1571 event in Rus'. Unknown history of Russia: “The Battle of Molodi. Irreversible harm, invaluable benefit

During which the 20,000-strong Russian army completely defeated the 140,000-strong expeditionary force of the Horde khan Devlet Giray, from the height of today’s years can be safely recorded as an event that radically changed the Eurasian map for the next 500 years.

This battle seemed to be woven from prototypes of other battles, more famous and glorified, but by no means more heroic. It had its own “300 Spartans”, and its own “Stalingrad”, and its own “Kursk Bulge”... And, of course, it had its own heroes, of which I would like to highlight the name of the prince, forgotten in school textbooksDmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin , which is worthy to stand next to the names of Pozharsky and Suvorov.

In general, his difficult fate and biography, full of military adventures, is such a gigantic layer of non-fictional “action”, so intricate in its plots, that “The Lord of the Rings” nervously smokes on the sidelines.

The Battle of Youth in general and Prince Khvorostinin were categorically unlucky with the historical moment. The fact is that the prince in 1572 was a real oprichnik, who, in accordance with the general historical concept of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions and the neoliberals that followed him, was supposed to be a weak and vile bastard, capable exclusively and only of “drinking vodka and committing outrages.”

Well, if the facts contradict this concept, then so much the worse for the facts. Historians are generally an interesting people, second in honesty after card sharpers and first - before the oldest profession - in venality.

Well, God is their judge... Although they, God... can do it if they want or if someone pays...

All! "Not a word about dragons!" Let's return to the summer of 1572, when on July 27 the Crimean-Turkish army approached the Oka and began to cross it at the confluence of the Lopasnya River along the Senka Ford (it was along this ford that Dmitry Donskoy led his army on the Kulikovo Field).

Memorial sign near Turovo

The crossing site was guarded by a small guard regiment of “boyar children” under the command of Ivan Shuisky, consisting of only 200 soldiers, although most likely 200 were nobles and officers. Primary sources give a different figure - “With Prince Ivan Petrovich Shuisky: elected 15 people, Koluzhan 200 people, Greater Yaroslavl 430 people, Uglechan 200 people, Likhvintsy 40 people, and from Przemysl 1 person, Lushan and Kineshemtsy 70 people . And in total there are 956 people with Prince Ivan Petrovich.”

Senkin Ford

The entire Nogai vanguard of the Crimean-Turkish army under the command of Tereberdey-Murza attacked this guard (border) detachment. I don’t know who and when will undertake to film this battle, but this theme is no less spiritual and touching in its readiness for self-sacrifice than the feat of the heroes of Brest and the Panfilov heroes.

Almost a thousand is, of course, more than 200, but 300 Spartans, as it turns out, were also not 300 at all and they were defending a mountain road that was extremely advantageous for defense. And here, just imagine: the Central Russian plain, low, muddy banks, not a single height to cling to, and 20 thousand Nogai cavalry on the left, right and behind...

That is, there is no chance. For you personally. But there is a chance to delay the crossing - at least for a day, at least for an hour - and thus allow the main forces to gather somewhere there, while you are being killed here. Aren't you scared, reader? I'm really scared.

I did not find any information in the primary sources about how long this outpost fought. There was no one to help them. Help simply couldn't keep up. There are only meager lines “they did not run”, “they entered the battle”, “they battered the Nogai cavalry so much that in the main battle it took only an auxiliary part”, “they were scattered”...

The chronicles are stingy and laconic: “And when the Crimean Tsar came, two hundred boyar children stood on Senkin’s ferry on this side of the Oka. And Tereberdey Murza with the Nagai Totars came to Senkin’s ferry in the night and defeated those boyar children and took out the fences from the tunnels and crossed to this side of the Oka River.”

So, the direction of the enemy’s movement and the number and location of him in the border battles was revealed. A decision had to be made.

The situation was sad:

— Devlet Giray: 140 thousand Crimean Tatars, Turkish Janissaries and Nogais.

- Vorotynsky and Khvorostinin: about 20 thousand archers, noble cavalry and Livonian German servicemen, 7 thousand German mercenaries, about 5 thousand Cossacks of Mikhail Cherkashenin, and also, possibly, a troop army (militia).

The Russian command positioned the main forces near Kolomna, reliably covering the approaches to Moscow from Ryazan. But it also took into account the possibility of a second invasion of the Tatars from the southwest, from the Ugra region. In this case, the command moved to the extreme right flank in Kaluga the governor of Prince D.I. Khvorostnnin with an advanced regiment. It was this regiment and its commander that were destined to play a key role in all subsequent events. Let's take a closer look at it:

“With Okolnichy with Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin: elected 15 people, Oleksintsy 190 people, Galicians 150 people, Starichan 40 people, Verich 30 people, Medyntsy 95 people, Yaroslavets Malovo 75 people. 118. Derevskie Pyatiny 350 people. 119. And in total there are 945 people with Prince Dmitry Ivanovich.”

"Local army, 16th century"

It was at the head of this army that the guardsman Khvorostinin hurried to the crossings. I hurried to help Shuisky’s guard regiment, but did not have time, and, flying at full speed into the very center of the Khan’s army that had already crossed, which instantly turned it into a partisan detachment, he was forced to solve two unsolvable problems at once:

— How to stop the Khan’s advance towards Moscow, being almost in the middle of the occupation zone?

- What position should we take so that he, the khan, cannot bypass it?

This is where the military leadership talent of the prince, who (think for a moment!) was not yet forty years old, manifested itself. Having let the main forces of the enemy pass by and wait until the column stretched over an indecent distance of 40 versts, Khvorostinin struck from the rear, not allowing them to deploy into battle formations and methodically rolling up the Horde crowding on the narrow road.

"Troops of Ivan the Terrible"

The tactics of the attacks were furious: Khvorostinin’s regiment lined up in a crescent, curved towards the enemy, where squeaky infantry and artillery were located on the flanks, and the center was made up of mobile cavalry and archers. In reserve were the heavily armed local cavalry, the officer corps, the white bones and blue blood of the tsarist army. The center, elongated like an index finger, pounced on the rearguard, smashed and cut through the convoys and also quickly retreated as soon as the guards pulled up.

Enraged by the impudence of the “microbe,” the Khan’s cavalry rushed in pursuit. Now the curved moon turned into a concave sickle, and as soon as the pursuit was pulled inward, the sickle turned into a bag of fire, where fire from all barrels fell on the Horde from three sides - both from the front and from both flanks, literally mowing down the attacking columns.

The defeat was completed by the heavily armed local cavalry, pointedly impaling on long three-meter peaks the proud children of the steppes, who with their weapons could not even reach the horse muzzles of the Russian cavalry.

"Russian local cavalry"

Concentratedly cutting down the rearguard and smashing the khan's rear, Khvorostinin "pressed" the Crimean guard regiment all the way to the khan's headquarters. Almost having been captured together with his headquarters by an arrogant oprichnina Muscovite, having lost almost all of his convoys in a short day of work, the khan was offended and stopped. It was necessary to whistle the vanguard, which had already almost reached the gates of Moscow, to strengthen it with elite cavalry, in a word, to turn the hundred-thousandth army 180 degrees from the march. One hundred thousand is serious. Braking time and stopping distance are like those of an ocean liner.

While all this was resting, crowding and unfolding, not understanding what was happening, Devlet I was forced to throw to the aid of his sons, who commanded the rearguard, his entire reserve - a full-blooded cavalry division - 12 thousand Crimean with the remnants of Nogai horsemen attached to them. The game quickly moved into the middlegame.

“We’ll tell them now!” — the steppe lava unfolded, ten times wider along the front than Khvorostinin’s considerably thinned “battalion.” “Kyg-smoke-tym-tym” came in response from the place where the Moscow army had just stood. Prince Dmitry Ivanovich, finding himself alone with the entire Khan’s cavalry, led his soldiers away from a suicidal confrontation with it, making an elegant “knight’s move”, as a result of which, past the walls of the Gulyai-city of Prince Baratynsky, which was already ready for battle, Dmitry first marched in front Ivanovich Khvorostinin and those accompanying him, and then the Khan’s cavalrymen, joyfully catching up with him, pulled up.

Walk-city

Walk-city - these are fortified carts with loopholes. In fact, it is a mobile fortress. One cart - 6 loopholes, behind each of which were hidden these beauties, spitting out up to two pounds (about a kilogram) of various nasty things once every three minutes. And so, past the front of such a walk-city, which consisted of 40 carts (240 loopholes), Khvorostinin dragged behind him the members of his fan club from the elite Khan’s cavalry, steamed from catching up.

2-pound arquebus

"Badaboom!" - said the fortress, when the first ranks of the Devletov cavalry confidently pulled into the narrow strip between the hill on which the fortress stood and the Rozhaika River. “Trah-tibidoh-tibidoh,” answered the rifle regiment standing in ambush at the foot of the hill in unison from three thousand hand-held arquebuses.

"The archers are firing quickly"

Half a ton of lead, evenly distributed over a close cavalry formation, is a lot, even if the formation consists of 20 thousand brave warriors. The squeak bullet easily penetrates two people and only gets stuck in the third. A volley of more than four thousand guns swept the cavalry pursuing Khvorostinin into the Rozhaika River like flies.

The remnants of the pursuers, returning to the khan, said something incoherent about Shaitan-arba, an idiot boss and complained about the absence modern systems communications, GPS navigators and drones necessary for preliminary reconnaissance of the battlefield.

For two days (!) Devlet 1st changed diapers and aired the trousers of his extremely unsuccessfully fought cavalry, and brought the rest of the, already pretty battered, expeditionary force to its senses. And on the dominant heights, politically incorrect Moscow regiments brazenly entrenched themselves and periodically fired in his direction, waiting for the khan to continue moving and be forced to expose his rear and convoys.

One could forget about any movement towards Moscow with such hemorrhoids on the back of the back. But now (oh God Damned!), in order to even return home, it was necessary to somehow get past this enraged Moska, who had tightly clung to the elephant’s leg and locked him between the village of Molodi and Moscow. And the khan decided to go all-in.

Endgame

The cavalry dismounted and strengthened the already considerable power of the infantry regiments. A curiosity for the local public - the ferocious Janissaries - were put forward in the first ranks of the attackers. Even the cooks and masseurs came into action. It seems that Devlet wanted to literally manually move the hated fortress-light along with its defenders somewhere away from his eyes.

"The Janissaries are attacking"

The ferocity with which the Khan’s army hammered the Russian defense can be compared with Battle of Kursk, when the parties understood perfectly well - “it’s either pan or bust”! The denouement came on the third day of the assault, when, carried away by such a close “well, just a little more and we will break them!” Khan missed another “surprise”.

“Taking advantage of the fact that the enemy concentrated on one side of the hill and was carried away by attacks, Prince Vorotynsky undertook a bold maneuver. Having waited until the main forces of the Crimeans and Janissaries were drawn into a bloody battle for Gulyai-Gorod, he quietly led a large regiment out of the fortification, led it through a ravine and struck the Tatars in the rear. At the same time, accompanied by powerful volleys of cannons, Khvorostinin’s warriors made a sortie from behind the walls of the city. Unable to withstand the double blow, the Tatars and Turks fled, abandoning their weapons, carts and property.

"The Russians are attacking"

The losses were enormous - all seven thousand Janissaries, most of the Crimean Murzas, as well as the son, grandson and son-in-law of Devlet Giray himself died. Many high Crimean dignitaries were captured.

During the pursuit of the foot Crimeans to the crossing of the Oka River, most of those who fled were killed, as well as another 5,000-strong Crimean rearguard left to guard the crossing. No more than 10 thousand soldiers returned to Crimea..."

Monument to the Battle of Molodi

The Youth Battle is ignored by school textbooks and is not favored by writers and filmmakers, but every year history reenactors and people who sympathize with them gather at this place. If you pass the village of Troitskoye, Chekhov district, stop by and bow to the modest monument on the very spot where another bold cross was placed on yet another attempt to multiply the Russian state by zero.

Not the first and not the last...

In terms of its significance, the Battle of Molodi is comparable to Kulikovo and other key battles in Russian history. Victory in the battle allowed Russia to maintain its independence and became a turning point in the confrontation between the Russian kingdom and the Crimean Khanate, which abandoned its claims to the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates and henceforth lost most of its power. The Battle of Molodin is the result of the longest military campaign of Turkish troops in Europe.

The battle took place between July 29 and August 2, 1572, 50 versts south of Moscow, in which Russian troops under the leadership of the governor Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky and the army of the Crimean Khan Devlet I Giray, which included, in addition to the Crimean troops themselves, Turkish and Nogai detachments, came together in battle. Despite the significant numerical superiority, the Turkish-Crimean army was put to flight and almost completely killed.

Background. The campaign of the Crimean Tatars of 1571 and the burning of Moscow

With the support of the Ottoman Empire and in agreement with the newly formed Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Crimean Khan Devlet Giray in May 1571, with an army of 40 thousand, made a devastating campaign against Russian lands. Having bypassed, with the help of defectors, the abatis lines on the southern outskirts of the Russian kingdom (a chain of fortifications called the “belt” Holy Mother of God"), he reached Moscow and set fire to its suburbs. The city, built mainly of wood, was almost completely burned down, with the exception of stone Kremlin. The number of victims and those taken captive is very difficult to determine, but, according to various historians, it is in the tens of thousands. After the fire of Moscow, Ivan IV, who had previously left the city, offered to return the Astrakhan Khanate and was almost ready to negotiate the return of Kazan, and also tore down fortifications in the North Caucasus.

However, Devlet Giray was sure that Rus' would not recover from such a blow and could itself become an easy prey, moreover, famine and a plague epidemic reigned within its borders. In his opinion, all that remained was to strike the final blow. For the entire year after the campaign against Moscow, he was engaged in forming a new, much larger army. The Ottoman Empire provided active support, providing him with several thousand soldiers, including 7 thousand selected Janissaries. He managed to gather about 80 thousand people from the Crimean Tatars and Nogais. Possessing a huge army at that time, Devlet Giray moved towards Moscow. The Crimean Khan repeatedly stated that he was “going to Moscow to rule.” The lands of Muscovite Rus' were already divided in advance between the Crimean Murzas. The invasion of the Crimean army, as well as Batu’s campaigns of conquest, raised the acute question of the existence of an independent Russian state.

Campaign of the Crimean Tatars of 1572

In 1572, the Moscow state was devastated by famine (a consequence of crop failures caused by drought and cold), and the plague epidemic continued. In the Livonian War, the Russian army suffered a heavy defeat near Revel; most of the troops were in the Baltic states and on other western borders. The Russian capital seemed like easy prey to the Crimeans. Its old fortifications were destroyed by fire, and new ones, hastily erected, could not completely replace them. Military failures shook Russian rule in the Volga and Caspian regions.

3a with the backs of the Crimeans stood the largest in Europe military power- Ottoman Empire. In such a situation, the khan hoped not only to tear away the Middle and Southern Volga region from Russia, but also to capture Moscow and thereby restore Rus'’s long-standing dependence on the Tatars. On the eve of the invasion, Devlet I ordered the counties and cities of Russia to be painted between the Murzas. The Turkish Sultan sent a large detachment of Janissaries to Crimea to participate in the conquest of Rus'. Many Adyghe princes from the North Caucasus became allies of the Crimean Khan.

In anticipation of a new invasion, by May 1572, the Russians had gathered on the southern border a united oprichnina and zemstvo army of approximately 12,000 nobles, 2,035 archers, and 3,800 Cossacks of Ataman Mikhail Cherkashin. Together with the militias of the northern cities, the army numbered a little more than 20 thousand people. At the head of the army were the governor, Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky, and the oprichnina governor, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin.

The Crimeans had a numerical superiority on their side. The invasion involved from 40 to 50 thousand horsemen from the Crimean army, the Greater and Lesser Nogai hordes, and up to 7 thousand Turkish Janissaries. Khan had Turkish artillery at his disposal.

The Russian command positioned the main forces near Kolomna, covering the approaches to Moscow from Ryazan. But it also took into account the possibility of a second invasion from the southwest, from the Ugra region. In this case, the command moved the advanced regiment of Prince Khvorostinin to the extreme right flank in Kaluga. Contrary to tradition, the advanced regiment was superior in numbers to the regiment of the right and left hands. Khvorostinin was assigned a mobile river detachment to defend the crossings across the Oka. Ivan the Terrible himself, as last year, left Moscow, this time towards Veliky Novgorod.

The invasion began on July 23, 1572. The mobile Nogai cavalry rushed to Tula and on the third day tried to cross the Oka River above Serpukhov, but was repulsed from the crossing by a Russian guard regiment. Meanwhile, the khan and his entire army reached the main Serpukhov crossings across the Oka. Russian commanders were waiting for the enemy across the Oka River in heavily fortified positions.

Having encountered strong Russian defenses, Devlet I resumed the attack in the area of ​​​​Senkin Ford above Serpukhov. On the night of July 28, the Nogai cavalry dispersed two hundred nobles guarding the ford and captured the crossings. Developing the offensive, the Nogais went far to the north overnight. In the morning, Prince Khvorostinin and the advanced regiment arrived at the crossing point. But, faced with the main forces of the Crimean army, he avoided battle. Soon the regiment right hand tried to intercept the attackers in the upper reaches of the Nara River, but was repulsed. Devlet I Giray went to the rear of the Russian army and began to move unhindered towards Moscow along the Serpukhov road. The rearguards were commanded by the sons of the khan with numerous and selected cavalry. The leading Russian regiment followed the Crimean princes, waiting for an opportune moment.

Before the battle

This time the Khan's campaign was incomparably more serious than an ordinary raid. On July 27, the Crimean-Turkish army approached the Oka and began to cross it in two places - at the confluence of the Lopasny River into it along the Senkin Ford, and upstream from Serpukhov. The first crossing point was guarded by a small guard regiment of “children of the boyars” under the command of Ivan Shuisky, consisting of only 200 soldiers. The Nogai vanguard of the Crimean-Turkish army under the command of Tereberdey-Murza fell upon him. The detachment did not take flight, but entered into an unequal battle, but was scattered, however, managing to inflict great damage on the Crimeans. After this, Tereberdey-Murza’s detachment reached the outskirts of modern Podolsk near the Pakhra River and, having cut all the roads leading to Moscow, stopped waiting for the main forces.

The main positions of the Russian troops were near Serpukhov. Gulyai-Gorod consisted of half-a-log shields the size of a log house wall, mounted on carts, with loopholes for shooting, and arranged in a circle or in a line. Russian soldiers were armed with arquebuses and cannons. To distract, Devlet Giray sent a detachment of two thousand against Serpukhov, while he himself with the main forces crossed the Oka River in a more remote place near the village of Drakino, where he encountered the regiment of governor Nikita Romanovich Odoevsky, who was defeated in a difficult battle. After this, the main army moved towards Moscow, and Vorotynsky, having removed his troops from coastal positions, moved after him. This was a risky tactic, since all hope was placed on the fact that by “grabbing the tail” of the Crimean army, the Russians would force the khan to turn around for battle and not go to defenseless Moscow. However, the alternative was to overtake the Khan along a side route, which had little chance of success. In addition, there was the experience of the previous year, when the governor Ivan Belsky managed to arrive in Moscow before the Crimeans, but could not prevent it from being set on fire.

Strengths of the parties

Devlet Giray: 140 thousand Crimean Tatars, Turkish Janissaries and Nogais
Vorotynsky and Khvorostinin: about 20 thousand archers, Cossacks, noble cavalry and Livonian German servicemen, 7 thousand German mercenaries, about 5 thousand M. Cherkashenin’s Cossacks, as well as possibly a troop army (militia)

Progress of the battle

The battle took place near the village of Molodi, 45 versts from Moscow. The Crimeans could not withstand the blow and fled. Khvorostinin “dominated” the Crimean guard regiment all the way to the Khan’s headquarters. Devlet I was forced to send 12 thousand Crimean and Nogai horsemen to help his sons. The battle grew, and the chief governor, Vorotynsky, in anticipation of an attack, ordered the installation of a mobile fortress - a “walk-city” near Molodya. A large regiment of Russians took refuge behind the walls of the fortress.

The multiple superiority of the enemy forces forced Khvorostinin to retreat. But at the same time he pulled off a brilliant maneuver. His regiment, retreating, carried the Crimeans to the walls of the “walk-city”. Volleys of Russian cannons fired at point-blank range brought devastation to the ranks of the advancing cavalry and forced them to turn back.

During the day, most of the Crimean army stood behind Pakhra, and then turned back to Molodi. The center of the Russian defensive positions was a hill, on top of which stood the “Walk-Gorod”. At the foot of the hill behind the Rozhai River, 3 thousand archers stood to support the governor “on the arquebuses.”

The Crimeans quickly covered the distance from Pakhra to Rozhai and attacked the Russian positions in their entire mass. Every single one of the archers died on the battlefield, but the warriors entrenched in the “walk-city” repelled the cavalry attacks. The attackers suffered heavy losses, but food supplies in the “walk-city” also dried up.

After a two-day lull, Devlet I Giray resumed the assault on the “walk-city” on August 2. Towards the end of the day, when the onslaught began to weaken, Voivode M.I. Vorotynsky with his regiments left the “walk-city” and, moving along the bottom of the ravine behind the fortifications, secretly went to the rear of the attackers. The defense of the “walk-city” was entrusted to Prince D.I. Khvorostinin, who had all the artillery and a small detachment of German mercenaries at his disposal. At the agreed signal, Khvorostinin fired a salvo from all guns, then “climbed out” of the fortress and attacked the enemy. At the same moment, Vorotynsky’s regiments attacked the Crimeans from the rear. The Crimeans could not withstand the blow and began to flee. Many of them were killed and captured. Among those killed was the khan's son. The next day, the Russians continued to pursue the enemy and defeated the rearguards left by the khan on the Oka.

Forbidden Victory

Exactly four hundred and thirty years ago, the greatest battle of Christian civilization took place, which determined the future of the Eurasian continent, if not the entire planet, for many, many centuries to come. Almost two hundred thousand people fought in a bloody six-day battle, proving with their courage and dedication the right to exist for many peoples at once. More than a hundred thousand people paid with their lives to resolve this dispute, and only thanks to the victory of our ancestors we now live in the world that we are accustomed to seeing around us. In this battle, not just the fate of Rus' and the countries of Europe was decided - it was about the fate of the entire European civilization.

But ask anyone educated person: What does he know about the battle that took place in 1572? And practically no one except professional historians will be able to answer you a word. Why? Because this victory was won by the “wrong” ruler, the “wrong” army and the “wrong” people. Four centuries have already passed since this victory simply prohibited.

History as it is

Before talking about the battle itself, we should probably remember what Europe looked like in the little-known 16th century. And since the length of the journal article forces us to be brief, only one thing can be said: in the 16th century, there were no full-fledged states in Europe except the Ottoman Empire. In any case, it makes no sense to even roughly compare the dwarf formations that called themselves kingdoms and counties with this huge empire.

In fact, only frenzied Western European propaganda can explain the fact that we imagine the Turks as dirty, stupid savages, wave after wave rolling over the valiant knightly troops and winning solely due to their numbers. Everything was exactly the opposite: perfectly trained, disciplined, brave Ottoman warriors step by step they pushed back scattered, poorly armed formations, developing more and more “wild” lands for the empire. By the end of the fifteenth century, Bulgaria belonged to them on the European continent, by the beginning of the 16th century - Greece and Serbia, by the middle of the century the border had moved to Vienna, the Turks took Hungary, Moldova, the famous Transylvania under their control, started a war for Malta, devastated the coasts of Spain and Italy .

Firstly, the Turks were not “dirty”. Unlike Europeans, who at that time were unfamiliar with even the basics of personal hygiene, subjects of the Ottoman Empire were obliged, according to the requirements of the Koran, to at least perform ritual ablutions before each prayer.

Secondly, the Turks were true Muslims - that is, people who were initially confident in their spiritual superiority, and therefore extremely tolerant. In the conquered territories, as far as possible, they tried to preserve local customs so as not to destroy existing social relations. The Ottomans were not interested in whether the new subjects were Muslims, or Christians, or Jews, or whether they were Arabs, Greeks, Serbs, Albanians, Italians, Iranians or Tatars. The main thing is that they continue to work quietly and pay taxes regularly. State system rule was built on a combination of Arab, Seljuk and Byzantine customs and traditions. The most striking example of distinguishing Islamic pragmatism and religious tolerance from European savagery is the story of the 100,000 Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 and willingly accepted into citizenship by Sultan Bayezid. The Catholics received moral satisfaction by dealing with the “killers of Christ,” and the Ottomans received significant revenues to the treasury from new, far from poor, settlers.

Thirdly, the Ottoman Empire was far ahead of its northern neighbors in the technology of producing weapons and armor. It was the Turks, and not the Europeans, who suppressed the enemy with artillery fire, and it was the Ottomans who actively supplied their troops, fortresses and ships with cannon barrels. As an example of the power of Ottoman weapons, we can cite 20 bombards with a caliber from 60 to 90 centimeters and weighing up to 35 tons, which at the end of the 6th century were put on combat duty in the forts that defended the Dardanelles, and stood there until the beginning of the 20th century! And not just standing ones - at the beginning of the 19th century, in 1807, they quite successfully crushed the brand new English ships Windsor Castle and Active, which were trying to break through the strait. I repeat: the guns represented a real fighting force even three centuries after their manufacture. In the 16th century, they could easily be considered a real superweapon. And the aforementioned bombards were manufactured in the very years when Nicollo Macchiavelli carefully wrote out the following words in his treatise “The Prince”: “It is better to let the enemy blind himself than to search for him, not seeing anything because of the gunpowder smoke,” denying any benefit from using guns in military campaigns.

Fourthly, the Turks had the most advanced regular professional army for their time. Its backbone was the so-called “Janissary Corps”. In the 16th century, it was almost entirely formed from boys bought or captured, who were legally slaves of the Sultan. All of them underwent high-quality military training, received good weapons and turned into the best infantry that ever existed in Europe and the Mediterranean region. The strength of the corps reached 100,000 people. In addition, the empire had a completely modern feudal cavalry, which was formed from sipahis - owners of land plots. Military leaders awarded valiant and worthy soldiers in all newly annexed regions with similar allotments, “timars,” thanks to which the size and combat effectiveness of the army continuously increased. And if we also remember that the rulers who fell into vassal dependence on the Magnificent Porte were obliged, by order of the Sultan, to bring their armies for general campaigns, it becomes clear that the Ottoman Empire could simultaneously put on the battlefield no less than half a million well-trained warriors - much more than there were troops in all of Europe combined.

In light of all of the above, it becomes clear why, at the mere mention of the Turks, medieval kings broke into a cold sweat, knights grabbed their weapons and turned their heads in fear, and babies in their cradles began to cry and call for their mother. Any more or less thinking man could confidently predict that in a hundred years the entire inhabited world would belong to the Turkish Sultan, and complain that the advance of the Ottomans to the north was held back not by the courage of the defenders of the Balkans, but by the desire of the Ottomans, first of all, to take possession of the much richer lands of Asia, to conquer the ancient countries of the Middle East. East. And, it must be said, the Ottoman Empire achieved this by expanding its borders from the Caspian Sea, Persia and the Persian Gulf and almost to the Atlantic Ocean itself (the western lands of the empire were modern Algeria).

It should also be mentioned a very important fact, for some reason unknown to many professional historians: starting from 1475, the Crimean Khanate was part of the Ottoman Empire, the Crimean Khan was appointed and removed by the Sultan's firman, brought his troops on the orders of the Magnificent Porte, or began military operations against whom some of the neighbors on orders from Istanbul; there was a sultan's governor on the Crimean peninsula, and Turkish garrisons were stationed in several cities.

In addition, the Kazan and Astrakhan Khanates were considered to be under the patronage of the empire, as states of co-religionists, moreover, regularly supplying slaves for numerous military galleys and mines, as well as concubines for harems...

Golden Age of Russia

Oddly enough, few people now imagine what Rus' was like in the 16th century - especially people who have thoroughly studied history high school. I must say that it contains much more fiction than real information, and therefore anyone to modern man You should know a few basic, supporting facts that allow you to understand the worldview of our ancestors.

First of all, in 16th-century Rus', slavery practically did not exist. Every person born in Russian lands was initially free and equal with everyone else. Serfdom of that time is now called a land lease agreement with all the ensuing consequences: you cannot leave until you have paid the owner of the land for its use. And that's all... There was no hereditary serfdom (it was introduced by the cathedral code of 1649), and the son of a serf was a free man until he decided to take a land plot for himself.

There were no European savages like the nobility’s right to punish and pardon on the first night, or simply driving around with weapons, scaring ordinary citizens and starting quarrels. In the legal code of 1497, only two categories of the population are generally recognized: servicemen people and non-service. Otherwise, everyone is equal before the law, regardless of origin.

Service in the army was absolutely voluntary, although, of course, hereditary and lifelong. If you want, serve, if you don’t want, don’t serve. Sign the estate over to the treasury, and you’re free. It should be mentioned here that the concept of infantry was completely absent in the Russian army. The warrior went out on a campaign on two or three horses - including the archers, who dismounted only immediately before the battle.

In general, war was a permanent state of the then Rus': its southern and eastern borders were constantly torn by the predatory raids of the Tatars, the western borders were disturbed by the Slavic brothers of the Principality of Lithuania, who for many centuries disputed with Moscow the right of primacy to the heritage of Kievan Rus. Depending on military successes, the western border constantly moved first in one direction or the other, and eastern neighbors they either pacified or tried to appease with gifts after yet another defeat. From the south, some protection was provided by the so-called Wild Field - the southern Russian steppes, completely depopulated as a result of continuous raids by the Crimean Tatars. In order to attack Rus', the subjects of the Ottoman Empire needed to make a long journey, and they, being lazy and practical people, preferred to plunder either the tribes of the North Caucasus, or Lithuania and Moldova.

Ivan IV

It was in this Rus', in 1533, that the son of Vasily III, Ivan, reigned. However, he reigned - this is too strong a word. At the time of his accession to the throne, Ivan was only three years old, and it would be a stretch to call his childhood happy. At the age of seven, his mother was poisoned, after which the man whom he considered his father was literally killed before his eyes, his favorite nannies were dispersed, everyone he liked in the slightest was either destroyed or sent out of sight. In the palace he was in a position watchdog: either they were taken out to the chambers, showing the “beloved prince” to the foreigners, or they kicked everyone who felt like it. It got to the point that they forgot to feed the future king for whole days. Everything was going to the point that before he came of age, he would simply be slaughtered in order to preserve an era of anarchy in the country, but the sovereign survived. And he not only survived, but became the greatest ruler in the entire history of Rus'. And what is most striking is that Ivan IV did not become embittered and did not take revenge for past humiliations. His reign turned out to be perhaps the most humane in the entire history of our country.

The last statement is by no means a reservation. Unfortunately, everything that is usually told about Ivan the Terrible ranges from “complete nonsense” to “outright lies.” “Complete nonsense” includes the “testimony” of the famous expert on Rus', the Englishman Jerome Horsey, his “Notes on Russia”, which states that in the winter of 1570 the guardsmen killed 700,000 (seven hundred thousand) inhabitants in Novgorod, out of the total population of this city at thirty thousand. To “outright lies” - evidence of the tsar’s cruelty. For example, looking at the well-known encyclopedia “Brockhaus and Efron”, in the article about Andrei Kurbsky, anyone can read that, angry at the prince, “the Terrible could only cite the fact of betrayal and violation of the kiss of the cross as justification for his rage...”. What nonsense! That is, the prince betrayed the Fatherland twice, was caught, but was not hanged on an aspen, but kissed the cross, swore by Christ God that he would not do it again, was forgiven, betrayed him again... However, with all this, they are trying to blame the Tsar for the wrong thing , that he did not punish the traitor, but that he continues to hate the degenerate who brings Polish troops to Rus' and sheds the blood of Russian people.

To the deepest regret of the “Ivan-haters,” in the 16th century in Rus' there was a written language, a custom of commemorating the dead and synodniks, which were preserved along with memorial records. Alas, with all the efforts to the conscience of Ivan the Terrible, during his entire fifty years of rule, no more than 4,000 deaths can be attributed. This is probably a lot, even if we take into account that the majority honestly earned their execution through treason and perjury. However, during the same years, in neighboring Europe, more than 3,000 Huguenots were slaughtered in Paris in one night, and in the rest of the country, more than 30,000 were slaughtered in just two weeks. In England, by order of Henry VIII, 72,000 people were hanged for being beggars. In the Netherlands during the revolution, the number of corpses exceeded 100,000... No, Russia is far from European civilization.

By the way, according to the suspicion of many historians, the story about the ruin of Novgorod is blatantly copied from the assault and ruin of Liege by the Burgundians of Charles the Bold in 1468. Moreover, the plagiarists were even too lazy to make allowances for the Russian winter, as a result of which the mythical guardsmen had to ride boats along the Volkhov, which that year, according to the chronicles, froze to the very bottom.

However, even his most fierce haters do not dare to challenge the basic personality traits of Ivan the Terrible, and therefore we know for sure that he was very smart, calculating, malicious, cold-blooded and courageous. The tsar was amazingly well read, had an extensive memory, loved to sing and composed music (his stichera have been preserved and are performed to this day). Ivan IV had an excellent command of the pen, leaving a rich epistolary legacy, and loved to participate in religious debates. The tsar himself handled litigation, worked with documents, and could not stand vile drunkenness.

Having achieved real power, the young, far-sighted and active king immediately began to take measures to reorganize and strengthen the state - both from within and its external borders.

Meeting

The main feature of Ivan the Terrible is his manic passion for firearms. For the first time in the Russian army, detachments armed with arquebuses appeared - archers, who gradually became the backbone of the army, taking away this rank from the local cavalry. Cannon yards are springing up all over the country, where more and more new barrels are being cast, fortresses are being rebuilt for fiery battle - their walls are straightened, mattresses and large-caliber arquebuses are installed in the towers. The Tsar stocked up gunpowder in all ways: he bought it, installed gunpowder mills, he imposed a saltpeter tax on cities and monasteries. Sometimes this leads to terrifying fires, but Ivan IV is relentless: gunpowder, as much gunpowder as possible!

The first task that is set before the army that is gaining strength is to stop the raids from the Kazan Khanate. At the same time, the young tsar is not interested in half measures, he wants to stop the raids once and for all, and for this there is only one way: to conquer Kazan and include it in the Muscovite kingdom. A seventeen-year-old boy went to fight the Tatars. The three-year war ended in failure. But in 1551 the tsar appeared under the walls of Kazan again - victory! The Kazan people asked for peace, agreed to all the demands, but, as usual, did not fulfill the terms of peace. However, this time the stupid Russians for some reason did not swallow the insult and the next summer, in 1552, again dismissed the banners at the enemy capital.

The news that far in the east the infidels were crushing their co-religionists took Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent by surprise - he had never expected anything like this. The Sultan gave the order to the Crimean Khan to provide assistance to the Kazan people, and he, hastily gathering 30,000 people, moved to Rus'. The young king, at the head of 15,000 horsemen, rushed towards and completely defeated the uninvited guests. Following the message about the defeat of Devlet Giray, news flew to Istanbul that there was one less khanate in the east. Before the Sultan had time to digest this pill, they were already telling him about the annexation of another Khanate, the Astrakhan Khanate, to Moscow. It turns out that after the fall of Kazan, Khan Yamgurchey, in a fit of anger, decided to declare war on Russia...

The glory of the conqueror of the khanates brought Ivan IV new, unexpected subjects: hoping for his patronage, the Siberian Khan Ediger and the Circassian princes voluntarily swore allegiance to Moscow. The North Caucasus also came under the rule of the tsar. Unexpectedly for the whole world - including itself - Russia more than doubled in size in a matter of years, reached the Black Sea and found itself face to face with the huge Ottoman Empire. This could only mean one thing: a terrible, devastating war.

Blood neighbors

The stupid naivety of the tsar’s closest advisers, so beloved by modern historians, the so-called “Chosen Rada,” is striking. By their own admission, these clever men repeatedly advised the tsar to attack Crimea and conquer it, like the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan. Their opinion, by the way, will be shared four centuries later by many modern historians. In order to more clearly understand how stupid such advice is, it is enough to look at the North American continent and ask the first Mexican you meet, even a stoned and uneducated Mexican: is the boorish behavior of the Texans and the military weakness of this state sufficient reason to attack it and return the ancestral Mexican lands?

And they will immediately answer you that you may attack Texas, but you will have to fight with the United States.

In the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire, having weakened its pressure in other directions, could withdraw five times more troops against Moscow than Russia allowed itself to mobilize. The Crimean Khanate alone, whose subjects were not engaged in crafts, agriculture, or trade, was ready, on the orders of the khan, to put its entire male population on horses and repeatedly marched on Rus' with armies of 100-150 thousand people (some historians bring this figure to 200 000). But the Tatars were cowardly robbers, whom troops 3-5 times smaller in number could cope with. It was a completely different matter to meet on the battlefield with the Janissaries and Seljuks, seasoned in battle and accustomed to conquering new lands.

Ivan IV could not afford such a war.

The contact of the borders happened unexpectedly for both countries, and therefore the first contacts between the neighbors turned out to be surprisingly peaceful. The Ottoman Sultan sent a letter to the Russian Tsar in which he friendlyly offered a choice of two possible ways out of the current situation: either Russia grants the Volga robbers - Kazan and Astrakhan - their former independence, or Ivan IV swears allegiance to the Magnificent Porte, becoming part of the Ottoman Empire along with the conquered khanates.

And for the umpteenth time in its centuries-old history, the light burned for a long time in the chambers of the Russian ruler and the fate of the future Europe was decided in painful thoughts: to be it or not to be? If the Tsar agreed to the Ottoman proposal, he would forever secure southern borders countries. The Sultan will no longer allow the Tatars to rob new subjects, and all the predatory aspirations of the Crimea will be directed in the only possible direction: against the eternal enemy of Moscow, the Principality of Lithuania. In this case, the rapid extermination of the enemy and the rise of Russia will become inevitable. But at what cost?..

The king refuses.

Suleiman releases the Crimean thousands, which he used in Moldova and Hungary, and points out to the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey a new enemy whom he will have to crush: Russia. A long and bloody war begins: the Tatars regularly rush towards Moscow, the Russians are fenced off with a multi-hundred-mile Zasechnaya Line of forest windbreaks, fortresses and earthen ramparts with stakes dug into them. Every year 60-70 thousand soldiers defend this gigantic wall.

It is clear to Ivan the Terrible, and the Sultan has repeatedly confirmed this with his letters: an attack on Crimea will be regarded as a declaration of war on the empire. In the meantime, the Russians endure, the Ottomans also do not begin active military operations, continuing the wars already started in Europe, Africa and Asia.

Now, while the Ottoman Empire's hands are tied with battles in other places, while the Ottomans are not going to fall on Russia with all their might, there is time to accumulate forces, and Ivan IV begins vigorous reforms in the country: first of all, he introduces a regime in the country that subsequently was called democracy. Feedings are abolished in the country, the institution of governors appointed by the tsar is replaced by local self-government - zemstvo and provincial elders elected by peasants, artisans and boyars. Moreover, the new regime is being imposed not with stupid stubbornness, as now, but prudently and wisely. The transition to democracy is carried out... for a fee. If you like the governor, live as before. I don’t like it - local residents contribute from 100 to 400 rubles to the treasury and can choose whoever they want as their boss.

The army is being transformed. Having personally participated in several wars and battles, the tsar is well aware of the main problem of the army - localism. The boyars demand appointment to posts according to the merits of their ancestors: if my grandfather commanded a wing of the army, it means that I am entitled to the same post. Even if he’s a fool, the milk on his lips hasn’t dried: but still, the post of wing commander is mine! I don’t want to obey the old and experienced prince, because his son walked under the hand of my great-grandfather! This means that it is not I who must obey him, but he who must obey me!

The issue is resolved radically: a new army, the oprichnina, is organized in the country. The guardsmen swear allegiance to the sovereign alone, and their career depends only on their personal qualities. It is in the oprichnina that all mercenaries serve: Russia, waging a long and difficult war, is chronically short of warriors, but it has enough gold to hire eternally poor European nobles.

In addition, Ivan IV is actively building parish schools and fortresses, stimulating trade, purposefully creating a working class: by direct royal decree it is forbidden to attract cultivators to any work related to getting off the land - workers must work in construction, in factories and factories, not peasants.

Of course, there are many opponents of such rapid transformations in the country. Just think: a simple rootless landowner like Boriska Godunov can rise to the rank of governor simply because he is brave, smart and honest! Just think: the king can buy the family estate into the treasury only because the owner doesn’t know his business well and the peasants run away from him! The guardsmen are hated, vile rumors are spread about them, conspiracies are organized against the tsar - but Ivan the Terrible continues his reforms with a firm hand. It comes to the point that for several years he has to divide the country into two parts: the oprichnina for those who want to live in a new way and the zemstvo for those who want to preserve the old customs. However, in spite of everything, he achieved his goal, turning the ancient Moscow principality into a new, powerful power - the Russian kingdom.

The Empire Strikes

In 1569, the bloody respite, consisting of continuous raids by the Tatar hordes, ended. The Sultan finally found time for Russia. 17,000 selected Janissaries, reinforced by the Crimean and Nogai cavalry, moved towards Astrakhan. The king, still hoping to do without bloodshed, withdrew all the troops from their path, while simultaneously replenishing the fortress with food supplies, gunpowder and cannonballs. The campaign failed: the Turks were unable to bring artillery with them, and they were not used to fighting without guns. In addition, the return journey through the unexpectedly cold winter steppe cost most of the Turks their lives.

A year later, in 1571, bypassing Russian fortresses and knocking down the small boyar barriers, Devlet-Girey brought 100,000 horsemen to Moscow, set fire to the city and returned back. Ivan the Terrible tore and threw. The boyars' heads rolled. Those executed were accused of specific treason: they missed the enemy, did not report the raid on time. In Istanbul they rubbed their hands: reconnaissance in force showed that the Russians did not know how to fight, preferring to sit behind the fortress walls. But if the light Tatar cavalry is not capable of taking fortifications, then the experienced Janissaries knew how to uncork them very well. It was decided to conquer Muscovy, for which Devlet-Girey was assigned 7,000 Janissaries and gunners with several dozen artillery barrels to take the cities. Murzas were appointed in advance to the still Russian cities, governors to the not yet conquered principalities, the land was divided, merchants received permission for duty-free trade. All the men of Crimea, young and old, gathered to explore new lands.

A huge army was supposed to enter Russian borders and remain there forever.

And so it happened...

Battlefield

On July 6, 1572, Devlet-Girey reached the Oka, came across a 50,000-strong army under the command of Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky (many historians estimate the size of the Russian army at 20,000 people, and the Ottoman army at 80,000) and, laughing at the stupidity of the Russians, turned up along the river. Near Senkin Ford, he easily dispersed a detachment of 200 boyars and, having crossed the river, moved towards Moscow along the Serpukhov road. Vorotynsky hurried after.

With a speed unprecedented in Europe, huge masses of horsemen moved across the Russian expanses - both armies moved lightly, on horseback, not burdened with convoys.

Oprichnik Dmitry Khvorostinin sneaked on the heels of the Tatars to the village of Molodi at the head of a 5,000-strong detachment of Cossacks and boyars, and only here, on July 30, 1572, received permission to attack the enemy. Rushing forward, he trampled the Tatar rearguard into the road dust and, rushing further, crashed into the main forces at the Pakhra River. Slightly surprised by such impudence, the Tatars turned around and rushed at the small detachment with all their strength. The Russians rushed to their heels - the enemies rushed after them, pursuing the guardsmen all the way to the village of Molodi, and then an unexpected surprise awaited the invaders: the Russian army, deceived on the Oka, was already here. And she didn’t just stand there, but managed to build a walk-city - a mobile fortification made of thick wooden shields. From the cracks between the shields, cannons struck the steppe cavalry, arquebuses thundered from the loopholes cut into the log walls, and a shower of arrows poured over the fortification. A friendly volley swept away the advanced Tatar detachments - as if huge hand I brushed away unnecessary crumbs from the table. The Tatars were mixed up - Khvorostinin turned his soldiers around and rushed into the attack again.

Gulyai-gorod (Wagenburg), from a 15th-century engraving, created after 1480

Thousands of horsemen approaching along the road, one after another, fell into a cruel meat grinder. Tired boyars either retreated behind the shields of the walk-city, under the cover of heavy fire, or rushed into more and more attacks. The Ottomans, in a hurry to destroy a fortress that had come from nowhere, rushed to attack wave after wave, abundantly flooding the Russian land with their blood, and only the descending darkness stopped the endless murder.

In the morning, the truth was revealed to the Ottoman army in all its terrifying ugliness: the invaders realized that they had fallen into a trap. Ahead along the Serpukhov road stood the strong walls of Moscow, behind the path to the steppe were fenced off the iron-clad guardsmen and archers. Now for the uninvited guests it was no longer a question of conquering Russia, but of getting back alive.

The next two days were spent trying to frighten off the Russians who blocked the road - the Tatars showered the city with arrows and cannonballs, rushed at it in mounted attacks, hoping to break through the cracks left for the passage of the boyar cavalry. However, by the third day it became clear that the Russians would rather die on the spot than allow uninvited guests get away. On August 2, Devlet-Girey ordered his soldiers to dismount and attack the Russians along with the Janissaries.

The Tatars understood perfectly well that this time they were not going to rob, but to save their own skin, and they fought like rabid dogs. The battle has reached its peak highest voltage. It got to the point that the Crimeans tried to break the hated shields with their hands, and the Janissaries gnawed them with their teeth and chopped them with scimitars. But the Russians were not going to release the eternal robbers into the wild, give them the opportunity to catch their breath and return again. Blood flowed all day - but by evening the walk-town continued to stand in its place.

Hunger was raging in the Russian camp - after all, while chasing the enemy, the boyars and archers thought about weapons, and not about food, simply abandoning the convoy with food and drink supplies. As the chronicles note: “In the regiments there was a great hunger for people and horses”. Here it should be admitted that, along with Russian soldiers, German mercenaries suffered thirst and hunger, whom the tsar willingly took as guardsmen. However, the Germans did not complain either, but continued to fight no worse than others.

The Tatars were furious: they were accustomed not to fight with the Russians, but to drive them into slavery. The Ottoman Murzas, who had gathered to rule the new lands, and not die on them, were also not amused. Everyone was eagerly waiting for dawn to deliver the final blow and finally smash the fragile-looking fortification and exterminate the people hiding behind it.

With the onset of dusk, Voivode Vorotynsky took some of the soldiers with him, walked around the enemy camp along the ravine and hid there. And early in the morning, when, after a friendly volley at the attacking Ottomans, the boyars led by Khvorostinin rushed towards them and started a brutal battle, Voivode Vorotynsky unexpectedly struck the enemies in the back. And what started out as a battle instantly turned into a beating.

Arithmetic

On a field near the village of Molodi, the defenders of Moscow completely massacred all the Janissaries and Ottoman Murzas, and almost the entire male population of Crimea died there. And not only ordinary warriors - the son, grandson and son-in-law of Devlet-Girey himself died under Russian sabers. Having, according to various estimates, either three or four times less strength than the enemy, Russian soldiers forever eliminated the danger emanating from Crimea. No more than 20,000 of the bandits who went on the campaign managed to return alive - and Crimea was never again able to regain its strength.

This was the first major defeat in the entire history of the Ottoman Empire. Having lost almost 20,000 Janissaries and the entire huge army of its satellite on the Russian borders in three years, the Magnificent Porte abandoned hopes of conquering Russia.

The victory of Russian weapons was of great importance for Europe. At the Battle of Molodi, we not only defended our independence, but also deprived the Ottoman Empire of the opportunity to increase its production capacity and army by about a third. In addition, for the huge Ottoman province that could have arisen in place of Russia, there was only one path for further expansion - to the west. Retreating under attacks in the Balkans, Europe would hardly have survived even for several years if the Turkish onslaught had increased even slightly.

The village of Molodi. Foundation stone in memory of the victory at the Battle of Molodi in 1572

The Last Rurikovich

There is only one question left to answer: why don’t they make films about the Battle of Molodi, don’t talk about it in school, and don’t celebrate its anniversary with holidays?

The fact is that the battle that determined the future of the entire European civilization took place during the reign of a king who was not supposed to be not only good, but also simply normal. Ivan the Terrible, the greatest tsar in the history of Rus', who actually created the country in which we live, who took over the reign of the Moscow principality and left behind Great Russia, was the last of the Rurik family. After him, the Romanov dynasty came to the throne - and they did everything possible to belittle the importance of everything done by the previous dynasty and discredit the greatest of its representatives.

According to the highest order, Ivan the Terrible was destined to be bad - and along with his memory, the great victory, won with considerable difficulty by our ancestors, was prohibited.

The first of the Romanov dynasty gave the Swedes the coast of the Baltic Sea and access to Lake Ladoga. His son introduced hereditary serfdom, depriving industry and the Siberian open spaces of free workers and settlers. Under his great-grandson, the army created by Ivan IV was broken and the industry that supplied weapons to the whole of Europe was destroyed (the Tula-Kamensk factories alone sold to the West up to 600 guns a year, tens of thousands of cannonballs, thousands of grenades, muskets and swords).

Russia was rapidly sliding into an era of degradation.

Alexander Prozorov

On July 26, 1572, the Battle of Youth began, in which Russian troops inflicted a crushing defeat on the six-fold superior forces of the Crimean Khanate.

It is unlikely that passengers on a suburban train passing the Kolkhoznaya station, which is 30 km from the Moscow Ring Road (between Podolsk and Chekhov), will be able to answer the question of what this place is famous for. They will be surprised to learn that 430 years ago, the fate of Russia was decided in the surrounding fields. We are talking about the battle that took place here in the summer of 1572 near the village of Molodi. In terms of its significance, some historians equate it to the Battle of Kulikovo Field.

It’s hard to imagine now, but in the 16th century, Oka near Moscow was a harsh Russian borderland. During the reign of the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey (1551-1577), Russia's struggle against steppe raids reached its climax. A number of major campaigns are associated with his name. During one of them, Moscow was burned (1571).

Davlet Giray. 14th Khan of the Crimean Khanate. In 1571, one of the campaigns, carried out by his 40,000-strong army with the support of the Ottoman Empire and in agreement with Poland, ended with the burning of Moscow, for which Devlet I received the nickname Taht Alğan - Who Took the Throne.

The Crimean Khanate, which broke away in 1427 from the Golden Horde, which was disintegrating under our blows, was Rus'’s worst enemy: since the end of the 15th century, the Crimean Tatars, whom they are now trying to present as victims of the Russian genocide, made constant raids on the Russian Kingdom. Almost every year they ravaged one or another region of Rus', taking captive women and children, whom the Crimean Jews resold to Istanbul.

The most dangerous and ruinous raid was carried out by the Crimeans in 1571. The goal of this raid was Moscow itself: in May 1571, the Crimean Khan Davlet Giray with a 40,000-strong army, bypassing, with the help of defectors sent by the traitor Prince Mstislavsky, the abatis lines on the southern outskirts of the Russian kingdom, the Crimean army, having forded the Ugra, reached the Russian flank an army numbering no more than 6,000 people. The Russian guard detachment was defeated by the Crimeans, who rushed to the Russian capital.

On June 3, 1571, Crimean troops ravaged undefended settlements and villages around Moscow, and then set fire to the outskirts of the capital. Thanks to strong winds, the fire quickly spread throughout the city. Driven by the fire, citizens and refugees rushed to the northern gates of the capital. A crush arose at the gates and narrow streets, people “walked in three rows over each other’s heads, and the top ones crushed those who were under them.” The Zemstvo army, instead of giving battle to the Crimeans in the field or on the outskirts of the city, began to retreat to the center of Moscow and, mingling with the refugees, lost order; Voivode Prince Belsky died in a fire, suffocating in the cellar of his house. Within three hours, Moscow burned to the ground. The next day, the Tatars and Nogais left along the Ryazan road to the steppe. In addition to Moscow In addition to Moscow, the Crimean Khan ravaged the central regions and massacred 36 Russian cities. As a result of this raid, up to 80 thousand Russian people were killed, and about 60 thousand were taken prisoner. The population of Moscow decreased from 100 to 30 thousand people.

Crimean Tatar horseman

Davlet Giray was sure that Rus' would not recover from such a blow and could itself become an easy prey. Therefore, the next year, 1572, he decided to repeat the campaign. For this campaign, Davlet Giray was able to gather a 120,000-strong army, which included 80,000 Crimeans and Nogais, 33,000 Turks and 7,000 Turkish Janissaries. The existence of the Russian state and the Russian people themselves hung in the balance.

Fortunately, this very hair turned out to be Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky, who was the head of the border guards in Kolomna and Serpukhov. Under his leadership the oprichnina and zemstvo troops were united. In addition to them, Vorotynsky’s forces were joined by a detachment of seven thousand German mercenaries sent by the tsar, as well as Don Cossacks who came to the rescue. The total number of troops under the command of Prince Vorotynsky was 20,034 people.

The moment for the attack was good. The Russian state was in critical isolation and was fighting against three strong neighbors at once (Sweden, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Crimean Khanate). The situation was worse than ever. At the beginning of 1572, Ivan the Terrible evacuated the capital. The treasury, archives, and the highest nobility, including the Tsar's family, were sent from the Kremlin to Novgorod on hundreds of carts.

Walk-city

Moscow could become the prey of the Gireys

When preparing to march on Moscow, Devlet-Girey had already set a larger goal - to conquer all of Russia. The head of state, as we have already said, moved to Novgorod. And in Moscow, which was burned down from the previous raid, there were no large formations. The only force covering the deserted capital from the south, along the Oka line, was a 60,000-strong army led by Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky. A thousand Don Cossacks with their ataman Mishka Cherkashenin came to his aid. Also in Vorotynsky’s army was a 7,000-strong detachment of German mercenaries sent here by the tsar.

At Serpukhov, he equipped the main position, strengthening it with a “walk-city” - a mobile fortress made of carts, on which wooden shields with slots for shooting were placed.
The khan sent a 2,000-strong detachment against her to distract her. On the night of July 27, the main forces crossed the Oka River in two weakly defended places: at Senkino Ford and near the village of Drakino.

The 20,000-strong vanguard of Murza Tereberdey crossed at Senka Ford. On his way there was only a small outpost of 200 soldiers. They did not retreat and died heroically, resurrecting the famous feat of three hundred Spartans in history. In the battle of Drakin, the detachment of the famous commander Divey-Murza defeated the regiment of governor Nikita Odoevsky. After this, the khan rushed to Moscow. Then Vorotynsky withdrew his troops from the coastline and moved in pursuit.

The horse regiment of the young Prince Dmitry Khvorostinin raced ahead. In its vanguard were the Don Cossacks - experienced fighters of the steppes. Meanwhile, the head units of the Khan’s army approached the Pakhra River. Rear - to the village of Molodi. Here Khvorostinin overtook them. He fearlessly attacked the Crimean rearguard and defeated it. This strong unexpected blow forced Devlet-Girey to stop the breakthrough to Moscow. Fearing for his rear, the khan turned back to crush Vorotynsky’s army following behind. Without its defeat, the ruler of Crimea could not achieve his goals. Enchanted by the dream of conquering Moscow, the khan abandoned the usual tactics of his army (raid-and-retreat) and became involved in a large-scale battle.

For a couple of days, maneuver skirmishes took place in the area from Pakhra to Molodi. In them, Devlet-Girey probed Vorotynsky’s positions, fearing the approach of troops from Moscow. When it became clear that the Russian army had nowhere to wait for help, on July 31, the khan attacked its base camp, equipped at the Rozhai River, near Molodei.

On July 26, the Crimean-Turkish army approached the Oka and began to cross it in two places - at the confluence of the Lopasny River into it along the Senkin Ford, and upstream from Serpukhov. The first crossing point was guarded by a small guard regiment of “children of the boyars” under the command of Ivan Shuisky, consisting of only 200 soldiers. The Nogai vanguard of the Crimean-Turkish army under the command of Tereberdey-Murza fell upon him. The detachment did not take flight, but entered into an unequal battle, but was scattered, however, managing to inflict great damage on the Crimeans. After this, Tereberdey-Murza’s detachment reached the outskirts of modern Podolsk near the Pakhra River and, having cut all the roads leading to Moscow, stopped waiting for the main forces.

The main positions of the Russian troops were near Serpukhov. Our medieval tank was also located here. Walk-city, armed with cannons and squeaks, which differed from ordinary hand-guns by the presence of hooks that hooked onto the fortress wall in order to reduce recoil when fired. Pishchal It was inferior in rate of fire to the bows of the Crimean Tatars, but had an advantage in penetrating power: if the arrow got stuck in the body of the first unprotected warrior and quite rarely pierced the chain mail, then the squeak bullet pierced two unprotected warriors, getting stuck only in the third. In addition, it easily penetrated knight's armor.

As a diversionary maneuver, Davlet Giray sent a detachment of two thousand against Serpukhov, and he himself with the main forces crossed the Oka River in a more remote place near the village of Drakino, where he encountered the regiment of governor Nikita Romanovich Odoevsky, who was defeated in a difficult battle. After this, the main army moved towards Moscow, and Vorotynsky, having removed his troops from coastal positions, moved after him. This was a risky tactic, since all hope was pinned on the fact that by clinging to the tail of the Tatar army, the Russians would force the khan to turn around for battle and not go to defenseless Moscow. However, the alternative was to overtake the Khan along a side route, which had little chance of success. In addition, there was the experience of the previous year, when the governor Ivan Belsky managed to arrive in Moscow before the Crimeans, but could not prevent it from being set on fire.

The Crimean army was fairly stretched out and while its advanced units reached the Pakhra River, the rearguard was only approaching the village of Molodi, located 15 versts from her. It was here that he was overtaken by an advanced detachment of Russian troops under the leadership of the young oprichnina governor, Prince Dmitry Khvorostinin. On July 29, a fierce battle took place, as a result of which the Crimean rearguard was practically destroyed.
After this, what Vorotynsky hoped for happened. Having learned about the defeat of the rearguard and fearing for his rear, Davlet Giray deployed his army. By this time, a walk-city had already been developed near Molodei in a convenient location, located on a hill and covered by the Rozhaya River. Khvorostinin’s detachment found itself face to face with the entire Crimean army, but, having correctly assessed the situation, the young governor was not at a loss and lured the enemy to Walk-Gorod with an imaginary retreat. With a quick maneuver to the right, taking his soldiers to the side, he brought the enemy under deadly artillery and squeal fire - “many Tatars were beaten.”

In Gulyai-Gorod there was a large regiment under the command of Vorotynsky himself, as well as the Cossacks of Ataman Cherkashenin who arrived in time. A protracted battle began, for which the Crimean army was not ready. In one of the unsuccessful attacks on Gulyai-Gorod, Tereberdey-Murza was killed.

After a series of small skirmishes, on July 31, Davlet Giray launched a decisive assault on Gulyai-Gorod, but it was repulsed. His army suffered heavy losses in killed and captured. Among the latter was the adviser to the Crimean Khan, Divey-Murza. As a result of large losses, the Tatars retreated.

The next day the attacks stopped, but the situation in the besieged camp became critical. There were many wounded there, food was running out. On August 2, the ruler of Crimea finally decided to put an end to the “walking city” and threw his main forces against it. The climax of the battle has arrived. Expecting victory, the khan did not take losses into account.

Moscow Sterlets

On August 2, Davlet Giray again sent his army to attack. In a difficult struggle, up to 3 thousand Russian archers were killed defending the foot of the hill near Rozhaika, and the Russian cavalry defending the flanks also suffered serious losses. But the attack was repulsed - the Crimean cavalry was unable to take the fortified position. In the battle, the Nogai Khan was killed, and three Murzas died. And then the Crimean Khan made an unexpected decision - he ordered the cavalry to dismount and attack the Gulyai-city on foot together with the Janissaries. The climbing Tatars and Turks covered the hill with corpses, and the Khan threw in more and more forces. Approaching the plank walls of the walk-city, the attackers cut them down with sabers, shook them with their hands, trying to climb over or knock them down, “and here they beat many Tatars and cut off countless hands.”

However, the cavalry could not take the fortifications. Here it was necessary to have a lot of infantry. And then Devlet-Girey, in the heat of the moment, resorted to a method uncharacteristic for the Crimeans. The Khan ordered the horsemen to dismount and, together with the Janissaries, go to the attack on foot. It was a risk. The Crimean army was deprived of its main trump card - high maneuverability.

Already in the evening, taking advantage of the fact that the enemy was concentrated on one side of the hill and carried away by the attacks, Vorotynsky undertook a bold maneuver. Having waited until the main forces of the Crimeans and Janissaries were drawn into a bloody battle for Walk-Gorod, he quietly led a large regiment out of the fortification, led it through a ravine and struck the Tatars in the rear. At the same time, accompanied by powerful volleys of cannons, Khvorostinin’s warriors made a sortie from behind the walls of the city.

The Crimean warriors, not accustomed to fighting cavalry on foot, could not withstand the double blow. The outbreak of panic reduced the best horsemen of the empire to the position of a crowd rushing to escape from Vorotynsky’s horsemen. Many died without ever mounting their horses. Among them were the son, grandson and son-in-law of Devlet-Girey. By nightfall the carnage died down. Having collected the remnants of the defeated army, the khan began to retreat. Thus ended the great multi-day battle in the vastness from Oka to Pakhra.

During the pursuit of the foot Crimeans to the crossing of the Oka River, most of those who fled were killed, as well as another 5,000-strong Crimean rearguard left to guard the crossing. No more than 10 thousand soldiers returned to Crimea.

Having been defeated in the Battle of Molodi, the Crimean Khanate lost almost its entire male population. However, Rus', weakened by the previous raid and the Livonian War, was unable to undertake a campaign to Crimea to finish off the beast in its lair.

Vienna or still Molodi?

This was the last major battle between Rus' and the steppe. The blow at Molodi shook the Crimean power. According to some reports, only 20 thousand soldiers returned home to Crimea (no one of the Janissaries escaped).

And now a little about the history of geography. It is known that extreme point Vienna is considered to be where the Ottoman advance in Europe was stopped. In fact, the palm belongs to the village of Molodi near Moscow. Vienna was then located 150 km from the borders of the Ottoman Empire. Whereas Molodi is about 800 km away. It was at the walls of the Russian capital, under Molodi, that the most distant and grandiose campaign of the troops of the Ottoman Empire deep into Europe was reflected.

Comparable in importance to the battles on the Kulikovo Field (1380) or Poitiers (732), the Battle of Molodi still remains a little-known event and is almost not mentioned among the famous victories of Russian weapons.

Let us recall more episodes from the glorious military history Russia: let’s kaknu and let’s not forget The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy was made -

The Battle of Molodi (Molodinskaya Battle) is a major battle that took place in 1572 near Moscow, between Russian troops led by Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky and the army of the Crimean Khan Devlet I Gerey, which included, in addition to the Crimean troops themselves, Turkish and Nogai detachments. ..

Despite their double numerical superiority, the 120,000-strong Crimean army was completely defeated and put to flight. Only about 20 thousand people were saved. In terms of its significance, the Battle of Molodi was comparable to Kulikovo and other key battles in Russian history. It preserved the independence of Russia and became a turning point in the confrontation between the Moscow state and the Crimean Khanate, which abandoned its claims to Kazan and Astrakhan and henceforth lost a significant part of its power...

“In the summer of 1571, they were expecting a raid by the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey. But the oprichniki, who were tasked with holding a barrier on the banks of the Oka, for the most part did not go to work: fighting against the Crimean Khan was more dangerous than plundering Novgorod. One of the captured boyar children gave the khan an unknown route to one of the fords on the Oka. Devlet-Girey managed to bypass the barrier of zemstvo troops and one oprichnina regiment and cross the Oka. Russian troops barely managed to return to Moscow. But Devlet-Girey did not besiege the capital, but set fire to the settlement. The fire spread through the walls. The entire city burned down, and those who took refuge in the Kremlin and in the adjoining fortress of Kitay-Gorod suffocated from the smoke and “fire heat.” Negotiations began, at which Russian diplomats received secret instructions to agree, as a last resort, to abandon Astrakhan. Devlet-Girey also demanded Kazan. In order to finally break the will of Ivan IV, he prepared a raid for the next year. Ivan IV understood the seriousness of the situation. He decided to put at the head of the troops an experienced commander who had often been in disgrace - Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky. Both zemstvos and guardsmen were subordinate to his command; they were united in service and within each regiment. This united army in the battle near the village of Molodi (50 km south of Moscow) completely defeated the army of Devlet-Girey, which was almost twice its size. The Crimean threat was eliminated for many years.” History of Russia from ancient times to 1861. M., 2000, p. 154

The battle, which took place in August 1572 near the village of Molodi, about 50 km from Moscow, between Podolsk and Serpukhov, is sometimes called “Unknown Borodino”. The battle itself and the heroes who participated in it are rarely mentioned in Russian history. Everyone knows the Battle of Kulikovo, as well as the Moscow prince Dmitry, who led the Russian army, and received the nickname Donskoy. Then the hordes of Mamai were defeated, but the next year the Tatars again attacked Moscow and burned it. After the Battle of Molodin, in which the 120,000-strong Crimean-Astrakhan horde was destroyed, Tatar raids on Moscow stopped forever.

In the 16th century Crimean Tatars regularly raided Muscovy. Cities and villages were set on fire, the able-bodied population was driven into captivity. Moreover, the number of captured peasants and townspeople was many times greater than the military losses.

The culmination was in 1571, when the army of Khan Devlet-Girey burned Moscow to the ground. People hid in the Kremlin, the Tatars set it on fire too. The entire Moscow River was littered with corpses, the flow stopped... The next year, 1572, Devlet-Girey, like a true Genghisid, was going to not only repeat the raid, he decided to revive Golden Horde, and make Moscow its capital. Devlet-Girey declared that he was “going to Moscow for the kingdom.” As one of the heroes of the Battle of Molodin, German oprichnik Heinrich Staden, wrote, “the cities and districts of the Russian land were all already assigned and divided among the Murzas who were under the Crimean Tsar; it was determined which one should hold.”

On the eve of the invasion

The situation in Russia was difficult. The effects of the devastating invasion of 1571, as well as the plague, were still being felt. The summer of 1572 was dry and hot, horses and cattle died. The Russian regiments experienced serious difficulties in supplying food.

Economic difficulties were intertwined with complex internal political events, accompanied by executions, disgraces, and uprisings of the local feudal nobility that began in the Volga region. In such a difficult situation, preparations were underway in the Russian state to repel a new invasion by Devlet-Girey. On April 1, 1572 it began to operate new system border service, taking into account the experience of last year’s fight against Devlet-Girey.

Thanks to intelligence, the Russian command was promptly informed about the movement of the 120,000-strong army of Devlet-Girey and his further actions. The construction and improvement of military-defensive structures, primarily located over a long distance along the Oka, proceeded quickly.

Having received news of the impending invasion, Ivan the Terrible fled to Novgorod and wrote a letter from there to Devlet-Girey offering peace in exchange for Kazan and Astrakhan. But it did not satisfy the khan.

Battle of Molodi

In the spring of 1571, the Crimean Khan Divlet Giray, at the head of a 120,000-strong horde, attacked Rus'. The traitor Prince Mstislavsky sent his people to show the khan how to bypass the 600-kilometer Zasechnaya line from the west. The Tatars came from where they were not expected, burned all of Moscow to the ground - several hundred thousand people died. In addition to Moscow, the Crimean Khan ravaged the central regions, cut out 36 cities, collected a 100,000-strong army and went to Crimea; from the road he sent the king a knife “so that Ivan would kill himself.” The Crimean invasion was similar to Batu's pogrom; Khan believed that Russia was exhausted and could no longer resist; the Kazan and Astrakhan Tatars rebelled; In 1572, the horde went to Rus' to establish a new yoke - the Khan's Murzas divided cities and uluses among themselves. Rus' was truly weakened by the 20-year war, famine, plague and the terrible Tatar invasion; Ivan the Terrible managed to gather only a 20,000-strong army. On July 28, a huge horde crossed the Oka and, throwing back the Russian regiments, rushed to Moscow - however, the Russian army followed, attacking the Tatar rearguards. The Khan was forced to turn back, the masses of Tatars rushed towards the Russian advanced regiment, which fled, luring the enemies to the fortifications where the archers and cannons were located - it was. Volleys of Russian cannons firing at point-blank range stopped the Tatar cavalry, it retreated, leaving piles of corpses on the field, but the khan again drove his warriors forward. For almost a week, with breaks to remove the corpses, the Tatars stormed the “walk-city” near the village of Molodi, not far from the modern city of Podolsk, dismounted horsemen approached the wooden walls, rocked them - “and here they beat many Tatars and cut off countless hands.” On August 2, when the onslaught of the Tatars weakened, the Russian regiments left the “walk-city” and attacked the weakened enemy, the horde turned into a stampede, the Tatars were pursued and cut down to the banks of the Oka - the Crimeans had never suffered such a bloody defeat.
The Battle of Molodi was a great victory autocracy: only absolute power could gather all forces into one fist and repel a terrible enemy - and it is easy to imagine what would have happened if Russia had been ruled not by a tsar, but by princes and boyars - the times of Batu would have been repeated. Having suffered a terrible defeat, the Crimeans did not dare to show themselves on the Oka for 20 years; The uprisings of the Kazan and Astrakhan Tatars were suppressed - Russia won the Great War for the Volga region. On the Don and Desna, border fortifications were pushed south 300 kilometers; at the end of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, Yelets and Voronezh were founded - the development of the richest black earth lands of the Wild Field began. The victory over the Tatars was achieved to a large extent thanks to arquebuses and cannons - weapons that were brought from the West through the “window to Europe” cut by the tsar. This window was the port of Narva, and King Sigismund asked the English Queen Elizabeth to stop the arms trade, because “the Moscow sovereign daily increases his power by acquiring items that are brought to Narva.”
V.M. Belotserkovets

Border voivode

The Oka River then served as the main support line, the harsh Russian border against the Crimean invasions. Every year, up to 65 thousand soldiers came to its shores and carried out guard duty from early spring until late autumn. According to contemporaries, the river “was fortified for more than 50 miles along the bank: two palisades, four feet high, were built one opposite the other, one at a distance of two feet from the other, and this distance between them was filled with earth dug out behind the rear palisade ... The shooters could thus hide behind both palisades and shoot at the Tatars as they swam across the river.”

The choice of commander-in-chief was difficult: there were few people suitable for this responsible position. In the end, the choice fell on the zemstvo governor, Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky, an outstanding military leader, “a strong and courageous man and extremely skilled in regimental arrangements.” Boyarin Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky (c. 1510-1573), like his father, devoted himself from a young age to military service. In 1536, 25-year-old Prince Mikhail distinguished himself in the winter campaign of Ivan the Terrible against the Swedes, and after some time in the Kazan campaigns. During the siege of Kazan in 1552, Vorotynsky at a critical moment managed to repel the attack of the city’s defenders, lead the archers and capture the Arsk Tower, and then, at the head of a large regiment, storm the Kremlin. For which he received the honorary title of sovereign servant and governor.

In 1550-1560 M.I. Vorotynsky supervised the construction of defensive structures on the southern borders of the country. Thanks to his efforts, the approaches to Kolomna, Kaluga, Serpukhov and other cities were strengthened. He established a guard service and repelled attacks from the Tatars.

Selfless and devoted friendship to the sovereign did not save the prince from suspicions of treason. In 1562-1566. he suffered humiliation, disgrace, exile, and prison. In those years, Vorotynsky received an offer from the Polish king Sigismund Augustus to go to serve in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. But the prince remained faithful to the sovereign and Russia.

In January-February 1571, service people, boyar children, village residents, and village heads came to Moscow from all border towns. By order of Ivan the Terrible M.I. Vorotynsky was supposed to, having questioned those summoned to the capital, describe from which cities, in which direction and at what distance patrols should be sent, in which places the guards should stand (indicating the territory served by the patrols of each of them), in which places the border heads should be located “for protection from the arrival of military people”, etc. The result of this work was the “Order on village and guard service” left by Vorotynsky. In accordance with it, the border service must do everything possible “to make the outskirts more careful,” so that military people “do not come to the outskirts unknown,” and accustom the guards to constant vigilance.

Another order was issued by M.I. Vorotynsky (February 27, 1571) - on establishing the parking places for stanitsa patrol heads and assigning detachments to them. They can be considered a prototype of domestic military regulations.

Knowing about the upcoming raid of Devlet-Girey, what could the Russian commander oppose to the Tatars? Tsar Ivan, citing the war in Livonia, did not provide him with a sufficiently large army, giving Vorotynsky only the oprichnina regiment; The prince had at his disposal regiments of boyar children, Cossacks, Livonian and German mercenaries. In total, the number of Russian troops was approximately 60 thousand people. 12 tumens marched against him, that is, an army twice as large as the Tatars and Turkish Janissaries, who also carried artillery. The question arose, what tactics to choose in order to not only stop but also defeat the enemy with such small forces? Vorotynsky's leadership talent was manifested not only in the creation of border defenses, but also in the development and implementation of a battle plan. Did another hero of the battle play a crucial role in the latter? Prince Dmitry Khvorostinin.

So, the snow had not yet melted from the banks of the Oka when Vorotynsky began to prepare to meet the enemy. Border posts and abatis were made, Cossack patrols and patrols were constantly running, tracking down the “sakma” (Tatar trace), and forest ambushes were created. Local residents were involved in the defense. But the plan itself was not yet ready. Only general features: drag the enemy into a sticky defensive war, deprive him of maneuverability, confuse him for a while, exhaust his forces, then force him to go to the “walk-city”, where he will give the final battle. Gulyai-Gorod is a mobile fortress, a mobile fortified point, built from individual wooden walls, which were placed on carts, with loopholes for firing cannons and rifles. It was erected near the Rozaj River and was decisive in the battle. “If the Russians did not have a walk-city, then the Crimean Khan would have beaten us,” recalls Staden, “he would have taken us prisoner and taken everyone bound to the Crimea, and the Russian land would have been his land.”

The most important thing in terms of the upcoming battle is to force Devlet-Girey to go along the Serpukhov road. And any leak of information threatened the failure of the entire battle; in fact, the fate of Russia was being decided. Therefore, the prince kept all the details of the plan in the strictest confidence; even the closest commanders for the time being did not know what their commander was up to.

Start of the battle

Summer has come. At the end of July, the hordes of Devlet-Girey crossed the Oka River just above Serpukhov, in the area of ​​​​Senka Ford. Russian troops occupied positions near Serpukhov, fortifying themselves with the Gulyai-city. Khan bypassed the main Russian fortifications and rushed towards Moscow. Vorotynsky immediately withdrew from the crossings at Serpukhov and rushed after Devlet-Girey. The advanced regiment under the command of Prince Dmitry Khvorostinin overtook the rearguard of the Khan's army near the village of Molodi. The small village of Molodi at that time was surrounded on all sides by forests. And only in the west, where there were gentle hills, did the men cut down the trees and plow up the land. On the elevated bank of the Rozhai River, at the confluence of Molodka, stood the wooden Church of the Resurrection.

The leading regiment overtook the Crimean rearguard, forced it into battle, attacked and defeated it. But he did not stop there, but pursued the remnants of the defeated rearguard right up to the main forces of the Crimean army. The blow was so strong that the two princes leading the rearguard told the khan that it was necessary to stop the offensive.

The blow was so unexpected and strong that Devlet-Girey stopped his army. He realized that there was a Russian army behind him, which must be destroyed in order to ensure unhindered advance to Moscow. Khan turned back, Devlet-Girey risked getting involved in a protracted battle. Accustomed to solving everything with one swift blow, he was forced to change traditional tactics.

Finding himself face to face with the main forces of the enemy, Khvorostinin avoided the battle and, with an imaginary retreat, began to lure Devlet-Girey to the walk-city, behind which Vorotynsky’s large regiment was already located. The Khan's advanced forces came under crushing fire from cannons and arquebuses. The Tatars retreated with heavy losses. The first part of the plan developed by Vorotynsky was brilliantly implemented. The rapid breakthrough of the Crimeans to Moscow failed, and the khan’s troops entered into a protracted battle.

Everything could have been different if Devlet-Girey had immediately thrown all his forces into the Russian positions. But the khan did not know the true power of Vorotynsky’s regiments and was going to test them. He sent Tereberdey-Murza with two tumens to capture the Russian fortification. They all perished under the walls of the Walking City. Minor skirmishes continued for two more days. During this time, the Cossacks managed to sink Turkish artillery. Vorotynsky was seriously alarmed: what if Devlet-Girey abandoned further hostilities and turned back to start all over again next year? But that did not happen.

Victory

On July 31, a stubborn battle took place. Crimean troops began an assault on the main Russian position, located between the Rozhai and Lopasnya rivers. “The matter was great and the slaughter was great,” the chronicler says about the battle. In front of the Walking Town, the Russians scattered peculiar metal hedgehogs, about which the legs of the Tatar horses broke. Therefore, the rapid onslaught, the main component of the Crimean victories, did not take place. The powerful throw slowed down in front of the Russian fortifications, from where cannonballs, buckshot and bullets rained down. The Tatars continued to attack. Repelling numerous attacks, the Russians launched counterattacks. During one of them, the Cossacks captured the Khan’s chief adviser, Divey-Murza, who led the Crimean troops. The fierce battle continued until the evening, and Vorotynsky had to make great efforts not to introduce the ambush regiment into battle, not to detect it. This regiment was waiting in the wings.

On August 1, both troops were preparing for the decisive battle. Devlet-Girey decided to put an end to the Russians with his main forces. In the Russian camp, supplies of water and food were running out. Despite successful fighting, the situation was very difficult.

The next day a decisive battle took place. The Khan led his army to Gulyai-Gorod. And again he was unable to capture the Russian fortifications on the move. Realizing that infantry was needed to storm the fortress, Devlet-Girey decided to dismount the horsemen and, together with the Janissaries, throw the Tatars on foot to attack.

Once again, an avalanche of Crimeans poured into Russian fortifications.

Prince Khvorostinin led the defenders of the Gulyai-city. Tormented by hunger and thirst, they fought fiercely and fearlessly. They knew what fate awaited them if they were captured. They knew what would happen to their homeland if the Crimeans succeeded in a breakthrough. German mercenaries also fought bravely side by side with the Russians. Heinrich Staden led the artillery of the city.

The khan's troops approached the Russian fortress. The attackers, in rage, even tried to break the wooden shields with their hands. The Russians cut off the tenacious hands of their enemies with swords. The intensity of the battle intensified, and a turning point could occur at any moment. Devlet-Girey was completely absorbed in one goal - to take possession of the Gulyai-city. For this, he brought all his strength into the battle. Meanwhile, Prince Vorotynsky managed to quietly lead his large regiment through a narrow ravine and hit the enemy in the rear. At the same time, Staden fired a volley from all guns, and the defenders of the walk-city, led by Prince Khvorostinin, made a decisive sortie. The warriors of the Crimean Khan could not withstand the blows from both sides and fled. Thus the victory was won!

On the morning of August 3, Devlet-Girey, who had lost his son, grandson and son-in-law in the battle, began a rapid retreat. The Russians were on their heels. The last fierce battle broke out on the banks of the Oka, where the 5,000-strong Crimean rearguard covering the crossing was destroyed.

Prince Vorotynsky managed to impose a protracted battle on Devlet-Girey, depriving him of the benefits of a sudden powerful blow. The troops of the Crimean Khan suffered huge losses (according to some sources, almost 100 thousand people). But the most important thing is the irreparable losses, since the main combat-ready population of Crimea took part in the campaign. The village of Molodi became a cemetery for a significant part of the men of the Crimean Khanate. The whole flower of the Crimean army, its best warriors, lay down here. The Turkish Janissaries were completely exterminated. After such a brutal blow, the Crimean khans no longer thought about raiding the Russian capital. The Crimean-Turkish aggression against the Russian state was stopped.

Laurels for a hero

The history of Russian military affairs was replenished with a victory that was the greatest in the art of maneuver and interaction of military branches. It became one of the most brilliant victories of Russian weapons and promoted Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky to the category of outstanding commanders.

The Battle of Molodin is one of the brightest pages of the heroic past of our homeland. The Battle of Molodin, which lasted several days, in which Russian troops used original tactics, ended in a major victory over the numerically superior forces of Devlet-Girey. The Battle of Molodin had a strong impact on the foreign economic situation of the Russian state, especially on Russian-Crimean and Russian-Turkish relations. Selim's challenging letter, in which the Sultan demanded Astrakhan, Kazan and the vassal submission of Ivan IV, was left unanswered.

Prince Vorotynsky returned to Moscow, where he was given a magnificent meeting. There was less joy on the faces of Muscovites when Tsar Ivan returned to the city. This greatly offended the sovereign, but he did not show it - the time had not yet come. Gossips they added fuel to the fire, calling Vorotynsky an upstart, greatly belittling his participation and importance in the battle. Finally, the prince's servant, who robbed him, denounced his master, accusing him of witchcraft. Since almost a year had passed since the great victory, the tsar ordered the commander to be arrested and subjected to severe torture. Having failed to achieve recognition of witchcraft, Ivan IV ordered the disgraced prince to be exiled to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. On the third day of the journey, 63-year-old Mikhail Vorotynsky died. He was buried in the cemetery of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery.

From that time on, mention of the Battle of Molodin, its significance for Russia, and the very name of Prince Vorotynsky were under a cruel royal ban. Therefore, many of us are much more familiar with Ivan the Terrible’s campaign against Kazan than with the event of 1572 that saved Russia.

But time will put everything in its place.
Heroes will remain heroes...

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