Irmen battle

After the destruction of the detachment of Yermak Khan of the Siberian Khanate, Kuchum again managed in many respects to restore his power and impose tribute to large areas of Western Siberia . The Russian government turned to the tactic of consistent advancement into the depths of Siberia , consolidating the occupied territories by building fortified ostrogs and cities. For 15 years, Kuchum led active hostilities with the Russian troops, he tried to capture the Russian spears, but to no avail.

In the summer of 1598, by the decree of Tsar Boris Godunov, voivode Andrey Matveyevich Voeikov with a detachment of 700 archers and Cossacks and 300 serving Tatars came out of the Tara fortress " in campaign for the king Kuchum ." It is known that in the detachment of Voeikov was the comrade of the deceased Ermak, ataman Ivan Groza .

Being in the area of Lake Ubinskoe , the voivode received information about the location of the Kuchum camp. At the head of the cavalry detachment in 405 (according to other sources in 397), Andrei Matveyevich Voeikov covered about 400 kilometers in 5 days, discovered and suddenly attacked a fortified Khan camp at the confluence of the Irmen river into the Ob (currently, near the village of Verkh-Irmen Ordynsky Novosibirsk region ), in which there were about 500 soldiers Kuchum.

The battle continued from sunrise on August 20 until noon, and was of a fierce nature. The camp was taken by attack, the remains of the detachment Kuchum pressed to the bank of the Ob River. According to the report of Voeikov, the brother and two grandsons of Kuchum, six princes, fifteen murz and about 300 Tatar soldiers died in battle. Five younger sons of the khan, eight wives from his harem, five close khan, 150 warriors were taken prisoner. However, the khan himself, with a detachment of 50 warriors, managed to break through. A few days later, this squad was overtaken by the Cossacks and killed, but Kuchum managed to escape this time too. He and several people roamed the Altai and Kuznetsk forests, having lost all power, soon died in a skirmish with local tribes or Bukharians.

This small-scale battle (less than 1000 participants on both sides) had enormous consequences. The dominion of Kuchum was completely lost, all West Siberian nomadic and sedentary tribes departed from him and swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar. The Siberian Khanate ceased to exist in fact, and a few years later, after the death of Kuchum’s last son, nominally. The vast territory from the Urals to the Ob became part of the Russian state , which passed to a further rapid advance to the east.

The Battle of Irmen is the only historically authentic battle on the territory of the Novosibirsk Region, not counting the events of the Civil War in Russia . Currently, the battlefield is flooded by the Novosibirsk reservoir . On its shore, a memorial sign was erected at the site of the battle in 1993. There they take tourists from the recreation center "Turgrad" . On August 20, 2014, a memorial to the participants of the battle was unveiled near the battlefield ^[1] .

• ChefsN. А. Battles of Russia: encyclopedia. - M .: AST , 2006. - P. 209. - (Military history library). - ISBN 5-17-010649-1 .