Stenka Razin

[corsair91]

Stenka Razin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenka_Razin

Stepan Timofeyevich Razin (1630 – June 16 [O.S. June 6] 1671), known as Stenka Razin was a Cossack leader who led a major uprising against the nobility and tsarist bureaucracy in southern Russia in 1670–1671.

Leader of a robber community established at Panshinskoye, among the marshes between the rivers Tishina and Ilovlya, whence he levied tribute from all vessels passing up and down the Volga.


Razin's first considerable exploit was to destroy the great naval convoy consisting of the treasury barges and the barges of the Patriarch and the wealthy merchants of Moscow.

Razin then sailed down the Volga with a fleet of 35 vessels, capturing the more important forts on his way and devastating the country. At the beginning of 1668, he defeated the voivode (warlord) Yakov Bezobrazov, sent against him from Astrakhan, and in the spring embarked on a predatory expedition (pillaging) into Daghestan and Persia, which lasted for eighteen months.

In July 1669 he annihilated a Persian fleet sent against him.

Accepted a Russian pardon only to then revolt and
captured Tsaritsyn (Now Volograd, previously Stalingrad in WW2).
Pludered the City of Astrakhan located at the mouth of the Volga River on the shore of the Caspian Sea.

Atempted to create a Cossak republic along the whole length of the Volga.
Defeated by the Russians at Simbirsk near the Sviyaga River
and anathematized (excomunicated) by the patriarch of Moscow.
The rebellion was brutality supressed by the Russians.

In 1671, Stepan and his brother Frol Razin were captured at Kagalnik fortress by Cossack elders. They were given over to Tsarist officials in Moscow, and on 6 June 1671, following the announcement of the verdict against him, Stepan Razin was quartered on the scaffold on Bolotnaya Square.


Cossacks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cossacks

The Cossacks,a group of predominantly East Slavic-speaking Orthodox Christian people, who became known as members of democratic, self-governing, semi-military communities, originating in the Pontic steppe (north of the Black Sea).

They inhabited sparsely-populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper,
[date missing] Don, Terek and Ural river basins and played an important role in the historical and cultural development both of Ukraine and of Russia.