Ostrog is a fortification fortification, which is a permanent or temporary settlement, fortified in case of armed conflict, surrounded by a stockade with a height of four to six meters.
In Russia, large-scale construction of prison buildings began in the eleventh century AD. Most often, they served as protection against raids by nomadic tribes.
One of the many buildings on the territory of our country is the Bratsk prison, a photo of which will be given in this article. What is this building? What is the history of the fraternal prison? Why was it built and what is happening to it now? You will learn the answers to these and many other questions from this article, which will give the legends and facts of the founding of the Bratsk prison.
The development of Siberia
The foundation of the Bratsk prison was closely connected with the penetration of Russian travelers into the vast Siberian lands. The seventeenth century has become for our country an era of territorial discoveries and the development of the unknown. People, mainly from the northern regions of the Russian Empire, began to equip lengthy expeditions, the purpose of which was to capture new 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 snow-covered plains are Peter Ivanovich Beketov, Semen Ivanovich Dezhnev, Ivan Yuryevich Moskvitin, Enalei Leontyevich Bakhteyarov, Erofei Pavlovich Khabarov, Ivan Ivanovich Rebrov and many, many others.
Despite the hardships, bad weather and other difficulties, these brave and fearless travelers went forward, mainly on foot, only occasionally using sea or river routes to achieve their goals. They were poorly equipped to move with water. The sailing and rowing ships entrusted to him as a vehicle were outdated models and often poorly equipped.
During such trips, they not only annexed new territories to the state, but also mastered them: they drew drawings and maps of the area, and also collected the fur tax, popularly referred to as yasak. According to this tax, the indigenous inhabitants of Siberia and the Far North introduced the skins of fur animals (foxes, sables, martens, beavers and so on) to the imperial treasury.
However, these are not all the great accomplishments of explorers. Going deep into the Siberian open spaces, they founded settlements in the form of prison and wintering grounds. When did the foundation of the brotherly prison work occur?
Cases of bygone days
According to historical reports, the date of foundation of the Bratsk fortress is 1631. The settlement was built by Russian explorers along their route to the Yenisei River, with the aim of finding mineral deposits (including silver ore) and collecting yasak.
Although the construction was planned for 1630, the foundation of the Bratsk prison was, as we see, happened twelve months later. Most likely, this happened because I had to change the place of the planned settlement. Initially, they wanted to erect 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 capture the village under their command.
Who was the founder of the Brotherly prison?
The mystery behind the seven seals
Who built the brotherly prison? Despite such a simple and ordinary 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 studies were 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.
Personality intrigue
According to the original version, Peter Beketov was considered the founder of the fortification village, who was sent in 1628 to collect taxes to the Shaman threshold. On his own initiative, Pyotr Ivanovich went a little further up, collecting yasak from the Buryat princes at the mouths of the Oka and Ankara.
During his travels, he wrote several petitions in which he claimed that he had built many winter houses (including the Bratsk prison) and asked the sovereign to return him the rank of Cossack chieftain and his previous 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. An official describing Siberian wintering simply refers to the words of Peter Ivanovich, who called himself a builder and his expedition.
According to modern information, Beketov could not establish the Bratsk prison, since he had never wintered at the source of the Oka. The fortress was erected by Maxim Perfiliev, another Russian explorer and ataman. Having erected the building as a defensive garrison and residence of the servicemen, he immediately went to Yeniseysk.
There was no concrete report on the construction of the prison. Or it did not reach 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 to defend themselves against the Buryat tribes. Moreover, they improved and strengthened their construction so that servicemen could be there in complete safety.
Here, however, it is worth stopping and getting a little acquainted with the biography of people whose names are so closely related to the construction of the Bratsk prison.
Maxim Perfiliev
Very little is known about the life of this Russian explorer. For example, according to rough estimates, he was born around 1480 and lived for about 76 years. Coming from the Siberian Cossacks, at the age of twenty, he participated in the military campaigns in the lower reaches of the Yenisei River with the rank of chieftain. Since 1626, he led an expedition to explore Siberia with service people.
In addition to the fact that Perfiliev 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 abilities. 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 Streletsky centurion.
Ivan Yuryevich Moskvitin
Born at the beginning of the seventeenth century, this man held the position of ataman of foot Cossacks and became the first European to reach the Sea of Okhotsk and discover the Sakhalin Gulf.
Despite the fact that he was born not far from Moscow, already at the age of twenty he went to conquer Siberia as an ordinary, 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 fate of the fortress
The construction quickly grew and developed. It became a fairly solid and solid garrison, protecting the warehouse where the harvested yasak was stored, as well as the people who collected the lodge and developed the Siberian lands. And at least there were at least a hundred people.
According to historical information, the brotherly prison was carried several times. For example, in 1648 he was transferred to the right bank of the Angara, closer to the local villages. And in 1654, the fortress was twice transferred along the mouth of the Oka River. In this case, the construction was supervised by the explorer and ataman Dmitry Firsov, who documented the size of the newly built structure.
What caused the transfer of the Bratsk prison from place to place? Most likely, this was due to the raids of the Buryats, who refused to pay the Russian Tsar and provided aggressive resistance to the servants.
They committed reprisals against tax collectors, attacked their settlements and burned the Bratsk prison several times.
Appearance
What did the fraternal prison look like in those years? The photos shown in the article are slightly different from each other, since they relate to different periods of its foundation. It has already been written above that the structure was postponed several times. Moreover, it was rebuilt and strengthened several times.
And yet, according to archaeological excavations, one can understand that the fortress consisted of several two-story towers and the main gate, which were surrounded by moats and hollows.
Community Expansion
According to documents, in 1649 a chapel was built in the fortress. Local servants appealed to the tsar and the archbishop with petitions to send them a priest so that services and other ceremonies could be performed.
As you can see, by that time the number of people living in the settlement had grown significantly. Now, not only the servants lived here. Various documents mention plowed peasants sowing fields with barley and hemp, as well as such craftsmen as a blacksmith and tailor.
The first church on the fortification was built, most likely, under Firsov. Services were performed in it, and a priest lived with his family. He also erected in the settlement numerous huts and mansions of the clerk. By this time, the Bratsk fort was becoming not only a fur collection center, but also an important agricultural settlement.
Later realignments
According to documents, in the second half of the seventeenth century, the construction of the fortress fell into disrepair. Since new Buryat raids were expected, the Yenisei voivode allocated people and funds for the restructuring of the Bratsk prison. The work was led by Ivan Perfiliev. He dismantled the towers, replacing the logs in them, and stacked them in other places, thereby slightly reducing the total 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 fortress, as they performed the basic functions of defense and protection of the settlement.
Tower layout
Surprising and unusual was the arrangement of these structures. Since they contained two functions at once (defensive and residential), the layout of the room looked unique and special.
The first floor of each tower was built to accommodate and live in it Cossacks. The rooms here were carefully insulated and furnished with utensils. On top of the first floor was an interfloor log floor insulated with a layer of moss, clay and earth.
Later mentions
The record of the Bratsk prison was recorded in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, released in 1890 in St. Petersburg. At that time, this building was a village on the left bank of the Angara. According to official figures, at that time the fortress contained sixty yards, 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, the archpriest Avvakum visited the Bratsk fortress, heading to the place of his expulsion. This is a famous figure of the Old Believers, exiled for his convictions to Siberia, where he was executed in 1682.
In 1675, the Moldavian boyar-diplomat Nikolay Gavrilovich Spafariy followed 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 “Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow”.
Nowadays
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
The fraternal prison is considered an important historical landmark, testifying to the courage and fearlessness of the Russian people during the development of Siberian territories. Therefore, at the moment, a lot of attention is paid to the fortification.
For example, at the state level, it was decided to reconstruct some of the buildings of the prison. Old documents, sketches and sketches of past years were raised. According to these documents, in April 2014 the tower of the Bratsk prison was restored in Bratsk, the photo of which is posted below.
This is a tall eight-meter building (considering the spire crowning the structure), characterized by impressive dimensions. A wide gate adjoins the tower, including a chapel and a barn. Thus, an open-air museum was organized, opening the doors to all lovers of national history.
However, a few years before this event, another copy of the old building was created, which was transported to the Moscow Museum-Reserve. The tower of the Bratsk fortress in Kolomenskoye is an original and interesting metropolitan exhibit that attracts the attention of not only historians and lovers of antiquity, but also geographers, as well as sailors and military.
This Siberian exposition, reminiscent of how many lives took the conquest of the North and its territories, will never leave indifferent people of various callings and professions.
Conclusion and conclusion
As you can see, the period of construction of the Bratsk fortress is a very interesting time period in Russian history. The fortress was not only the place of residence of explorers, but also performed important strategic functions.
First of all, the settlement was a figurative vestibule in the conquest of Transbaikalia. In addition, it was a guard post covering the path from the Yenisei to the Lena River. Also, the fortress served as a stronghold for the collection and storage of the royal tribute. And, most interestingly, the prison was an important starting point for the equipment of pioneering expeditions beyond Lake Baikal. From here lay roads leading to the Arctic Ocean, Mongolia, China, the Pacific Ocean, and so on.
At one time, the Bratsk prison was an advanced point created for the purpose of exploring and developing the lands spread beyond Lake Baikal, as well as meeting and forging ties with the peoples inhabiting uncharted expanses.