Tara: an old Russian outpost

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Tara is a quiet and calm town. But this is now. And 425 years ago, at the end of the 16th century, the founding of a city by the Russian state in the center of the opposing Siberian Khanate was a kind of adventure. In our time, the history of the fortress is being restored bit by bit by archaeologists.

Tara was built by a detachment of Prince Andrei Yeletsky as an outpost, about which the raids of nomads from the southern steppes were supposed to break. Accordingly, it was built very quickly so that the construction did not have time to interfere. On a high hill, the approaches to which were covered by numerous rivers and marshes, the fortress was perfectly integrated into the landscape.

Yeletsky was ordered to build a city of 300, and a prison up to 500 square fathoms. However, this did not seem to have enough time or opportunity. The chronicle notes that “… a small town was built on 42 square fathoms, and the prison was 200 fathoms long and 150 fathoms wide. Inside the prison, there were to be philistine courtyards. But this place was cramped, and many of them, out of need, built up behind the prison."

The fortress was rebuilt according to all the rules. The first description of Tara, made in 1624 by Vasily Tyrkov, tells that the city was surrounded by a fortress wall, consisting of 116 gorodni - wooden log cabins filled with earth, and five towers, one movable octahedral roll-off tower (a roll-off tower - the upper platform, on where the cannons were installed) and two "water" gates facing the Irtysh and Arkarka. The jail defended a high tyn. There were six towers - four with a passable gate and two deaf.

Immediately after the completion of construction, the Russian expeditionary corps began active operations. In March 1595, a detachment of Tobolsk and Tyumen servicemen "with a fire-fighting", reinforced by the Tara Cossacks, made a trip up the Tara River against the villages loyal to Kuchum. Throughout its further history, the Tara garrison also tried to be proactive. And three years later, the problem with Kuchum was finally resolved. A detachment of the Tara governor Andrei Voeikov covered 700 miles across the steppes and swamps in 16 days, crossing many rivers, in pursuit of the retreating khan. On the Irmen River, Kuchum's detachments were defeated. However, the point in the confrontation between the Russians and the steppe inhabitants was not put on this.

For the first century and a half, Tara was precisely a fortress, and its posad appeared only in the 18th century. Throughout the 17th century, the Tara fortress served as "an irresistible stronghold for all former Kuchum ulusniks," says Nikolai Karamzin's History of the Russian State. The forward outpost was regularly reinforced with weapons and military contingent. By the way, there were two governors in Tara - the chief and the junior.

In fact, there were gunmen in the city from its foundation. According to the letter of February 10, 1595, gunners were sent “from Moscow” to “Tara” to “keep an outfit for the campaign against Kuchyum the king”. Voivode Yuri Shakhovskoy, who took over the fortress in June 1627, noted that in the city there were 10 zatinnaya squeaks (that is, serfs intended for shooting "from behind the tyna") with 160 cannonballs on the towers.

In addition, a one-and-a-half copper squeak with 280 iron cores was installed on the rolling tower. As for the Tarsky prison, here on the New Pyatnitskaya, Chatskaya and Borisoglebskaya gate towers, rapid-fire squeaks with 270 cores were also installed, and, in addition, volkones were installed on all four towers. This is how the falconets were called in the Russian manner. One of them, by the way, can be seen in the local museum of local lore.

On the site of the fortress, there is now an administration, a post office, a House of Culture and Lenin Square. However, the foundations of the towers and other artifacts of the former Tara have survived underground. The one that repeatedly withstood raids and sieges, never submitting to the enemy, several times burned out to the ground and was rebuilt anew.

The Tara land keeps a lot: rings with European coats of arms (there were many foreign military specialists in the garrison of the fortress), trade seals, clay children's whistles, Kalmyk arrowheads, bullets … Omsk archaeologist Sergei Tataurov has been excavating here for 12 years.

True, the studied foundations of buildings, wooden sidewalks and the remaining remains of the palisade had to be covered with earth again after the study. But here it would be quite possible to make a real open-air museum. But so far, the seven urban planning horizons of Tara, as archaeologists say, “seven cities lying on top of each other,” are hidden from human eyes.

These excavations have shed light on one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of Tara. After all, a bold adventure with truly grandiose goals, which eventually turned out to be successful, had every chance to end exactly 40 years later. In 1634, Tara was on the verge of death …

Kuchum had sons and grandchildren, who, of course, wanted revenge. They were based on the territory of the modern Novosibirsk region - on an island in the middle of Lake Chany, next to which today fish are invariably traded along the route. From time to time, detachments of the Kuchumovichs appeared in the Irtysh region.

The mutual exchange of courtesies took place with enviable regularity. In 1618, Tsarevich Ishim launched a raid on the Tarsk district together with two Kalmyk tayshes. In response, a campaign was made under the leadership of Alexei Vilyaminov-Vorontsov, as a result of which the ulus of Tsarevich Ishim and Taisha “fought and beat many Kolmak people and took their jones and children, and many camels and horses caught, and on Tara it is full of both horses and camels brought . 17 camels were sent to Tobolsk, and 58 to Tara. But in the fall of 1634, events took a more serious turn.

Moreover, as the "History of Siberia" by Gerhard Miller says, the September visit of the Kalmyks to Tara was preceded by a well-thought-out information preparation. A Tatar came to Tyumen, who said that the Kazakh horde attacked the princes Ablai and Davletkirey, and there would be no raid on the Russian lands from their side.

The misinformation was successful. When the Kalmyks approached Tara on September 12, they were not expected. The steppe dwellers ravaged and burned almost all Russian and Tatar villages around the city and with their booty went into the steppe. And a month later they appeared again and took the fortress under siege. However, the governor, Prince Fyodor Samoilov (two-thirds of the Tara governors were princes. In Moscow, this Siberian outpost was given special importance) turned out to be a far-sighted man: after the September events, he requested military assistance from Tobolsk. So there was someone to meet the guests.

The siege of Tara is figuratively described in an old military story: "I came to the city walls in an armed shining garment and verb to the citizens: Ruin the city and clear the place: we want to roam, this is where our land is." The extract for the report, drawn up in the Siberian order, describes the events of the autumn of 1634 more specifically: “Yes, in 143 October and the 13th day, children came to the Tara city of Kuishins, Onbo a Yanza, and Kuishin Onbo's son-in-law, and with them many military people.

And that de service people and arable peasants and Yurt Tatars left the city for hay and firewood, and those people were snatched away from the city and beaten, and others were hunted down to the city and to the jail … And he was with those Kolmattsk people under the city the battle from morning until evening, and the Kolmak people, having departed from the city, stood 10 miles away …"

Archaeological research in the historical center of Tara made it possible to significantly supplement this laconic description. In 2016, a part of the city adjacent to the fortress wall was excavated. And it turned out that around 1629-1636 there was a fire. Among the burnt huts, archaeologists found bullets and arrowheads.

That is, the Kalmyks managed to set fire to the guarded part of the city. The fortifications burned down, but the steppe inhabitants did not go to the assault - they confined themselves to the full and loot in the villages. And a month later, knowing that the fortress walls were badly damaged, they returned with greater strength. The civilian population suffered again - few managed to hide behind the Tara walls. The steppe inhabitants went to the assault from the direction of Arkarka.

There, at the foot of the fortress wall, archaeologists have collected more than a hundred bullets. They were not embarrassed by the cliff at 8 m. On the floor side, the city was protected by a double line of fortifications - a prison wall with slingshots in front of it and a fortress wall. And from the coastal wall there was only one wall, moreover, damaged by a recent fire. The assault was preceded by archery of the defenders of the wall. Archaeologists found a lot of bullets in a small area of the fort between the Tobolsk prison and the Knyazhnaya fortress towers. This means that the attackers managed to overcome the fortifications in the region of the coastline of the fort. But their successes were limited to this - the Kalmyks could not take any of the towers.

The steppe inhabitants retreated to the Rzhavets stream (a tributary of the Arkarka) about 700 m from the fortress. The defenders of the fortress immediately seized the initiative, staging a sortie. Bullets were also found at this place.

The nomads retreated further 10 miles and set up a camp at the mouth of the Ibeyka River. However, this did not help them: the Tara and Tobolsk servicemen overtook the Kalmyks and finally defeated them. They freed the Russian and Tatar prisoners, captured three hundred horses. The old "Tale of the Cities of Tara and Tyumen" testifies that the Russians did not always succeed in such successful counterattacks. The next year, the steppe inhabitants suddenly appeared near Tyumen, staged a massacre and robbery in the city, took a large full. An attempt to recapture the Tyumen people ended sadly.

But the key Siberian outpost was defended by a military elite, similar to modern special operations forces, and an international elite. Describing the defense of the city, Miller notes the bravery of the Lithuanian captain Andrei Kropotov, the head of the mounted Cossacks Nazar Zhadobsky and the Tatar head of Warrior Dementyev. Tara survived. In subsequent years, the raids of the Kalmyks and other nomads continued, but the tension gradually eased. The last serious campaign of Kuchumovich to the walls of Tara took place in 1667, when "Kuchuk the prince with his thieves with the military men from the Bashkirs" invaded the Tara district and approached the city.

Moreover, in this "fun" time in Tara they managed not only to fight. Few are aware that the Russians first learned about tea thanks to a native of Tara, boyar son Ivan Perfiliev. In 1659, Perfiliev headed the Russian embassy in China. He handed over to the Chinese emperor the letter of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and brought the first ten poods of tea to Russia.

The city of Tara was quite famous. And, undoubtedly, it would have remained so, if not for the notorious Tarsky revolt, when the Tarsk people in 1722 refused to swear in advance to the "still unknown successor" of Peter I and paid dearly for it. And after these events, it was ordered to forget about the Siberian city of Russian military glory.