Ostrog is a fortified fortification, which is a permanent or temporary settlement, fortified in case of armed conflicts, surrounded by a palisade four to six meters high.
In Russia, large-scale construction of prisons began from the eleventh century AD. Most often, they served as protection against raids by nomadic tribes.
One of such numerous constructions on the territory of our homeland is the Bratsk Ostrog, a photo of which will be given in this article. What is this building? What is the history of Bratsk Ostrog? Why was it built and what is it now? You will learn the answers to these and many other questions from this article, which will present the legends and facts of the founding of the Fraternal prison.
Development of Siberia
The foundation of the Bratsk prison is closely connected with the penetration of Russian travelers into the boundless Siberian lands. The seventeenth century became for our homeland the era of territorial discoveries and exploration of the unknown. People, mainly from the northern regions of the Russian Empire, began to equip long expeditions, the purpose of which was to masternew lands - Eastern Siberia, the Far North and the Far East. Mostly, these were Cossacks, merchants and service people, striving for a new life and new discoveries. They were called explorers.
The most famous conquerors of the snow-covered plains are Pyotr Ivanovich Beketov, Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnev, Ivan Yuryevich Moskvitin, Enalei Leontyevich Bakhteyarov, Erofey Pavlovich Khabarov, Ivan Ivanovich Rebrov and many, many others.
Despite hardships, bad weather and other difficulties, these brave and fearless travelers went forward, mostly on foot, only occasionally using sea or river routes to achieve their goals. They were ill-equipped to navigate by water. The rowboats assigned to them as vehicles were outdated and often poorly equipped.
In the process of such travels, they not only annexed new territories to the state, but also mastered them: they made drawings and maps of the area, and also collected a fur tax, popularly called yasak. According to this tax, the indigenous inhabitants of Siberia and the Far North contributed dressed skins of fur-bearing animals (foxes, sables, martens, beavers, and so on) to the imperial treasury.
However, these are not all the great achievements of explorers. Delving into the Siberian expanses, they founded settlements in the form of prisons and winter quarters. When did the foundation of the Fraternal prison take place?
Cases of bygone days
The date of foundation of the Fraternal prison, according to historical reports, is 1631. The settlement was built by the Russiansexplorers on their way to the Yenisei River, in order to find deposits of minerals (including silver ore) and collect yasak.
Although the construction was scheduled for 1630, the foundation of the Fraternal prison, as we see, took place twelve months later. Most likely, this happened because the place of the planned settlement had to be changed. Initially, they wanted to build a structure along the mouth of the Oka River. However, this territorial point did not fit, as it was the center of the camps of the Mongols (namely the Buryats), who could seize the village under their command.
Who was the founder of the Fraternal prison?
Secret with seven seals
Who built the Fraternal prison? Despite such a common and simple question, the answer to it cannot be clear and concise. The fact is that for some time one person was considered the founder of the village. Then, when additional research was carried out and new materials were considered, it became clear that the builder of the structure was a completely different person.
Let's look into this issue in more detail.
Intrigue of personalities
According to the original version, Pyotr Beketov was considered the founder of the fortified settlement, who was sent in 1628 to collect taxes to the Shamansky threshold. On his own initiative, Pyotr Ivanovich went up a little more, collecting yasak from the Buryat princes at the mouths of the Oka and Ankara.
During his journey, he wrote several petitions in which he claimed that he had built many winter quarters (inincluding the Bratsk jail) and asked the sovereign to return to him the rank of Cossack ataman and his former salary. However, later, in official documents, there is no one hundred percent confirmation that it was Beketov who became the founder of the settlement on the Oka. The official describing the Siberian wintering simply refers to the words of Pyotr Ivanovich, who called himself and his expedition the builder.
According to modern information, Beketov could not establish the Bratsk Ostrog, since he never wintered at the source of the Oka. Maxim Perfilyev, another Russian explorer and ataman, was able to build the fortress. Having erected the building as a defensive garrison and a place of residence for servicemen, he immediately went to Yeniseisk.
There was no specific report on the construction of the prison. Or it has not reached our time. Who knows? However, later official documents of Perfiliev and people from his entourage (for example, Vasily Moskvitin) indicate that they used the fortress, defending themselves from the Buryat tribes. Moreover, they improved and strengthened their building so that service people could be in complete safety there.
Here, however, it is worth stopping and getting a little acquainted with the biography of people whose names are so closely associated with the construction of the Fraternal prison.
Maxim Perfiliev
Very little is known about the life of this Russian explorer. For example, according to approximate data, he was born around 1480 and lived for about 76 years. A native of the Siberian Cossacks, already at the age of twenty, in the rank of ataman, he participated in military campaigns in the lower reaches of the Yenisei River. Since 1626,he led an expedition to develop Siberia by service people.
In addition to the fact that Perfilyev built the Bratsk prison, he also created drawings of nearby lands, as well as distant territories, planning new routes. However, he was valued not only as a fearless discoverer. Perfiliev was famous for his diplomatic skills. He could conduct mutually beneficial negotiations with the Buryats and Tungus, as well as the Mongols and even the Chinese.
It was precisely for his merits in the conquest of Siberia and the Baikal region that Maxim Perfiliev was awarded the lowest boyar rank and the rather honorary title of archery centurion.
Ivan Yurievich Moskvitin
Born at the beginning of the seventeenth century, this man served as chieftain of foot Cossacks and became the first European to reach the Sea of Okhotsk and discover Sakhalin Bay.
Despite the fact that he was born not far from Moscow, already at the age of twenty he went to conquer Siberia as a private, along with other foot Cossacks. With his expedition, he made distant trips to the North, discovering new lands for his homeland and collecting furs for the sovereign.
The further fate of the fortress
The structure grew and developed rapidly. It became a fairly strong and solid garrison, protecting the warehouse where the collected yasak was stored, as well as people who collected taxes and developed the Siberian lands. And there were at least a hundred of them.
According to historical information, Bratsk Ostrog was moved several times. For example, in 1648 it was moved to the right bank of the Angara, closer to the localvillages. And in 1654 the fortress was moved twice along the mouth of the Oka River. In this case, the construction of the structure was led by explorer and ataman Dmitry Firsov, who documented the dimensions of the newly built structure.
What caused the Bratsk prison to be moved from place to place? Most likely, this was due to the raids of the Buryats, who refused to pay taxes to the Russian Tsar and offered aggressive resistance to the servicemen.
They massacred tax collectors, attacked their settlements and burned down Bratsk prison several times.
Appearance
What did Bratsk prison look like in those years? The photos given in the article are somewhat different from each other, as they refer to different periods of its foundation. It has already been written above that the building was transferred several times. Moreover, it was rebuilt and strengthened several times.
And yet, according to archaeological excavations, it can be understood that the fortress consisted of several two-story towers and the main gate, which was surrounded by ditches and gouges.
Expansion of the settlement
According to the documents, in 1649 a chapel was built in the fortress. Local servicemen addressed petitions to the tsar and the archbishop with a request to send them a priest so that they could perform services and other ceremonies.
As you can see, by that time the number of people living in the settlement had grown significantly. Now not only servicemen lived here. Variousdocuments mention arable peasants sowing fields with barley and hemp, as well as craftsmen such as a blacksmith and a tailor.
The first church on the fortification was most likely built under Firsov. Services were performed in it, and the priest lived with his family. He also erected numerous huts and mansions of the clerk in the settlement. By this time, Bratsk Ostrog had become not only a fur collection center, but also an important agricultural settlement.
Later rebuilds
According to the documents, in the second half of the seventeenth century, the fortress buildings fell into disrepair. Since new raids of the Buryats were expected, the Yenisei governor allocated people and funds for the reconstruction of the Bratsk prison. The work was directed by Ivan Perfilyev. He dismantled the towers, replacing the logs in them, and stacked them in other places, thereby slightly reducing the overall territory of the fortress.
From later documents that have come down to us through the thickness of centuries, it is clear that such repair work in the fortification was carried out more than once. Most attention was paid to the towers of the Bratsk prison, as they performed the main functions of defending and protecting the settlement.
Tower layouts
The structure of these structures was amazing and unusual. Since they contained two functions at once (defensive and residential), the layout of the premises looked unique and special.
The first floor of each tower was built to accommodate and live in the Cossacks. The rooms here were carefully insulated and furnished with utensils. On top of the first floor there was an interfloor log ceiling, insulated with a layer of moss, clay and earth.
Later references
The entry about the Fraternal prison was entered in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, published in 1890 in St. Petersburg. At that time, this building was a village on the left bank of the Angara. According to official data, at that time the fortress contained sixty courtyards, where 510 people lived. On the territory of the village there was a volost government, a river pier, a parish school, and shops.
Interesting facts
According to historical data, Archpriest Avvakum visited the Bratsk Ostrog on his way to the place of his exile. This is a famous figure of the Old Believers, who was exiled to Siberia for his beliefs, where he was executed in 1682.
In 1675, the Moldavian boyar-diplomat Nikolai Gavrilovich Spafariy followed through the fortress, heading with his embassy mission to China.
And, finally, in 1790, Alexander Radishchev lived here, exiled to Siberia for his free-thinking book “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow.”
Our time
As the prison began to lose its military significance, it began to turn into a peaceful settlement, named in 1955 the city of Bratsk. Now it is an administrative center located on the banks of two reservoirs. Its area is 428 square kilometers, and the population exceeds 231,500 people.
Reconstruction of historical buildings
Bratsky prison is considered an important historicallandmark, testifying to the courage and fearlessness of the Russian people during the development of the Siberian territories. Therefore, at the moment, a lot of attention is being paid to the fortification.
For example, at the state level, it was decided to reconstruct some of the prison buildings. Old documents, sketches and sketches of past years were raised. According to these documents, in April 2014, the tower of the Bratsk prison in Bratsk was restored, the photo of which is posted below.
This is a tall eight-meter building (considering the spire crowning the building), which is impressive in size. The tower is adjoined by a wide gate, which includes a chapel and a barn. Thus, an open-air museum was organized, which opened its doors to all lovers of national history.
However, a few years before this event, another copy of the ancient building was created, which was transported to the Moscow Museum-Reserve. The tower of the Bratsk prison in Kolomenskoye is an original and interesting exhibit of the capital, attracting the attention of not only historians and lovers of antiquity, but also geographers, as well as sailors and the military.
People of various vocations and professions will never be left indifferent by this Siberian exposition, which reminds of how many lives were taken by the conquest of the North and its territories.
Conclusion and Conclusion
As you can see, the period of construction of the Bratsk prison is a very interesting temporaryspan of national history. The fortress was not only a place of residence for explorers, but also performed important strategic functions.
First of all, the settlement was a figurative threshold in the conquest of Transbaikalia. In addition, it was a guard post covering the way from the Yenisei to the Lena River. Also, the fortress served as a stronghold for the collection and storage of royal tribute. And, what is most interesting, the prison was an important starting point for the equipment of pioneer expeditions beyond Baikal. From here lay the roads leading to the Arctic Ocean, Mongolia, China, the Pacific Ocean and so on.
At one time, the Bratsk Ostrog was an advanced point created for the purpose of exploration and development of lands stretched beyond Baikal, as well as acquaintance and establishing ties with the peoples inhabiting unexplored expanses.
