CHAPTER III
THE CONQUEST OF SIBERIA: ERMAK
I.—CONQUEST AND COLONIZATION. II.—THE STROGANOVS. III.—THE COSSACKS. IV.—ERMAK IN SIBERIA.
I.—Conquest and Colonization.
The word 'Siberia' does not appear in any Russian document until towards the latter half of the fifteenth century, and it was only applied at that time to a portion of the present Government of Tobolsk, occupied, till the sixteenth century, by Tartar Khans. But long before that period the Russians had discovered the road to the highlands of the Ural, and, crossing that chain of mountains, had slowly made their way from the basin of the Piétchora to the basin of the Ob. Even in the eleventh century, the servant of a Novgorod nobleman, called Giouriata Rogovitch, had reached the mountains, and in 1364 an expedition sent out by that enterprising republic got as far as the river. In the following century the Novgorodians were keeping up regular political and commercial intercourse with the Iougra, as the countries west of the Ural were called from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries; and the name was extended, in the fifteenth, to the western slopes of the Ural Mountains. The Iougritchy paid the republic a regular tribute in furs, and even in silver. The metal was probably taken out of some primitive workings, now known as the Finnish mines (Tchoudskiié Kopi), which have quite lately served as a guide to modern prospectors.
After the annexation of Novgorod, the Grand-Dukes of Moscow carried on the work, but impressed it with the military character inherent in their own traditions. In 1472, Perm was conquered; in 1483, an army commanded by Prince Feodor Kourbski, 'the Black,' and by Ivan Ivanovitch Saltyk-Pravine, crossed the Ural, followed the course of the river Tavda, which falls into the Tobol, an affluent of the Irtych, and then that of the Irtych itself, reached Siberia, and penetrated into the basin of the Ob. The Princes of the Iougra and the Vogoula, and the Siberian Prince Latyk, all made their submission, went to Moscow, and agreed to pay tribute to the Grand-Duke, who added the name of Sovereign of the Iougra to his other titles, but was obliged, in the year 1499, though as successfully as on the first occasion, to re-establish himself in possession by force of arms.
The advantages thus gained were by no means commensurate
