Bolotnikov's Rebellion

the 1606 siege of Moscow

There are places on Earth where every structure, every hill speaks to you of ages past. Sometimes there is only a solitary voice. Sometimes there are many voices, rising out of the recesses of time, joining together into a chorus. One voice usually sings the solo, but this does not mean that the others could not sing as intriguing a song.

In Kolomenskoye, the solo is sung by the Church of the Ascension, the graceful 16th century wonder, reaching skyward like a fairy-tale castle. But as soon as you enter Kolomensky Park, you see that you are in a place that resounds with the voices of many different eras. 

The most distant voice reaches us from the primitive past. Not far from the museum, where later the village of Dyakovo would stand, an ancient encampment has been unearthed. We do not know how many centuries its people lived here or what fate befell them. The evidence seems to indicate that they were Ugro-Finnic – the most ancient settlers of these parts. Maybe they were already calling the river that flowed past them the Moskva, not knowing that later a great city would take its name. They lived on a bend in the river. Today, the vast expanse of Moscow can be seen from here, and, in the distance, another amazing sight – Tsaritsyno Palace and park. For those who settled here two or three millennia ago, this place provided an ideal vantage point from which to keep an eye on the river, which was the only way into these wooded wilds. From the tall hill, you could see anyone coming from a great distance, be they traveling merchants or unexpected enemies. 

Millennia passed. A few dozen kilometers from the village of Dyakovo, a city began to grow. During the 14th century, its local princes began to prosper. They built themselves a palace outside their city, in the village of Kolomenskoye. Today, there is nothing left of the original palace beyond a few entries in the official records of land ownership. Yet, walking through the park today, it is possible to imagine oneself an illustrious ruler – perhaps the artful and thrifty Ivan Kalita or the brave Dmitry Donskoy. What did they do here? Did they come here to relax? To pray? Were they dealing with Affairs of State? We know that the forces of Dmitry Donskoy passed through Kolomenskoye on their way back from Kulikovo Field. Did the Prince stop here to rest or hurry on his way home? We can only guess.

Over the next two centuries, Muscovite princes developed a special fondness for Kolomenskoye. Even today, one senses a remarkable calm here, despite the fact that it is only five minutes to the metro, that nearby there are major thoroughfares, cars, and factory smokestacks. But here there is a peaceful park, a quiet river, sky and open spaces, the likes of which one rarely finds in a large city. It is not surprising that, when Prince Vasily III ordered that a church be built here in honor of his first born, a gallery was constructed around it so as to create a special place for the sovereign to sit and admire the river and forest. At the time, no one knew that the church that was so remarkable for its elegant airiness, the Church of the Ascension, was being erected to honor a child that would grow up to be one of the cruelest tyrants of Russian history – Ivan the Terrible. 

After Ivan died, he left behind a devastated and blood-drenched country, as well as two sons who were barely capable of ruling. After Tsarevich Dmitry died under mysterious circumstances in Uglich and after the sickly Tsar Fyodor passed away, the Rurik Dynasty came to an end. Boris Godunov, one of the boyars, became tsar. This marked the beginning of the Time of Troubles, an era of hunger and exceptionally cruel winters, of boyar tsars and false pretenders. After a daring nobleman, talented poet and fugitive monk, Grigory Otrepyev, became tsar, passing himself off as Dmitry, the son of Ivan the Terrible who had been thought to perish, it seemed that anything was possible. 

The False Dmitry managed to hold the throne for a year before he was murdered by conspirators led by the boyar Vasily Shuisky. Rumors immediately spread that the tsar had survived, and the Poles started promoting a new pretender – False Dmitry II. These rumors reached the Cossack hinterland, and the Cossacks stirred up small landowners, who were unhappy that Vasily Shuisky had proclaimed himself tsar. The story of the survival of “Tsar Dmitry” was also believed by one Ivan Bolotnikov, who, at the time, was making his way home across half of Europe. And what was not to believe? He had after all seen the tsar alive, with his own eyes.

By the standards of any time, Bolotnikov lived an amazing life. But at the beginning of the 17th century, a fate such as his was truly remarkable. In his youth, he had fled the estate where he was a serf to join the Cossacks. He was then captured by the Crimean Tatars and sold into slavery to Turkey, where he became a galley oarsman. He was again captured, this time by the Venetians. 

In 1606, Bolotnikov was freed from captivity and made his way to Poland, where, at the palace of George Mniszek, he met the “true” Tsar Dmitry. Never mind that this second false Dmitry was actually a Polish puppet by the name of Molchanov. Bolotnikov apparently believed in him and was dispatched by “Dmitry” to Muscovy with a wad of money, to clear the path for his “return” to the throne. 

Bolotnikov arrived in Putivl in the summer of 1606. There, Grigory Shakhovskoy, the petty nobleman who had been a favorite of the first False Dmitry, was so impressed with Bolotnikov that he appointed him “royal voivode,” or commander in chief, of the brewing rebellion. Soon Bolotnikov found himself at the head of a raging revolt, which spread from the towns and villages in the south and which pursued Shuisky’s fleeing boyar forces to the very gates of Moscow. By October of 1606, the capital was under siege and the rebel camp was at Kolomenskoye.

Bolotnikov was in  Kolomenskoye a little more than a month. While there, he built an ostrog, a little wooden fortress, from which he sent out his messengers and tried to assemble fresh forces, seeking to win over the city’s inhabitants by sneaking leaflets into the city that urged slaves to kill masters and merchants, promising that they would inherit their riches. Indeed, the propaganda worked; popular sympathies were leaning toward the rebels. But then, in the middle of November, one of Bolotnikov’s leading generals unexpectedly defected to Shuisky with his sizeable forces. It was a crippling blow. 

In the middle of a decisive battle, another of Bolotnikov’s leading commanders went over to Shuisky. This second major defection sent the rebels into disarray: on December 2, 1606, at the village of Kotly, between Kolomenskoye and Moscow, Bolotnikov’s forces were decisively crushed. They fled back to Kolomenskoye, where Shuisky barraged the ostrog for three days, until Bolotnikov and the remnants of his forces beat a hasty retreat. 

Bolotnikov remained at large until October of 1607, regrouping his forces for a final battle at Tula, where he was captured. The unrepentant former galley slave was taken to the distant northern town of Kargopol, where he was blinded and drowned in a river. Did a vision of the white wonder of the  Kolomenskoye chapel or the Venetian canals pass before his eyes before he died? We will never know.

Calm returned to Kolomenskoye. The ostrog built by Bolotnikov was demolished and all traces of the time his troops spent there were destroyed. After a few more decades, the tsar of the new Romanov dynasty – Alexei Romanov – took up residence in Kolomenskoye. Historians write about Tsar Alexei’s love for beauty, and a wooden palace was built here that came close to being one of the wonders of the world. Today, the only thing left of the palace is a small replica in the museum and recollections about a special enclosed walkway leading from the palace to yet another church, the Our Lady of Kazan. The walkway was built to enable tsaritsas and tsarevnas to attend service without exposing themselves to the gaze of strangers. 

During the century that followed, there were few signs of life in Kolomenskoye, as the capital had been moved to St. Petersburg. From time to time, tsars and tsarinas would visit here, pray, wander the grounds, or even build themselves suburban palaces. Nonetheless, not much was happening. The voices of history were quiet. It was not until the 1920s, when Peter Dmitriyevich Baranovsky began work on a museum, that history again began to sing here.

Baranovsky’s contributions to Russian historical architecture are enormous; he is responsible for restoring or saving countless monuments of Russian history. It was he, for example, who put a stop to plans for the destruction of St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square during the Stalin era. 

As a result of Baranovsky’s efforts, Kolomenskoye has been transformed into a remarkable museum. Now, voices that long emanated from these grounds are joined by other voices, as remnants of Russia’s wooden architectural traditions were transplanted here. There is a wall from the Cossack ostrog fortress in Bratsk, built during the exploration and conquest of Siberia – a distant relative of Bolotnikov’s ostrog. 

Peter the Great, who, like Dmitry Donskoy, passed through Kolomenskoye with his army after an important battle – the Battle of Poltava – also spent some of his childhood here. This is remembered through a cabin that has been transported here from Arkhangelsk, where the young tsar also spent  time. 

A wooden gate from a 17th century monastery was brought here from the shores of the White Sea. And the ancient villagers of Dyakovo received a gift from their contemporaries in the Don steppe – the famous stone figures known as kamennye baby. 

It would seem an impossible mix – churches from the 16th and 17th centuries, primitive settlements, ancient sculptures, oak logs associated with Peter the Great, wooden structures from various periods. But here it all seems to fit. The ground under Kolomenskoye breathes history and voices from the past merge into a harmonious symphony. n