From the Grand Duchy to the Moscow Kingdom. Guard and village service See what “guard and village service” is in other dictionaries

Simultaneously with the fortified lines, a watchdog And village service, which was the third and very important defensive means. I will describe it as it was sent around 1571, when a special commission was formed to streamline it, chaired by the boyar Prince M.I. Vorotynsky, which drew up the charter for both services. From the forward cities, the second and part of the third defensive line advanced in different directions to well-known observation points watchmen and villages two, four or more mounted warriors, children of boyars and Cossacks, to observe the movements of the Nogai and Crimean Tatars in the steppe, “so that military people would not come to the sovereign’s Ukraine in unknown war.” Observation points were removed from the cities for four days or five days. Before 1571, there were 73 such watchmen and they formed 12 chains, a network stretching from the Sura River to the Seima River and from here turning onto the Vorskla and Northern Donets rivers. The guard posts were separated from each other by a day, more often by half a day's travel, so that constant communication between them was possible. There were watchmen near and far, named after the cities from which they came. Closer to the Oka, in the back row, stood the Dedilovsky, one Epifansky, Mtsensky and Novosilsky guards, to the left of them were the Meshchersky, Shatsky and Ryazhsky, to the right - the Oryol and Karachevsky, to the south, further into the steppe, the Sosensky (along the Bystraya Sosna River), from Yelets and Liven - Don, Rylsk, Putivl and, finally, Donetsk, the farthest. The watchmen had to stand motionless in their places, “without dismounting from their horses,” mainly protecting the river fords, climbs, where the Tatars climbed across rivers in their raids. At the same time, the villagers, two at a time, went around their tracts, the spaces entrusted to their care are six, ten and fifteen miles to the right and left of the observation point. Having noticed the movement of the Tatars, the villagers immediately let the nearby cities know about it, and they themselves, having let the Tatars through, were driving around They reconnoitered the sakmas that the enemy passed through in order to estimate their numbers based on the depth of the horse tracks. A whole system of transmitting steppe news by watchmen and village residents was developed. Captain Margeret says that the watchmen usually stood near large lonely steppe trees, one of them watched from the top of the tree, others fed the saddled horses. Noticing dust on the steppe sakma, the watchman mounted a ready horse and galloped to another guard tree, the watchman of which, barely seeing the galloping, galloped to the third, etc. Thus, the news of the enemy quickly reached the Ukrainian cities and Moscow itself.

Simultaneously with the fortified lines, a watchdog And village service, which was the third and very important defensive means. I will describe it as it was sent around 1571, when a special commission was formed to streamline it, chaired by the boyar Prince M.I. Vorotynsky, which drew up the charter for both services. From the forward cities, the second and part of the third defensive line advanced in different directions to well-known observation points watchmen and villages two, four or more mounted warriors, children of boyars and Cossacks, to observe the movements of the Nogai and Crimean Tatars in the steppe, “so that military people would not come to the sovereign’s Ukraine in unknown war.” Observation points were removed from the cities for four days or five days. Before 1571, there were 73 such watchmen and they formed 12 chains, a network stretching from the Sura River to the Seima River and from here turning onto the Vorskla and Northern Donets rivers. The guard posts were separated from each other by a day, more often by half a day's travel, so that constant communication between them was possible. There were watchmen near and far, named after the cities from which they came. Closer to the Oka, in the back row, stood the Dedilovsky, one Epifansky, Mtsensky and Novosilsky guards, to the left of them were the Meshchersky, Shatsky and Ryazhsky, to the right - the Oryol and Karachevsky, to the south, further into the steppe, the Sosensky (along the Bystraya Sosna River), from Yelets and Liven - Don, Rylsk, Putivl and, finally, Donetsk, the farthest. The watchmen had to stand motionless in their places, “without dismounting from their horses,” mainly protecting the river fords, climbs, where the Tatars climbed across rivers in their raids. At the same time, the villagers, two at a time, went around their tracts, the spaces entrusted to their care are six, ten and fifteen miles to the right and left of the observation point. Having noticed the movement of the Tatars, the villagers immediately let the nearby cities know about it, and they themselves, having let the Tatars through, were driving around They reconnoitered the sakmas that the enemy passed through in order to estimate their numbers based on the depth of the horse tracks. A whole system of transmitting steppe news by watchmen and village residents was developed. Captain Margeret says that the watchmen usually stood near large lonely steppe trees, one of them watched from the top of the tree, others fed the saddled horses. Noticing dust on the steppe sakma, the watchman mounted a ready horse and galloped to another guard tree, the watchman of which, barely seeing the galloping, galloped to the third, etc. Thus, the news of the enemy quickly reached the Ukrainian cities and Moscow itself.

Topic: Formation of a centralized Moscow state and strengthening of its southwestern borders (XV - XVI centuries).

Plan

1. From the Grand Duchy to the Moscow Kingdom.

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3. “Holy Mountains” is the first permanent settlement in the Donetsk region.

From the Grand Duchy to the Moscow Kingdom.

Turn of the XIII–XIV centuries. - a difficult period in Russian history. The Russian lands were terribly devastated by Batu. The Horde's raids did not stop. The country was divided into many specific principalities. Among the new independent principalities that arose after the Mongol-Tatar invasion were Tver (from 1246) and Moscow (from 1276).
Already in the 14th century. The Moscow principality led the unification process, and by the second half of the 15th century. Moscow became the capital of a powerful state.
The formation of the Great Russian people was also completed. She had to fight for her existence in the east, south and west. She was looking for a political center around which she could gather her forces for a difficult fight against her opponents. Moscow became such a center.

In 1480, with Ivan III(1462-1505) the yoke of the Golden Horde was finally overthrown. In 1476, the Moscow prince refused to obey the Horde khan. In the summer of 1480, the Horde Khan Akhmat set out on a campaign against Rus'. The Horde army met with the main forces of the Russians on the Ugra River (a tributary of the Oka). Not daring to give a big battle, Akhmat withdrew his troops. Thus, Rus' was freed from Tatar-Mongol rule that lasted 240 years. Since the foreign yoke was eliminated without a major battle or military campaign, the events of the autumn of 1480 went down in history as the “stand on the Ugra”. At the very beginning of the 16th century, the Golden Horde finally ceased to exist.

After this, the Moscow Principality was able to complete the process of unification of Russian lands. Thus, during the reign of the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III, the territorial core of a unified Russian state was formed, and the formation of its apparatus (Boyar Duma) began. The local government system was liquidated everywhere and Moscow governors (feeders) were installed, and the institution of localism was finally formed.

The most important event was the annexation of Novgorod. In 1471, Ivan III led a campaign against Novgorod. The decisive battle took place on the Shelon River. The Novgorod militia was defeated. Novgorod was finally annexed to Moscow in 1478, and the veche tradition was eliminated. In 1489, the Vyatka lands became part of the Moscow principality, in 1510 Pskov was annexed, in 1514 - Smolensk, in 1521 - the Ryazan principality. The largest country in Europe was formed, which from the end of the 15th century. called Muscovy or Moscow Russia.

At the very beginning of the 16th century (1500-1503), the Chernigov-Starodub and Novgorod-Seversk principalities with Rylsk and Putivl submitted to the Moscow prince. The borders of Russia approached the lower reaches of the Desna and the middle reaches of the Seversky Donets. Since then, the settlement of the territory, which later became known as Sloboda Ukraine, began.

However, hordes of Crimean Tatars and Nogais roamed the territory of what is now Donbass for a long time. The Crimean Khanate remained a dangerous hotbed of aggression. Since 1480, for almost 50 years in a row, hordes of Crimean Tatars invaded the Ukrainian lands. The feudal lords of the Crimean Khanate sought to seize rich booty, captives for sale into slavery, forced the population to pay them tribute, burned and ravaged the cities and villages of Russia and Ukraine.

Having become a vassal of Turkey in 1475, the Crimean Khanate constantly participated in the Russian-Turkish wars on the side of Turkey. The Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks waged a courageous fight against the Crimean Khanate.

At the end of the 16th century, the southern border of the Russian state ran along the Sosna River. Its right bank was not inhabited. From here to the south, all the way to the Sea of ​​Azov, the Wild Field stretched. The Crimean Khan had such a custom. They brought the young heir here and showed him to the other side of the river: there are your enemies. This is how he was pitted against the Russians from childhood.

The settlement of the Wild Field proceeded slowly, in a stubborn struggle with the nomads. To advance south, the Russian state relied on a system of defensive structures called serif lines, or serif lines. They received particular development in the 16th-18th centuries. In 1556, the construction of the Great Zasechnaya Line was completed. At the end of the 30s and 40s of the 17th century, the Belgorod Line was built. To the south of it, in the 80s of the same century, the Izyum serif line was built. They blocked the main routes along which the Tatars raided the central regions of the country - the Muravsky, Izyumsky and Kalmiussky roads (sakmas), coming from the Crimea, and the Nogai road, which came from the Kuban region. In addition to these main routes, the nomads used paths along small rivers, where they advanced in small groups. The Donets was a serious water barrier for them. The Tatars overcame it in certain places known to them by fording. Many Tatar fords, climbs, and transports were known on the Donets. The “Book of the Big Drawing” indicated 11 transportations through the Donets. Within the present Donbass, between the mouths of the Tora and Zherebets rivers, there was a large transport, 15 versts south of the mouth of the river. Bakhmut - Borovskaya transportation, south of the river. Lugan - Tatar. The “Book of the Big Drawing” traces many of the paths along which the Tatars and Nogais passed. The chapter “Painting Izyum roads” says: “And on the right side of the Kalmiyu road there are the upper rivers of Voluyki. And having passed the upper rivers of Voluyki, the Polatova River and the Polatovka River, and Polatova fell into Polatova, and Polatova fell into Voluika above the city of Voluika about 6 versts. And from Polatova and from Polatavka on the right side On the Kalmiyu road there is the river Uraeva and the river Urazova. And from Uraeva and from Urazova to the upper reaches of the Krasnaya river and to the Borovaya river. And the Krasnaya and Borovaya rivers are on the right side of the Kalmiyu road, and both fell to the Donets - Krasnaya below the city of Tsarev about half 60 versts, and Borovaya is below Krasnaya versts from 10. And go to the Donets Seversky down Borovaya, and the Donets goes below Borovaya, about 2 versts. And the Donets goes to the Crimean side, go to Beloye Kolodez. And from Belyy Kolodez up to the Krynka River. And from the Krynka river up to the Miyusu river." The chapter “Painting of the Donets River and rivers and wells, which rivers and wells fell into the Donets River from the Crimean and Nogai sides; and on the Donets there are Tatar transports and climbs in which the Tatars come to Rus'” also deserves attention. It says: “And below the Toru, about 30 versts, the Bakhmutova River fell into the Donets. And below Bakhmutova, about 15 versts, on the Donets, the Borovskaya transportation on the Kalmiyu road. And below the Borovsky transportation from the Crimean side, the Bely Kolodez fell into the Donets, from the transportation of 2 versts. And below the White Well there is another White Well, about 10 versts, and above it is Savin Kurgan. And from the Lower White Well to Lugan, to Nizhnie Rozsoshi, about 50 versts. And below Lugani, the Maloy Luganchik River fell into the Donets, from Lugan about 5 versts."

How did the process of centralization of power take place in the Moscow state? In Europe, the victory of centralization and state citizenship of the population guaranteed the main classes the preservation of their rights and privileges. In Rus', this transition resulted in an increase in their dependence on the supreme power. Not only individual people, but also the population of entire cities turned into grand ducal slaves. Unlike Europe, the status of a city dweller did not make a person free.

It is necessary to note the objective prerequisites for this. The center of Russian statehood became the lands located in the zone of risky agriculture. Low harvests and chronic years of famine forced the majority of the population to engage in agriculture and slowed down the process of separation of crafts from agriculture. Cities and the trade and craft population lacked economic, political power and influence. The cities of Muscovite Rus' were largely administrative and political centers, residences of princes and boyars. This left its mark on the entire subsequent history of Russia. Until the middle of the 19th century. Urban residents did not exceed 10% of the country's population. Under these conditions, the cities submitted to the claims of the princes. At the same time, the townspeople hoped that, with the help of strong state power, political instability and the arbitrariness of appanage princes would be eliminated. In addition, support for the emerging autocracy was due to patriotic feelings: the victory of the Russian army on the Kulikovo Field (1380).

These factors, together with the constant process of colonization of new territories, the grueling struggle with steppe nomads, Byzantine political traditions and Orthodoxy gave rise to a special type of statehood in Russia - autocracy, and determined the specificity of property relations (weakness of the institution of private property in general, traditions of state intervention in the economic life of society , collectivist (communal) forms of peasant ownership of land, left their mark on the Russian national character.

Ivan III, who accepted the title of Grand Duke of “All Rus'” (sometimes he was called “sovereign” and even “tsar”), led the way towards the elimination of the appanage system - a powerful counterweight to autocratic despotism. Ivan III no longer shared power with other appanage princes. He took away inheritances from his brothers and limited their rights, demanding that they submit to him as a sovereign. These changes affected palace life. A magnificent palace ceremony was developed. As a symbol of the establishment of autocracy of the Moscow sovereigns, special signs of grand-ducal power appeared: Monomakh's cap (crown), barmas (royal mantles) and the state emblem - a double-headed eagle. For political (and dynastic) reasons, Ivan III married for a second time the niece of the last emperor of Byzantium, Zoe (Sophia) Paleologus. This strengthened the authority of the authorities and expanded ties with European countries. The ideas of Byzantine-Russian succession and inheritance of imperial (royal) rights by Muscovite sovereigns began to be substantiated more confidently. During the reign of Ivan III's heir, Vasily III, the Pskov monk Philotheus formulated the idea of ​​Moscow as the third Rome.

All successes in “gathering the Russian land” and in creating a new statehood were paid for at the cost of extreme restrictions on personal freedoms.

2.Tasks of strengthening the southwestern borders of the Moscow kingdom. Creation of a watchdog service along the Seversky Donets .

In the context of almost annual attacks by the Tatars, which confronted Muscovy with the problem of preserving statehood and threatened with the physical destruction of a significant part of its population, throughout the 16th-17th centuries. a number of defensive measures are being taken.

At first there were systematic observations of the steppe, later reorganized into a strong line of defense. Gradually, the movement of sedentary life began to move south, which was facilitated by the policies of the Moscow state. Cities such as Kursk (1587), Yelets (1592) began to be repopulated, and new ones were built - Belgorod and Oskol (1598), Valuiki (1599). These cities are already located on the borders of modern Lugansk region.

And yet the presence of fortified cities did not save the southern districts from the destructive attacks of the Tatars. To prevent hostilities, careful observation of vast steppe spaces was required. For this purpose, they were created watchmen - a few horse patrols, consisting mainly of “children of the boyars”, who observed and promptly notified about movements on the “field”. In the early 70s of the 16th century. 73 guards were allocated for border service, which were divided into 12 categories. Each guard included a strip of terrain about forty versts long, or even more, on which a mounted guard (distance) of 3-4 people carried out secret patrol duty, constantly on the move. The guards were not even allowed to stop in the same place twice to cook porridge. The task of the horse patrol (watchmen) was to observe the area without giving anything away. Noticing the approach of the Tatars, one of the sentinels (watchmen) had to gallop to the village that sent him to report on the enemy, and the rest continued observation.

From the 16th century The area “Holy Mountains” on the Seversky Donets is mentioned as a lookout point on the border of Muscovy with the Wild Field, through which the Muscovites were attacked more than once by the Tatars (in the “Notes on Moscow Affairs” of the Austrian ambassador Sigismund Herberstein in 1526, “ warriors whom the sovereign, according to custom, keeps there on guard for the purpose of reconnaissance and deterring Tatar raids… near the Great Perevoz, near the Holy Mountains"; under 1555, the Nikon Chronicle reports: “ How the governors came up Mzha and Kolomak, and a watchman from the Holy Mountains came running to them, and the village resident Lavrenty Koltovsky sent a comrade with him: the king of the Crimean Donets climbed over with many people and went to the Ryazan and Tula Ukraine»).

In accordance with the schedule of the Donetsk watchmen of Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky, the following were installed on the left bank of the Seversky Donets: Kolomatskaya, Obyshkinskaya, Bolykleyskaya, Savvinsko-Izyumskaya, Svyatogorskaya, Bakhmutovskaya and Aidarskaya watchmen, under whose control were the Muravskaya, Izyumskaya and Kalmiusskaya “sakmas”. In 1571, after another Tatar raid, on the orders of Ivan the Terrible, Prince Tyufyakin and clerk Rzhevsky visited here on an inspection trip and installed a border sign in the form of a cross at the source of the Mius. In 1579, the government formed special mobile horse units to patrol the steppe roads from the Mius River to the Samara River.

In the “painting” of Donetsk watchmen “on the patrol of Prince Mikhail Tyufyakin and clerk Matvey Rzhevsky” in 1571, the “5th Svyatogorsk watchman” is mentioned, which is described as follows: “Stand as a watchman on the Svyatogorsk guard on this side of the Donets against the Holy Mountains; and they should move to the right up the Donets to the mouth of Oskol about ten versts, and to the left down the Donets through the Malyi Perevoz highway, and through the Great Perevoz highway and the Torskaya highway and to the mouth of the Toru about thirty versts; and they stand hiding in the bow opposite the Holy Mountains and in other places, moving in more than one place; and run as a watchman with that watchman to Putivl along the Lositskaya road to the top of Mzha and Kolomak. And from Izyumsky, the guards are about twenty versts from the crossing to Svyatogorsk.”

The last major step in strengthening the defensive and village guard service in the 16th century. began the construction in 1599 near the Holy Mountains at the confluence of Oskol and the Donets fortress of Tsareborisov.

From 1571, data has been preserved on the location of the watchmen and the territories they monitored. On the territory of our region and adjacent lands, the location of the watchman was as follows: in the upper reaches of the Aidar, at the mouth of Oskol, at the mouth of the Black Stallion there was a Bakhmutov watchman, "and take care of them to the right up the Donets to the mouth of the Borovaya bottom". According to sources, the southernmost guard in the Severskodonetch region was Aydarskaya, who was abandoned in 1579 because "Great fortresses have arrived."

This is how the Muscovite archers appeared in the Donbass. Twenty years later, the city of Tsarevo-Borisov was built in 1599 by order of Boris Godunov (1598-1605) at the confluence of the Oskol River with the Seversky Donets (burned by the Tatars), until the beginning of the Polish intervention in 1604 and the uprising of Ivan Bolotnikov 1606-1607 gg., served as the coordinating center of the southern Russian border line.

So, by the end of the 16th century. Moscow patrol patrols only reached the Seversk-Donetsk section of the Wild Field, which was called the Crimean Side in documents of that time. The need to monitor this territory has arisen due to the fact that here “...Crimean and Nogai people go to the sovereign Ukraine along the new Kalmius road, and the Donets climb below Aidar and the south of Donetsk Discord.”

One of the features of the guard service was that observation posts extended far into the steppe were located at a sufficient distance from each other for communication. This contributed to the timely receipt of the necessary military-strategic information, as well as the rapid adoption of preventive measures. However, at the beginning of the 17th century. the watchdog service ceased to operate. The Middle Dontsovo region continued to be the sphere of attention of the Crimean Tatars.

Guard and station service

The earliest reports of permanent guards on the steppe border of Rus' date back to 1360. Metropolitan Alexy mentions Moscow guards along the Khopru and the upper reaches of the Don.

The watchmen, which arose under Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich, were patrols that monitored the movements of the Horde on Khoper, the upper Don, Bystraya and Quiet Sosna, and Voronezh. In 1380, shortly before the Battle of Kulikovo with the army of Khan Mamai, the princely warriors even went “under the Horde” to get “tongue”. However, the raids of that time were situational in nature. There could not be a permanent guard service under Dmitry Donskoy, even theoretically; the Moscow state was separated from the Horde by the possessions of the Ryazan, Murom, and Nizhny Novgorod princes.

With the expansion of the borders of the Moscow principality to the south and east, the guards began to turn into lines of posts along the entire southern borders of the state.

In 1472, the border guards met the Great Horde Khan Akhmat at the crossing on the Oka River and exchanged fire with him until the Moscow army approached.

Khan Akhmat, approaching the Oka from Lithuania in 1480, met Moscow patrols everywhere. The tracked movement of the horde ended with “standing on the Ugra”. With the onset of cold weather, the Horde in shame went to their nomadic camps through the possessions of King Casimir. And along the way they robbed all the subjects of their ally they met.

On June 10, 1492, the Moscow villagers caught up with the Horde of the Murza Temes, returning from a raid on Aleksinsky district, between Trudy and Bystraya Sosna, and captured their prisoners.

In 1528, Moscow guards on the Oka River did not allow the “Crimean Sultans” to cross the border.

Of course, there were many cases when steppe inhabitants came “unknown”, that is, suddenly, unnoticed by guards, as, for example, in 1521, but nevertheless the fight against invasions became increasingly organized.

By the end of the reign of Vasily III, guards stood from Alatyr to Rylsk and Putivl. Traveling villagers penetrated the steppe along the Donets and Donets.

In 1540, thanks to timely information received by the governor, the Ryazan prince Mikulinsky came to the aid of the Kashirs, who were attacked by the Crimean “prince” Amin. And the next year, during the invasion of Saip-Girey, the government received a lot of news about his movements. On July 25, the village resident Gabriel arrived in Moscow from Rylsk, having visited the Holy Mountains - the tract at the confluence of Oskol and the Donets. Sluzhily discovered sakmas, from which he concluded that the Crimean army numbered up to 100 thousand people.

In 1552, during the preparations for the attack on Kazan, messengers constantly arrived to Tsar Ivan with news of the Crimean advance - Khan Devlet-Girey was clearly going to disrupt the eastern campaign of the Russian troops.

On June 16, on the way from Kolomenskoye to Ostrov, the tsar met a messenger from the village resident Volzhin, who had visited Aidar. A message was delivered that the Crimeans had crossed the Donets. Then the village resident V. Alexandrov arrived with the news that the steppe inhabitants were heading towards Ryazan. On June 21, a Tula city Cossack galloped up with the message that a Crimean detachment had appeared near Tula. There was nothing to do, the Moscow army was about to go south.

On June 23, two messengers came to the sovereign and reported that the Crimeans and Turks were firing “fiery cannonballs” across Tula, trying to set the city on fire; the Janissaries launched an assault, but were repulsed. The king gave the order to the commanders to cross the Oka and he himself hurried to the crossing at Kashira. However, on June 24, the good news was received that Tula soldiers and townspeople left the city and defeated the Crimeans. On July 1, it became known that the Khan’s army was leaving and had no intention of returning. The villagers who followed him saw that the Crimeans were running away at full speed, covering 60–75 miles a day, abandoning tired horses and looted goods. This made the march to Kazan possible.

In 1555, the tsar established a guard in the lower reaches of the Volga, consisting of archers and Cossacks. They began to guard the transports from the non-peaceful “Yusupov children”, communicating with the guards along the Donets and Don.

In the same year, Tsar Ivan sent governor I. Sheremetev to the south (possibly to unite with the allied Circassians). The Russian army was met on the Donets by the guard Svyatogorsky, and a messenger sent by the village resident L. Koltovsky informed Sheremetev that Khan Devlet-Girey had crossed the Donets and was heading to the “Ukrainians” of Ryazan and Tula. Sheremetev moved behind the Khan's army, destroying the Crimean detachments that had scattered around the area for plunder. In the two-day battle at Fate, the governor was defeated by vastly superior Crimean forces, but the bloodless horde returned to Crimea.

At this time, the Cossack Khopersky regiment was established for guard service until the turbulent 20th century. preserving the banner granted by the king.

In 1556, Cossacks from Ukrainian cities began to penetrate far into the steppes. In March, Ataman Mikhailo Groshev walked from Rylsk to Perekop and brought the captured Crimean languages ​​to the sovereign. By royal decree, governors Daniil Chulkov and Ivan Maltsov went down the Don. Chulkov reached Azov and defeated a Tatar detachment in its vicinity.

In the 1550s management of the guard service was transferred to the responsibility of the Discharge.

For performing this service, people received a salary higher than that of a regimental or city officer, as well as compensation from the treasury for all damages and losses that could happen while traveling. When sent to the steppe, horses, harnesses and weapons were assessed by governors, who entered the assessment in special books. According to these records, compensation was also issued.

The watchmen communicated with each other and thus formed several observation lines that crossed all the steppe roads along which the Crimean Tatars went to Rus'.

The easternmost group of watchmen walked in a convex line from Barysh, a tributary of the Sura, to Lomov, a tributary of the Tsna. The westernmost - along the tributaries of the Vorskla and Donets to the mouth of the Aydar, passing almost in front of the nomadic Crimeans.

In total, before 1571, 73 watchmen were established, which were divided into 12 categories, depending on their removal to the steppe.

People serving on distant guards had to go 400 miles from their home districts. But even further than the guards, the villagers climbed into the field. For example, the first Putivl village crossed through Sula, Psel and Vorskla, traveled through the field along the Muravsky Way to the headwaters of the Vodolagi rivers, then down the Donets to the Holy Mountains, reaching the headwaters of the Samara River. And they returned to Putivl. The path is huge.

“They,” says Bagaliy about the villagers, “mainly had to worry about determining, of course, approximately the number of the enemy, for this they used all sorts of signs. One guard chieftain rode along the Torts River and saw a lot of lights and heard the splashing and neighing of horses... before reaching twenty miles to the Seversky Donets, he saw great dust, and from the looks of it it seemed to him that there were 30,000 enemies. This means that the lights, the snorting and neighing of horses, dust, hoof marks - all this served as signs for the village residents.”

By royal order of January 1, 1571, Prince M. Vorotynsky was appointed head of the guard and village service. As assistants to the elderly governor, Prince Mikhail Tyufyakin, the hero of the steppe war, Dyak Rzhevsky, as an expert on the Crimean border, and the experienced warrior Yuri Bulgakov, an expert on the Nogai border, were given. Tyufyakin and Rzhevsky were sent to inspect the Crimean side. Yuri Bulgakov and Boris Khokhlov examined the Nogai side. After the inspection, they, having studied the existing lists (instructions) of the guard service, began to draw up a new routine.

To help them, the service command called to Moscow the children of boyars, stanitsa heads, stanitsa residents and leaders (guides), those who had repeatedly traveled to the field from Putivl, Rylsk and other border towns.

The assembled warriors had to create such a charter for the border service so that enemies “would not come to the sovereign’s Ukraine in war unknown,” and the villagers and guards would be in exactly those places “where they could guard the military people.”

Having completed the meetings, on February 16, 1571, “according to the Sovereign Tsarev and V. Prince Ivan Vasilyevich of All Russia” decree, the head of the service, together with the boyar children, stanitsa heads and stanitsa residents, pronounced a verdict (decision).

The day of the adoption of the “Boyar verdict on the village and guard service” can rightfully be made a holiday date for Russian border guards.

Instructions were developed for the villages, distant and nearby watchmen: “From which city to which tract it is more convenient and profitable for a village resident to travel and which watchmen and from which cities and how many people to place guards on which.”

Careful paintings of the Donetsk, Putivl, Rylsky, Meshchersky and other watchmen, for example, looked like this: “1st watchman up Oleshanki Udtsky, and move as a watchman to the right on the Muravskaya Highway to Merla to Diakovo fort twenty miles... and run with the news from that watchman with a watchman to Rylesk by a straight road, between Pela and Vorskla.”

After discovering the enemy army, the village and guard heads (chiefs) were supposed to send messengers with news to nearby cities, for transmission along the chain, and themselves to follow the sakmas, that is, the tracks of the enemies.

The nature of the readiness of the border guards was also asked. “And stand as a watchman on guards from the horses without being eaten, changing, and ride through the tracts, changing to the right and to the left, two people at a time, according to the instructions that the governors will give them.”

Measures were taken for covert movement and location on the ground. In particular, it was prescribed not to cook food several times in one place, not to spend the night or take shelter during the day in the same place.

Many of the former guards were replaced by new ones, in accordance with the changes in the Crimean Tatar “routes,” and the places where the villagers were supposed to meet with each other were determined.

The lines of the Donetsk, Rylsky, Putivl guards were strongly pushed forward, to the south, so that now they captured the entire course of the Vorskla to the Dnieper, reached the Samara River, from there they stretched to the Don, to the mouth of the Long Well.

The sentence obliged the children of the boyars, Putivl and Rylsky to serve on the Donetsk guards, in view of the special importance of this line for the protection of Rus' from the Crimean Tatars and Nogais. “And serve from estates and township lands, and from a cash salary, and which lands near the townships in Putivl and Rylesku, and make up those lands with a sentence.”

The Putivl local Sevryuk residents were no longer hired for responsible service due to their negligence.

The verdict of 1571 also provided for the provision of overpaid servicemen. “And if the guards do not have good horses, the governors and the heads of the guards will have good horses, so that the horses they can ride on guard duty will be fearless.”

The watchmen's service was divided into three articles (watches), each of which lasted 6 weeks.

The verdict made it impossible to shift responsibility to the “subcontractors”. “What if the heads or the guards don’t come to them soon, and drive along the sakma yourself, as ordered, without hesitating, and don’t wait for the heads and the guards.”

Special officials appeared - standing heads to control posts and patrols. They themselves sent out villages consisting of children of boyars and city Cossacks.

I will mention only one of the standing heads, Shatsky, who stood on the Don on the “Nogai side”, in Vezhki, above Medveditsa and Khopr. One village from him crossed the Don, went to the upper reaches of the Aidar, a two-day journey, the other - to the mouth of Balykley, a distance of 4 days of travel. The Shatsky head had 120 children of boyars, service Cossacks, Tatars and Mordovians.

By the way, in the midst of the reorganization of the border service, in the summer of 1571, the infamous raid on Moscow by Khan Devlet-Girey occurred, which is why Tyufyakin did not have time to complete his inspection of the guards. However, the reorganized border service soon brought enormous benefits.

In October 1571, preventing the raid, the steppe was scorched, according to instructions, by village troops sent from nine outlying cities.

And during the new campaign of the 120,000-strong Crimean-Turkish horde against Rus' in the summer of 1572, its movement was detected in advance.

Russian border guards met the Crimeans on the Oka. The khan himself admitted in a letter to the Russian Tsar dated August 23 that Russian fortifications surrounded by a moat were waiting for him on the Shore.

The Moscow government managed to transfer forces to the area of ​​advance of the Crimean army in time and inflicted a severe defeat on the enemy in the epoch-making battle of Molodi, which lasted from July 29 to August 2.

Since 1573, it was established that the villages, when meeting, would certainly exchange the information they had collected, and the heads would check whether the villagers had reached the tracts assigned to them.

In February 1574, Nikita Yuryev became the head of the guard service, replacing the deceased Vorotynsky (Kurbsky’s reports that the old prince died from the consequences of torture are not confirmed by any other sources). This year new changes were made to the guard service.

Yuryev laid out the traveling routes of the villagers in such a way that they covered all the old and new routes of the Crimeans and constantly communicated with each other.

Yuryev removed the guards who had become famous among the steppe inhabitants, while others, for example, at the confluence of the Ubla and the Donets, he reinforced with boyar children. He also increased the salaries of servants, “so that people would not be endless and for the benefit of the Sovereign’s cause they would have good horses.” The standing head of the Sejm was transferred here.

In 1575, a fortification was erected on Sosna at the confluence of the Livna, and governor Mikhail Karpov was sent there. The villagers' patrols went further and further into the steppe.

After meetings with village residents, leaders and guards in 1576, a new “adjustment” of the border service took place.

For example, the village heads from the Don, from the mouth of the Tulucheya, were transferred to the mouth of Bogaty Zaton, because their former location became known to the Crimeans and Nogais. The previous rule to send watchmen to the steppe by April 1 was canceled and it was decided to correspond with the real beginning of spring.

At the Putivl and Rylsky guards they now had to serve the townspeople from Rylsk and Novgorod-Seversky for a monetary salary. On the Oryol, Novosilsky, Dedilovsky, Donkovsky, Epifansky, Shatsky and Ryazhsky - to the city Cossacks for a cash salary and land in the settlements. On Temnikovsky - to serving Tatars and Mordovians. On Alatyrsky - to serving Cossacks who are in the department of the Kazan Palace.

Demands were sent to Ukrainian governors and siege leaders - to communicate with each other as often as possible, with important information being brought to the attention of the Sovereign and the Discharge Order, including information about sending guards - who and when.

In 1577, the sovereign made new changes in the order of service. The governor was removed from the mouth of the Livna, since the Donetsk, Oskol and Don standing heads went into the steppe further than the Livna servicemen. The deadlines for sending villages were shortened so as not to cause “unnecessary languor” to the servicemen. Apparently, there was relative calm in the steppe at that time.

Due to the fact that governors sometimes sent people “thin and unarmed” to the “Polish” service, or even out of turn, the Rank began to deal with sending them to service.

To investigate the violations that had occurred, a survey of the “best people” was ordered, those who would not want to bend their hearts and risk their honest name.

What is interesting here is not the fact of possible abuses, but the fact that the authorities quickly find ways to prevent them.

In the detailed lists received by the Discharge, for each warrior all visits to service were shown, how many days he was on the road, for how long he appeared at the place assigned to him, who replaced him and when.

In 1578, the villages, expelled by the standing heads, moved even further to the south. The Putivlskys began to travel along the Orel to the Dnieper to the Dog's Bones, the Ryazanskys - to the Holy Mountains, and the Meshcherskys - down the Don to the Volga crossing, where the road from Crimea to Nogai passed.

The predatory Crimeans, of course, also did not yawn and laid new raid roads. In 1579, the enemy mastered the road running from the Kalmius River along the watershed of the Donets and Don.

Once again the villagers and standing heads gathered in Moscow. Based on the results of the discussion, Yuryev made a decision: to strengthen the forces of the standing heads on Oskol near the mouth of the Ubla and on the Don, near the mouth of Bogaty Zaton. Yuriev arranged the patrol routes in such a way that the new route of the Crimeans would also be under surveillance.

The stanitsa and guard service of nobles and boyar children on the southern outskirts did not exclude service close to home. So, the Putivites and Rylians still had to guard the Russian-Lithuanian border.

A new decree on the service of boyar children was made in 1580. Boyarin Yuriev and clerk Shchelkalov “sentenced” about the Putivl villages - not to take servicemen with estates of less than 100 quarters as riders, “leave those in the regiment”, only people were to be sent to the village service “horsed, young and old.”

The stanitsa service now fell only on people with the appropriate material capabilities.

In 1623, a new charter for the village guard service was issued. Now each village consisted of an ataman, 6 riders and 2 leaders - each had 2 horses and a arquebus. The village, reaching a certain tract, had to leave a “travel memory” there and, returning back, was obliged to meet another village that had come to replace it. The second village took the travel record left by the first and hid its own in a secluded place.

If the village noticed steppe inhabitants or their traces, then it dispatched a couple of people to report to the nearest governor, and the rest had to “check out the real news,” that is, continue monitoring. “So that all sorts of news would be known and military people would not come unknown and do no harm.”

Let's imagine the day of a village worker. It begins with a loaf of bread, quite stale, and a handful of oatmeal mixed with water. Now water the horses in the coastal reeds. The village guard notices a sign on the water. He knows how to read the book of steppes, ravines, rivers, forests. Her writing is a hoof print in the dust, crumpled grass, a broken branch, human excretions, food debris, horse “apples”... Horse hair floats on the water. This means that someone is crossing the river upstream.

One village resident remains with the horses, the other two walk through the reed thickets, the bottom silt gripping their legs. Horses snoring can be heard not far from the shore. The villagers go neck-deep into the water, freeze, and barely 40 fathoms away from them a horde is crossing the river. A horsetail decorated with a horse's tail is visible - the Murza is surrounded by warriors, flat helmets and bekhterets dimly reflect the dawn rays. Each Horde member, sitting on a squat but lively horse, also leads a pack horse, on which there are coils of rope, saddle baskets, bags - everything is ready for the “harvest.” The fragile hands of girls will be tied with this rope, and children torn from the hands of howling mothers will be thrown into saddle baskets. The smell of unwashed bodies can be heard from the Horde. Long-moustached people in short robes and white felt caps lead camels loaded with cannon barrels - these are the soldiers of the Sultan of Tours, the Janissaries. The huge wheels of the cart, loaded with cannonballs and gunpowder, creak. “Chabuk, olan uzun sachly,” the infidels are clearly in a hurry. In the distance, on the right high bank, dust swirls, approaching the crossing it is dark, no less.

The cold penetrates to the bones, it is difficult to stop the chattering of teeth. Someone enters the water, very close, urinates, then drinks. One of the stanitsa’s hands rests on the infidel’s mouth, the other guides the blade of a knife under his beard. The enemy, gurgling, lies on his back and, releasing pink bubbles, begins to slowly sink into the water.

“Kalga is coming, with three darknesses with him,” his partner whispers. “It’s time to go back.”