Chronicle of a stingy (we give the text according to the Esipov Chronicle): “In the summer of 7093, voivode Vasily Sukin and Ivan Myasnoy came from Russia, with them many Russian people. Having erected the city of Tyumen, like the city of Chingiy, and built houses for itself, erecting churches as a refuge for myself and other Orthodox Christians."
The city was named "Tyumen", and the chronicle, as always, does not explain this choice. It is indicative that the name of the city had fluctuations at first. Now "Tyumen" for us is a feminine gender, but at first it was understood as a masculine gender - it always happens if the word is borrowed. It is clear that the Cossacks did not come up with this word, but asked the locals whom they met near the city - "what is your town called?" And the people answered - "Tyumen". We call the predecessor of Tyumen Chingi Tura in an armchair way, but the people themselves probably called him Tyumen. This was the name of the state, formed in 1220 by Taibuga, and the name of the state was gradually transferred to the city founded by him in the same year. This is brilliantly confirmed by the words from the Preface to the Book Book, which directly says: “And they reached the Tyumen settlement and set up the first city in Siberia, Tyumen”.
A description of Tyumen has survived, it is not known what time, but, obviously, earlier: in the preface to the Esipov Chronicle, according to K.'s list. We give it in full: “The city of Tyumen stands on the river Zh Tura, floating down, on the right side. Below it is the Tyumenka River. Near that Tyumen city there are arable lands and many villages and villages of the sovereign's arable peasants and villages of Tyumen children of boyars and servicemen and townspeople. And the servicemen and yasak people near the Tyumen town of Totarov live in nomads, and they have a letter according to Maametov's law, they plow spring bread, and they also feed on cattle and fish. And the sovereign's yasak is given by sables and beavers, and martens, and foxes, and squirrels. And the fish in the Tura river is white, the same as in Verkhoturye and in the Turenian prison, and the red fish, and the sturgeon and sturgeon emerge from Tobolak. And the city of Tyumen stands in a high place on a red,and on one side the steppe ran to Kalmyki and Ufa. Kalmyk people come from the steppe with bargaining. And from Tyumen I go to Tobolsk for eight or nine days by the river Tura and Tobol and Irtish by large ships …"
From the earliest time, we see, therefore, Tyumen as a powerful military center, to which both the Tatars, who pay yasak (tribute) to the Russian “khan,” and who feed themselves with agriculture, and merchants are drawn, and the chronicler singles out not the Bukharians, but the Kalmyks, which has not yet found a proper assessment in the literature.
Probably from the very beginning it was planned that Tyumen would not be the capital of Siberia. This role was assigned to Tobolsk. Officially, Tobolsk became the “capital” in 1590, 3 years after its foundation. This is understandable: Tobolsk was located near Siberia, the Tatar capital. But then gradually Tyumen became "more important" - its geographical position, from the point of view of industrial economy, is better.
The further story about the city will not be in chronological order; instead, we will focus on its historical topography. As follows from the historical plan (we got it from the official website of the city), the following town-planning blocks are distinguished in Tyumen (further pay attention to the numbers on the plan): 3. Ancient Chingi Tura. 1. Russian fortress. 2. Posad of the Russian fortress. 6. Ilyinsky Convent. 4. Yamskaya Sloboda. 5. Trinity Monastery. 7. Bukhara (left) and Kozhevennaya Sloboda.
Scheme of the placement of "urban blocks" in Tyumen.
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Ancient Chingi Tura
As has been said more than once, I have never been dug. It was located where the district with the speaking name Tsarevo settlement is now located. Why Tsarevo is understandable, because the Russians called the Horde khans "tsar" even after they themselves found a tsar in the person of Ivan the Terrible. Nowadays there is nothing royal in the Tsarevo Gorodishche. An area with old, wooden buildings from the 19th century, very littered, in the middle of ravines. The landmark is the Geolog stadium, during the construction of which in the 1980s the last remnants of the cultural layer of Chingi Tura were destroyed. When you are in Tyumen and start looking for this stadium, do not fall into the same trap as me. There are two “Geologists” in Tyumen - you need a large stadium on Kommuna Street, not a sports complex of the same name in a completely different area.
Take a walk - only in the daytime - in this strange area of Tyumen, which even now has a peculiar air, a special physiognomy. Look at the map of the city - even the street grid is located here at a different angle than outside this triangle. It is clear that the houses of the 19th century involuntarily reproduce the urban planning grid of the pre-Russian period.
The ramparts of the settlement, especially the one that fenced it off from the only, unprotected side of nature, approximately along the line of the present Tovarny Highway, was seen back in the 18th century, but now there is no trace of them. At the same time, the statements found in the old literature that the rampart, visible as early as the 19th century, from Lake Lyamina (now covered up; it was near the former Spasskaya Street - now Lenin) stretching to Tura, was the remains of a Tatar city, are erroneous: judging by location, it was about the ramparts of the Russian city.
In addition to the ramparts, the Tatar capital, as local historians of the 19th century correctly noted, was protected by “gullies”, or natural ravines. Each such gully in Russian time (as well as in Tatar) had its own name: Tyumenka, Vishnevy and Dedilov. The first and the last are probably the names left over from the Tatar time. In the old days there was water in the gully Tyumenka, apparently, it's still not just a ravine, but an ancient moat. The city of Chingi Tura was located just between Tyumenka and Vishnev.
The old local historians, following the local residents, also considered the numerous mounds in the vicinity of the city (then: now they are within the boundaries of Tyumen, in Gorky Park) as remnants of the khan's time. People said that the tsars of Siberia were buried here. This, of course, is impossible: the Tatars did not bury in the kurgans, for this they built mausoleums, in Siberia most often from wood. In the 20th century, the mounds were excavated, and they turned out to be related to the 8-7 centuries BC, and had nothing to do with the Siberian Khanate.
Russian fortress
The Russians did not place Tyumen exactly on the site of the Tatar Chinga Tura. The Cossacks did not like how Chingi Tura stood. The Tyumenka River formed a clear peninsula, which God himself intended for the construction of fortifications. The Tatars did not use this peninsula. The Cossacks, of course, chose this ideal, especially empty space (Figures 7, 8, 9). At the same time, they probably laughed at the Tatars, whose city stood in the depths of Tura, among some ravines and swamps. In vain. Tura is a treacherous river, but to understand this, you need to live here for several decades.
Figure 7. Stone at the site of the city. In the background - Holy Cross Church (left) Trinity Monastery (right). Photo from the book of A. Ivanenko.
Figure 8. The same area, photo from the Tura River. From the brochure "Tyumen & hellip;"
Figure 9. The same area in the 1930s in a painting by the Tyumen artist M. Gardubei. From the book of A. Ivanenko
Like the Neva, from time to time the Tour spills over. Floods can be terrible. We do not know the date of the first flood. But in rare photographs of the 19th century we see a mirror of solid water, three kilometers overflowing from the river bed. Since then, dams began to be built around the city, so recklessly placed. But in 1979 the dam almost collapsed. 9.15 meters from the calm level - this was the highest spill in the entire history of Tyumen. The Kremlin, built by Sukin and Myasny, is no longer in principle - since then Tura has eaten about 200 meters of the coast, and their city stood on the very edge.
A striking fact that has yet to be comprehended: the layout of the Russian fortress has practically no analogues among the serf construction of that time. Tyumen resembles a “snail”, “a shell of a rapana” (this is clearly seen in the old engraving at the top of this page). Tyumenka and Tura form two diverging “shell walls”, which are overlapped across by several “tiers” of fortifications. Amazingly, in the entire East European Plain and throughout the Middle Ages, there were only two cases when the fortress was erected in the same way. These are the Zolotarevskoe settlement in the Volga Bulgaria, which took shape by the 13th century, and the Tatar Kyzyl Tura (see Figure 10). What follows from this fact? Only what is before us are echoes of some very ancient urban planning tradition. The builders of Russian Tyumen probably originated from the Volga. Most likely, these first Cossacks and Streltsy were Turks by nationality, descendants of the Bulgars, and retained the concept of how they built fortresses in their homeland. If the reader finds my explanation unsatisfactory, he may suggest a better one.
Figure 10. Posad Tyumen in the 17th century. Old plan.
The first fortress, founded in June 1586, was probably primitive. The real one, with towers, was erected in 1593-1595. The wall went along the modern Semakov Street, from the Tura side the city had no walls for a long time. The “river” wall appeared only in 1624: the fortress turned out to be closed. In the place where there was a ferry across the Tura from the Bukhara Sloboda (about it below), two towers stood on the shore - something like a port fortification in the manner of Constantinople.
From the side of the posad, just outside the fortress wall, in 1620 a wooden nunnery appeared - Alekseevsky (Ilyinsky; on the site of the present hotel "Oilman"). In 1668, after a big fire, the fortress was expanded by drawing new walls along the line of the current Chelyuskintsev street (however, there are only two blocks between Chelyuskintsev and Semakova). But the old wall was not destroyed either. The central, Spasskaya tower of the Kremlin was moved entirely to a new place, apparently, dismantled by logs, and in its place they built another, equipped with a gate bell tower, which is clearly visible on the old plans of the city. The Znamensky Passage Gate stood at the intersection of Chelyuskintsy and Volodarsky, which is reminiscent of the Znamensky Church on Volodarsky.
After the expansion of the fortress, the Ilyinsky Monastery found itself within its limits, and since it was also surrounded by a log wall, it turned out to be a kind of “citadel”. The monastery was abolished after a fire in 1695.
After the fire of 1687, the authorities did not begin to restore the chopped prison, considering that it was too expensive, instead they erected a cheaper “city prison”. I am not a great specialist in fortification, and I cannot grasp the difference between these two types of prison construction.
In 1699, the project of the stone Tyumen Kremlin appeared, but it was never implemented in brick. The wooden walls, as in other Russian cities, were gradually dismantled during the 18th century.
In the history of the Tyumen fortress, there are not many cases when the fortification was useful to repel the enemy: the nomads, in principle, did not like to take fortresses. In 1603, the Nogai wanted to take Tyumen, but they did not even reach it, limiting themselves to plundering villages, and the Tyumen Cossacks pursued them. In 1607, the Kuchumovichs unsuccessfully attacked Tyumen, in the next 1608 - the Nogais. In 1609, the Tatars, Ostyaks and Voguls were also forced to confine themselves to plundering the suburbs. In 1634, after the fortress had just been renovated in 1630, some nomads came to Tyumen, who only “scrabbled against the bumps”, that is, “scratched” against the walls.
The year 1635 was more successful for the Tatars, when they held Tyumen under siege. The siege itself did not harm the Russians - it was soon removed. The Cossacks began to pursue them, and then the Russians were in for real trouble, because all the pursuers fell into a trap and were killed.
As already mentioned, it is impossible to wander through the territory of the heart of the old fortress: it is washed out by Tura. But to find at least approximately its place is not difficult: the old museum of local lore and the Victory obelisk will serve as a reference point. Now there is also a monument to Ermak and his Cossacks. Some elements of antiquity are visible in the building of the Gostiny Dvor (1835), since the main bargaining of the Russian fortress was, of course, in the fortress itself or very close to it.
Fortifications are inseparable from temple construction. The wooden church of the Nativity of the Virgin was erected at the very moment of the foundation of the city. In 1600 and 1601, instead of the narrow one, two new ones were erected, but also wooden: again the Nativity of the Virgin directly in the fortress, in the place of the old one, and Borisoglebskaya in the posad.
Another important temple, the Cathedral of the Annunciation, once stood on the very bank of the Tura. Built at the direction of local authorities in brick in 1700, in the place where the river was intensively undermining the city. Already in 1765, the cathedral had to be overhauled. It was fortified many more times, and in 1932 it was blown up. As they say in Siberia, “paint and throw away”.
Under the Annunciation Cathedral there is a system of underground passages that stretch for many hundreds of meters and have not been properly explored. The author of these lines has no doubts that they were built not by Russians, but by Tatars, as in Kazan, where the system of "holes" has not yet been fully studied. Tatars were great masters in this matter.
The system of underground passages, as A. Ivanenko writes, is located under the Square of the Fighters of the Revolution, and is also located within the limits of the Russian fortress. The Tyumen ethnographer connects them with the Church of the Archangel Michael (erected in wood - at the beginning of the 17th century, in stone - in the 1780s, now being restored), standing at the corner of Lenin and Turgenev streets. The moves allegedly go from this church to the Znamensky Cathedral (on Volodarsky Street). They say that these passages were also used by the tsarist gendarmes, in particular, through them they were taken to the river, to the boat, and taken out of the city the exiled Leon Trotsky. I have no doubt that they were used and even repaired, but they were built by the Tatars, and their connection with the cult buildings of the Russian time is explained by the fact that churches were erected on the site of the destroyed mosques of the old Chingi Tura.
Posad
Posad Tyumen began to form immediately after the construction of the fortress (Figure 10). It was a sea of wooden houses. Back in the 1960s, Tyumen was said to be the “capital of villages” (Figures 11, 12). Even now, the city does not give the impression of a powerful metropolis. “The spilled sea of wood”, - wrote the then guidebooks, trying to prevent the impression of a tourist and to soften it to some extent. There is no sea now, there are still puddles that are trying, and not without success, to dry thoroughly. It's a pity to tears. First, in Tyumen, the cultural layer, apparently irrevocably, of the pre-Russian city was destroyed, and now in a few years we will not see the Russian, old Tyumen either.
Figure 11. Masharov's house. A gem of late 19th century wooden architecture. Photo from the booklet Tyumen..
Figure 12. The Ikonnikovs' mansion. 1804 year. Photo from the same place.
To walk around the old settlement, you need to go behind Chelyuskintsev Street, and, keeping to Lenin (Spasskaya) Street, make sure: very little has survived from ancient Tyumen.
On October 25 Street there is the oldest civil building in Tyumen (house number is either 10 or 6, I myself did not manage to get to it and take a picture). This is a simple "hut" built in the middle of the 18th century. On Lenin Street, there is still the Savior Church, which once gave the whole street its name (Figure 13). It was built in stone in 1794, most likely, it also had a wooden prototype. The Church of Michael the Archangel, which was briefly mentioned above, was also a posad. Interestingly, in 1911, a mosque was finally built on Spasskaya Street, which occupied, together with a madrasah and a hotel for pilgrims, almost a block (today it is house 15). After the revolution, the minaret of the mosque was dismantled, and now it is not easy to separate it from the civil development.
Figure 13. Street Spasskaya (Lenin) and the church of the same name. Photo from the book of A. Ivanenko.
The fortress wall, passing along Ordzhonikidze Street, also served as the border of the posad. It was erected when other estates were also surrounded by walls - in 1640-1642. Street layouts change dramatically outside this long defunct wall, and you only need to look at a modern map to understand the boundaries of the old settlement.
Zatyumenka, Yamskaya Sloboda
This area was settled in 1605 by coachmen. It is interesting to tell where they came from in Tyumen (Figure 14).
Figure 14. View of Zatyumenka from the Trinity Monastery. Finally, a photo of the author.
It is clear that it made sense to talk about the drivers when the permanent road to Europe was finally built. Despite the fact that the country had long been conquered and almost pacified, there was no good road to Russia. In 1595, the tsar announced a competition to find the road, and it was won by a certain posad from Sali Kamskaya, who received a contract for its construction. The “construction” was to make the trail fit for coachmen. In two years the road was ready. It was named Babinovskaya, after the surname of this posad, and it was used for several hundred years.
At first, only Tatars drove along it. The Yamskoye affair, as you know, was an invention of the Horde, and it was no accident that until 1601 the local authorities forced the local Tatars to be chased. Those complained that it was painful for them. Complaints went to the king. On January 28, 1601, in the same year as Kuchum died, the tsar issued an order to set up a permanent Yam station with professional coachmen in Tyumen.
They brought 50 Russian coachmen to the city from afar, gave them arable land in Zatyumenka and allowed them to build houses. There were about a dozen of driver's villages, all with Russian names, now most of them no longer exist. But, as often happens, the household has distracted them from the profession. Then they again gradually forced the Tatars to carry mail and passengers - for some reason the Tatars did it better. They began to grumble again, and only in 1630 did the authorities finally form a professional, and not on a national basis, coachmen's workshop. Some of these people had accumulated enough money by the 18th century (fighting for higher wages throughout the 17th century) to become merchants, while others even got so rich that they took up pure science, as, for example, the Cherepanovskaya Chronicle was written in 18th century. Amazingbut in Western Siberia the coachman profession disappeared only in the 1950s.
On the outskirts of Zatyumenya, almost outside the city, there is Babarynka Street (the old name is Barynka, after the name of the river), located almost outside the city. The name was mentioned in the letters of the 17th century, when the tsar was resolving the dispute between the Tatars and the coachmen, who should mow in this place. As A. Ivanenko notes, there is no way to guess this word toponymically, except perhaps from the Tatar “crossing”, and that is not very good. Probably, after all, there was some kind of crossing here in the Tatar times, perhaps to the other side of the Tura. There is also a river of the same name.
Trinity Monastery
The Preobrazhensky (from the 18th century - Trinity) Monastery became the decoration and serious protection of Zatyumenka. Amazingly, this is the only complete preserved monastery in the Tyumen region. Only I managed to visit it without haste, walk around, look, and apart from him, I really did not see anything in Tyumen.
The monastery was founded in 1616. In 1708-1717, the Trinity Cathedral was erected in stone (Figure 15). As in other buildings in Siberia of this time, the composition of the temple dates back to the ancient proper Russian samples, while the external decor is decided in the traditions of Ukrainian architecture, which together makes an inexpressible impression. The appearance of the "Ukrainian" domes proper contrasts with the bell tower, which rather resembles the Volga samples of the "colonization" style, which developed when the peoples of Chuvashia and Tatarstan were converted to Orthodoxy. The temple has preserved frescoes, probably made in the 18th or 19th centuries, which were mocked by the communists at one time (Figure 16). Now this painting, late by the standards of Central Russia, but extremely expressive and original, is gradually being restored.
Figure 15. Trinity Cathedral of the monastery of the same name.
Figure 16. Fresco from the Trinity Cathedral.
Another church on the territory of the monastery, Zosima and Savvaty, or the Forty Martyrs, was erected in the same year 1717. She also resembled Ukrainian samples. Unfortunately, in Soviet times, when the monastery had a waste disposal station, the church was completely destroyed.
In 1741, a monumental stone defensive wall stretched around the monastery. In Central Russia, such walls were no longer built in the 18th century. In the best case, in Russia they were limited to simple brick walls without loopholes, devoid of fortification significance. In Tyumen, it seems, it was meant to build a real stone fortress - there is even a fighting move. The gateway Peter and Paul Church with a bell tower (Figure 17) and the gates that appeared in the same year (Figure 18) are good.
Figure 18. Entrance tower to the Trinity Monastery.
The Church of the Exaltation of the Cross is located at a distance from the monastery, on the very edge of Zatyumenka, closest to the old Chingi Tura. Built in 1790 (Figure 19).
Figure 19. Church of the Exaltation of the Cross. Photo from the book of A. Ivanenko.
Bukhara and Kozhevennaya settlements
They are located behind Tura. In 1640-1642, they were also included in the fortress system through the construction of walls. But where they came from, and what they meant for the city, its culture and economy - these are the most interesting questions (Figure 20).
Figure 20. Naberezhnaya Street in Bukhara Sloboda. Photo from the book of A. Ivanenko.
To be a trade bridge between East and West - we see this mission of Western Siberia back in the days when the Ishim Khanate served as a transmission link between the Askiz in Altai and Bulgaria. Tatar cities under Taibuga, Ibak, Kuchum and any other ruler were swarming with merchants from China, especially Central Asia, and Muslim merchants from the Volga. The Russians did not penetrate here. At one time, as we have seen, Bukhara merchants helped to establish Taibuge here. We cannot even imagine how great was the importance of merchants in the political life of the khanate, due to the lack of sources. When Ermak appeared, of course, the merchants left.
But not for long. Already in 1595, the Bukharians turned to the Russian authorities with a request to return to Tyumen. As usual, they sent for permission to ask the king himself. The latter reacted very quickly. By a decree of August 31, 1596, the Bukharans were allocated bargaining for Tura (probably for the safety of the townspeople), at the very place where, most likely, there was a battle for Chingi Tura (according to the Kungur chronicle). The decree ordered the Cossacks to treat the Bukharians well, in particular, not to drive them out before they sold their goods. But at the same time, the decree obliged to ensure that merchants did not “climb” and did not sell weapons to the Tatars, even protective ones. Using the permission, the Bukharans first set up their temporary wagons and benches, then they began to gradually sit down on the ground, and thus a permanent settlement, consisting of Central Asians, turned out.
In 1609, the Bukhara settlement became even more extensive: Tatars from the old Chingi Tura and other small villages were resettled here to live with the Bukharians. The economic significance of this settlement cannot be overestimated. Asian merchants were primarily attracted by the opportunity to buy furs here. In turn, they brought goods from China, Dzungaria, India, Arab countries, Kalmykia. The share of oriental goods reached 98 percent at fairs in Tyumen and Tobolsk. Sources name 86 trade items. These are, first of all, fabrics, ready-made clothes, leather, bows and knives, horses, cattle, Chinese porcelain, tea, cauldrons and metal dishes … When we are amazed at how in the 17th century there was such an abundance of oriental objects in Russian everyday life, primarily dishes for pilaf (which are passed off as shields in local history museums),where so many Bukhara weapons come from - thank Siberia, and the Bukhara settlement in Tyumen in the first place. Of course, the market has not been equal to itself in different years. So, after 1671, Arab goods are no longer transported through Siberia. But the market replaced them with others. Since by that time the famous Makaryevskaya Fair on the Volga had already risen to its feet, the Bukhara Sloboda became the “nourishment” of the All-Russian Volga market, which turned it into a first-class commercial enterprise for a country that needed almost a full range of imported goods. The Bukhara Sloboda became that “nourishment” of the all-Russian Volga market, which turned it into a first-class commercial enterprise for a country that needed almost a full range of imported goods. The Bukhara Sloboda became that “nourishment” of the all-Russian Volga market, which turned it into a first-class commercial enterprise for a country that needed almost a full range of imported goods.
Kozhevennaya stood next to the Bukhara trading settlement, and this neighborhood is easy to explain. Leather dressing was an original Tatar craft. Even Prince Vladimir the Baptist saw Bulgarian warriors in excellent boots, and to this day in modern Arabic good leather is called “Bulgari”. In Moscow, the concentration of the tanning industry is clearly traced to the Horde settlement. The same is in Tyumen. The masters who served the Tatar nobility gradually came to the Russians. The construction of a fortress wall around these also "foreign" settlements became an indicator of trust in the Tatars. This, however, is understandable: Bukharians and Tatars began to receive baptism little by little. In the 17th century (it is not known exactly when) a wooden church appears on Beregovaya Street, exactly between the Bukhara and Kozhevennaya settlements,which in 1789 dresses in stone and takes the name of Voznesenskaya (or Georgievskaya - the abundance of names in one church is for some reason characteristic of Tyumen). Today it is practically destroyed.
The leather settlement already in the 18th century became the real curse of Tura. The tannery pollutes the water, so long before the real industrial revolution, Tours became a stinking ditch. A. Ivanenko writes that when they dug a foundation pit for the workshop of a chemical-pharmaceutical plant, they found a layer of tree bark, which was used for tanning leather, 1.5 meters thick.
But, despite baptism, Islam cannot be erased from the map. Further beyond the Bukhara settlement is the Yanaul region, or New Yurts (New village, on the map it is also called Parfenovskaya). This is, in fact, an old Tatar village, founded unknown when, of those that are mentioned near Tyumen by the first Russian chronicles. Today the village is decorated with the minaret of the mosque, but it is new (1989).
Conclusion
I was still a child when a glimpse of a line in a history textbook struck me with its very fact: there was an independent khanate in Siberia, in the wilderness!
Russian historical science has not yet been able to understand the geopolitical significance of the khanate. It seems to the author that history itself provided the future Eurasian empire with several alternatives, several dozen “flowers,” which, if we recall Mao Zedong, should blossom together. We were, as it were, being told - but it is possible to live like that, and to build relationships with the world like that … Everything was not a decree for us. This is how the Soviet and post-Soviet Western Siberia appeared as a result: oil, gas and … and that's all.
Evgeny Arsyukhin