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Middle Ages / Re: Medieval Pirates
« Last post by Karl Helweg on April 29, 2020, 03:23:04 PM »
Yermak Timofeyevich
Ерма́к Тимофе́евич, IPA: born between 1532 and 1542 – August 5 or 6, 1585) was a Cossack ataman and is today a hero in Russian folklore and myths. In the reign of Tsar Ivan the Terrible Yermak started the Russian conquest of Siberia.
Yermak worked in the Stroganovs' river fleet as a porter and a sailor transporting salt along the Kama and the Volga rivers. Growing tired of his work, he assembled a gang, left his employment, and moved to the Don region to become a river pirate using flat bottom boats. Among his fellow Cossack bandits, he acquired the nickname Yermak ("mill stone").
Russians' fur-trade interests fueled their desire to expand east into Siberia. The Tatar khanate of Kazan was established as the best entryway into Siberia. In 1552, Ivan the Terrible's modernized army toppled the khanate. After the takeover of Kazan, the tsar looked to the powerful and affluent Stroganov merchant family to spearhead the eastward expansion. In the late 1570s, the Stroganovs recruited Cossack fighters to invade Asia on behalf of the tsar. These Cossacks elected Yermak as the leader of their armed forces, and in 1582 Yermak set out with an army of 840 to attack the Khanate of Sibir.
On October 26, 1582, Yermak and his soldiers overthrew Kuchum Khan's Tatar empire at Qashliq in a battle that marked the "conquest of Siberia". Yermak remained in Siberia and continued his struggle against the Tatars until 1584, when a raid organized by Kuchum Khan ambushed and killed him and his party.
https://24smi.org/celebrity/75097-ermak-timofeevich.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yermak_Timofeyevich
