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Updated: June 21, 2025
The ballads are mostly a recital of the feuds between the Poles and the Tartars, not unlike the Border ballads of Scotland. Their greatest hero is Yermak, who conquered the Mongols, and in the fifteenth century won for the Czars the country that is now called Siberia.
I saw the portrait and bust of Yermak, but no one could assure me of their fidelity. The face was thoroughly Russian, and the lines of character were such as one might expect from the history of the man. He was represented in the suit of armor he wore at his death. The evening after we passed the Irtish, a severe bouran arose. As the night advanced the wind increased.
The success achieved by the handful of Cossacks led several neighboring tribes to offer voluntarily an annual tribute of sable skins. When Yermak had collected several thousand of these skins, he sent a special envoy to Moscow to present them along with the conquered country to the czar.
Tradition tells us that the Stroganof of that date did not relish the presence of his unruly guests, with their free ideas of property rights, and suggested to Yermak that Siberia offered a promising field for a ready sword. He would supply him with food and arms if he saw fit to lead an expedition thither. The suggestion accorded well with Yermak's humor.
After his death his dismayed followers fled from Siberia, yielding it to Tartar hands again. Yermak in his way a rival of Cortez and Pizarro gained by his conquest the highest fame among the Russian people. They exalted him to the level of a hero, and their church has raised him to the rank of a saint, at whose tomb miracles are performed.
The waters in which sank Yermak under his heavy corselet the same waters were carrying toward the unknown the Imperial Family. Though their departure was supposed to be made in secrecy, there was a crowd of people on the pier we tried to chase them away, but they stood there. An ascetic figure was standing on the next pier, lit only by a few lanterns.
There were one hundred and fifty bearded promyshileniks, or fur hunters, and over 500 Aleuts in their skin bidarkas. With him were the ships "Alexander," "Ekaterina," "Yermak," and "Rostislaf." When they reached Sitka they found there Captain Lisianski of the Imperial Russian Navy, with the ship "Neva," one of the first Russians to circle the globe, and who came to help to recapture the post.
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