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At last I can take off my heavy muddy boots, my shabby breeches, and my blue shirt which is shiny with dust and sweat; I can wash and dress like a human being. I am not sitting in a chaise but in a first-class cabin of the steamer Yermak. This change took place ten days ago, and this is how it happened.
The incident is the subject of a bilina, a form of historical poem, in which Yermak says: "I am the robber Hetman of the Don. And now oh orthodox Tsar, I bring you my traitorous head, And with it I bring the Empire of Siberia!
It was to serve as a vast penal colony for crimes against the state. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century it is said one million political exiles have been sent there, and they continue to go at the rate of twenty thousand a year; showing how useful a present was made by the robber Yermak to the "Orthodox Tsar"!
This was readily granted, and from that time onward the Russians steadily pushed on through to the unknown country of the north of Asia, since named after the little town conquered by Yermak, of which scarcely any traces now remain. As early as 1639 they had reached the Pacific under Kupilof.
And the orthodox Tsar will speak He will speak the terrible Ivan, Ha! thou art Yermak, the Hetman of the Don, I pardon thee and thy band, I pardon thee for thy trusty service And I give to the Cossack the glorious and gentle Don as an inheritance." The two Ivans had created a new code of laws, and now there was an ample prison-house for its transgressors! The penal code was frightful.
Turning around, Lubov noticed the captain of the "Yermak," Yefim, coming along the garden path. He had respectfully removed his cap and bowed to her. There was a hopelessly guilty expression on his face and he seemed abashed. Yakov Tarasovich recognized him and, instantly grown alarmed, he cried: "Where are you coming from? What has happened?"
I deal in corn, I run a line of steamers. Have you seen the 'Yermak'? Well, that is my steamer. And yours, too." "It is a very big one," said Foma with a sigh. "Well, I'll buy you a small one while you are small yourself. Shall I?" "Very well," Foma assented, but after a thoughtful silence he again drawled out regretfully: "But I thought you were a robber or a giant."
Yermak went one day to dine with some Tartar chiefs, and was arrayed for the first time in his new store clothes. One tradition says he was treacherously killed by the Tartars on this occasion, and thrown in the river. Another story says he fell in by accident, and the weight of his armor drowned him. A monument at Tobolsk commemorates his deeds.
It was a mere handful of their Kazaks, led by Yermak Timofeevitch, who conquered Siberia, in 1581, under Ivan the Terrible, while engaged in repelling the incursions of the Tatars and wild Siberian tribes on the fortified towns which the Stroganoffs had been authorized to erect on the vast territory at the western foot of the Ural Mountains, conveyed to them by the ancient Tzars.
Among the troops were a corps of six thousand Cossacks commanded by one named Vassili Yermak, who, finding the Tartars an easy prey, determined at first to set up a new kingdom for himself.
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