Bible of the Time. …from the Big Bang to the present day…

…On the Don, there is a stratification of the Cossacks into «old», serving the state, and fugitives. The latter have serious financial problems. In addition, in conditions of peace, they desire to gain fame. Siberia and the Urals are a huge cauldron of war. The uprising of the peasants under Catherine II has a historical basis.

…In 1667, the Cossack Stepan Razin became the leader of free warriors: Cossacks, Tatars, Bashkirs, Kalmyks, Nogays. Thieves’ campaigns are made to the lower Volga and across the Caspian Sea to Persia. The fleet of Stepan Timofeevich launches the ship of Admiral Mamed Khan to the bottom, seizes other vessels that have lost their speed, which, according to the inexplicable plan of the naval commander, are connected by chains. Among the trophies were the khan’s son and daughter – a Persian princess, the heroine of a famous song. According to legend, the Cossack sacrifices the maiden weighed down with rich decoration to the river.

In the spring of 1670, Razin entered into open confrontation with the tsarist administration. The entire Volga and part of the Volga region is under his control. The main idea is to extend the Cossack military-democratic system to the Russian state. The governors are trying to settle the matter peacefully. They send ambassadors to Stepan, but only death awaits them in the camp of the rebels. The Cossacks claim that among them is the son of Alexei Mikhailovich, Alexei Alexeevich and the exiled Patriarch Tikhon.