page_title: Yermak Timofeyevich
section_title: Commemoration
hierarchical_section_title: Yermak Timofeyevich / Commemoration
caption_attribution_description: English: History of the Russian Cossacks - Ermak Timofeevich
context_page_description: Yermak Timofeyevich was a Cossack ataman and is today a hero in Russian folklore and myths. In the reign of Tsar Ivan the Terrible Yermak started the Russian conquest of Siberia.
  Russians' fur-trade interests fueled their desire to expand east into Siberia. The Tatar khanate of Kazan was established as the best entryway into Siberia. In 1552, Ivan the Terrible's modernized army toppled the khanate. After the takeover of Kazan, the tsar looked to the powerful and affluent Stroganov merchant family to spearhead the eastward expansion. In the late 1570s, the Stroganovs recruited Cossack fighters to invade Asia on behalf of the tsar. These Cossacks elected Yermak as the leader of their armed forces, and in 1582 Yermak set out with an army of 840 to attack the Khanate of Sibir.
  On October 26, 1582, Yermak and his soldiers overthrew Kuchum Khan's Tatar empire at Qashliq in a battle that marked the "conquest of Siberia". Yermak remained in Siberia and continued his struggle against the Tatars until 1584, when a raid organized by Kuchum Khan ambushed and killed him and his party.
context_section_description: The Russian people pay tribute to the legend of Yermak in a variety of ways. 
  Multiple statues and monuments have been erected in his honor throughout Russia. 
  V. A. Beklemishev began his construction project for a monument dedicated to Yermak in 1903 in the Cathedral Square of Novocherkassk, the capital of the Don Cossack country. On the monument Yermak is shown holding his regimental banner in his left hand and the ceremonial cap of his rival Kuchum Khan in his right hand. The back of the monument reads: “To the Don Cossack Ataman Ermak Timofeyevich, the Siberia conqueror from the grateful posterity. In honor of Don Cossack Army 300th Anniversary. He passed away in Irtysh waves on August 5, 1584.” Some believe that Yermak was born in the village of Kachalinskaya on the Don. Though this region has long claimed Yermak to be one of its own, there is no evidence that he was born there or ever visited.
  There is also a statue of Yermak at Tobolsk and one in the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg designed by M. M. Antolkol’skiy.
  Two icebreakers have been named after Yermak. The first, built in Newcastle, England, in 1898, was one of the first major vessels of that type ever built and the second, which entered the service in 1974, was the first of an impressive new type of ship.
  In commemoration of Yermak, there is a town named after him on the upper Irtysh. Similarly, a mountain in the Perm Region made up of three cliff stacks is called the Yermak Stone after Yermak. Legend has it that Yermak and his brigade passed one of the harsh Siberian winters on the cliff side.
caption: Yermak on a Russian postage stamp (2009)
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