks in watercolors by Nikolai Nikolaevich Karazin (1842 - 1908)
Yamskaya and escort service in the steppe
Great-great-grandmothers of the Siberian Cossacks. Arrival of the "wives" party
The last Kuchum defeat in 1598. The defeat of the troops of the Siberian Khan Kuchum on the Irmeni River, which flows into the Ob, during which almost all members of his family, as well as many noble and ordinary people were taken prisoner by the Cossacks
Entry of the captive Kuchumov family to Moscow. 1599 g
First half of the 18th century The ceremony of welcoming the Chinese Amban with the caretaker of the military Bukhtarma fishing
Cossacks in the construction of linear fortresses - defensive structures along the Irtysh, erected in the first half of the 17th century.
Explaining the middle Kyrgyz-Kaisak horde
Intelligence of centurion Voloshenin in Semirechye and the Ili valley in 1771
Pugachevshchina in Siberia. The defeat of the congregations of the impostor near Troitsk on May 21, 1774
Fight with the Pugachevites
Anxiety in the serf redoubt
Foreign ancestors of today's Siberian Cossacks. Enrollment in the Cossacks of captured Poles in Napoleon's army, 1813
Siberian Cossacks in the guard.
In the snow
Siberian Cossacks (caravan)
Military Settlement Service of Siberian Cossacks
Without a signature
