The delegation of the Hori-Buryats to Tsar Peter I

In the second half of the XVII century, the Buryats , who lived in the territory from the eastern tributaries of the Yenisei to Dauria , became part of the Russian state . The largest Buryat tribe in Transbaikalia was the Khoris who lived in the eastern part of modern Buryatia and in the west of the Transbaikal Territory .

In the 1680s , relations between the Buryats and the tsarist officials of the local administration sharply worsened. One of the causes of the conflict lay in the economic sphere: Buryat families paid yasak (tax) with fur , and partly with cattle . However, payment was not always made on time. Here is what the Buryat chronicler, the head of the Sagan clan, Shulenga Vandan Yumsunov (1823–1883) wrote about this:

“In those days, if during the collection of yasak we did not have money and furs, the Russian Cossacks nearest to Selenga, who had common places with us, and the peasants took the sons and daughters of the Khorin people hostage and caused them all kinds of suffering. As a result of such sorrows, a completely impossible situation was discovered. "

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Another reason for dissatisfaction was the settlement of the Khorinsky Buryats by Russian Cossacks and immigrants, which also led to conflicts. The third reason was the frequent raids of the Manchu and Mongol armed groups that drove cattle.

Representatives of the Buryat clans repeatedly complained to the Nerchinsk and Irkutsk voivodships, as well as to the office of the Siberian Prikaz in Tobolsk. However, this did not lead to anything. Then a general assembly was convened - a jug of all 11 Khorinsky clans, at which, at the suggestion of one of the elders, the zaisan of the khargan Daskh Bodoroev’s family, it was decided to send a delegation to Sagaan Khan (“the White Tsar ” - the Buryats called the Russian Tsar). The purpose of the delegation was to bring directly to the king the problems and aspirations of the Khorin Buryats.

The delegation was composed of representatives of all 11 Khorinsky clans, a total of 52 people. The heads of the Zansan of the Galzut clan Badan Turakin and the Zaysan of the Khargan clan Daskh Bodoroev were appointed heads.

According to the annals of the known part of the delegation:

“The Bodongut clan is occupied by Ochikha Sardaev, and from different clans and uluses of Shulenga: Sharakhan, Tose, Kondokhoy, Basutai, Bayandai, Tatsur, Abundai, Okin, Uchir, Yesaul Badanova ulus Bonturiy, Dasieva ulus Adaiya, Ochaiha. Kondokhoev ulus Nomoy, Basutayev ulus Nogshina, Bayanduyev ulus Harandai, Okineev ulus Kemzey, Tatsurov ulus Tanhai, Uchirova ulus Notochi, as well as generic yasnaya fraternal people ... "

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As the spiritual patroness, the delegation included the main shaman-udagan of the huatsai clan 23-year-old Erehen. The duties of a translator (interpreter) were performed by the Nerchinsk clerk Alexey Shergin.

All clans provided the delegation with horses, provisions, valuable fur, silver, and gold. All were armed with sabers. Some had guns and pistols.

In the autumn of 1702, the envoys of the Khorinsky Buryats, having performed traditional prayers and ritual sacrifices, set off on a long journey. The purpose of the delegation was to remain a secret, so travelers at night avoided Cossack outposts. We stopped for a vacation in the Buryat uluses of the Angara region , where they also kept silent about their plans.

The campaign ran through the mountain taiga areas of Eastern Siberia , the plains of Western Siberia , and the mountains of the Urals . The path was not easy: the lack of roads, rain, snow, frost ... The great Siberian rivers were of particular difficulty: sometimes they had to swim along, due to incomplete freezing.

There were clashes with robbers, horse thieves, fugitive convicts. Badan Turakin, the head of the Zaisan clan of the Galzut clan, in difficult times encouraged his companions in this way:

“Be patient, take courage, we do not suffer alone for ourselves, endure hardships and troubles, risk our lives, but for those who stayed at home, in their native steppes. For our old mothers, our fathers, sisters and brothers, for small children we endure torment ”

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The farther the travelers moved away from their native lands, the less they began to shun the main roads - they drove into Russian villages, Tatar villages, settlements of other peoples. Finally, in early February 1703, a delegation of Khorintsy moved to Moscow .

Arriving in Moscow, the Buryats with difficulty settled in Kitai-Gorod. Even more difficulties had to be overcome, seeking reception from the royal dignitaries. Fortunately for the Khorintsy, they met Fedor Alekseevich Golovin .

In 1688, Golovin was sent by the tsarist government to Transbaikalia to resolve the border conflict with the Chinese Empire , after which the Nerchinsk Treaty was concluded. By order of Golovin, a new Udinsky fort was rebuilt and other fortifications in the lands of the Khori-Buryats were significantly strengthened. On this trip, he met with the Buryat people. Golovin helped the delegation settle down and, most importantly, organize an audience with Peter I.

The king received a delegation at the end of February 1703 . Badan Turakin and Erehen-udagan presented the king with a sable fur coat and gold bullion, treated Peter with tarasun (milk wine). After that, the heads of delegation told the sovereign about their problems. The king, after listening carefully to the Khorintsy, ordered the preparation of the Decree , which he signed on March 22, 1703 . The Decree says:

“In the current year, 1703, on February 25, the Nerchinsk, yashash fraternal people of different clans, the Galsut clan of Zaisan Badan Turakin, and the Kharganat clan of Zaisan Daska Bodoroev, and the Bodongut clan, and all of the clan Yashash were beaten with brow to us, the Great Sovereign people. The complaint - de their foreigners of Irkutsk I will be awarded to the Selengin and Udi servants and all ranks of people; in past years, their grandfathers lived behind the Mungal taishas and, not wanting to live behind them, and with all their clans entered our Great Sovereign yasak ... to roam their ancestral lands, where great-grandfathers and grandfathers and their fathers lived, and after - de their and other births entered our, Great Sovereign, yashashny payment; and their ancestral lands are nomadic places down along the Selenga, along the Uda and along the Kurba rivers, and on those nomadic places the Udian Cossacks settled in whole houses on the right side and below the Chikoi river along Khilka, along the Dark, along the Uda and Itanets near Baikal Sea. And we, the Great Sovereign, would welcome their foreigners for their many unceasing continuous services and yasash payment: to order them to continue to be near Nerchinsk in their ancestral lands and nomadic and aforementioned places on the right side of the Selenga River; and from the Kudarinsky steppes of them, the Selenga and Udin servants and all ranks of people, to take the river to the other side of the Selenga from the hut ”

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Thus, according to the Decree, the Hori-Buryats were assigned the right to own land and clan nomads in the Selenga , Ona , Uda , Khudan , Tugnaya , Kurba , Khilka , i.e. territories up to the borders of Mongolia . The Khorinsky clans were removed from the subordination of the Itantsinsky prison and transferred to the jurisdiction of the Eravinsky prison .

Cossack and resettlement houses were transferred from the right bank of the Selenga River to the left. The military were instructed to stop the invasion of the Mongol and Manchu detachments on the Buryat lands. The decree strictly prohibited violent actions on the part of the governor and the Cossacks to "yasash people."

The tsarist commission from Moscow conducted an investigation into the abuse of local officials in relation to the Buryats. Some officials were removed from their posts.

The trip of the delegation of eleven Khorin clans was an important event in the history of Transbaikalia. The result was the relative relief of the life of the Buryats, the return of tribal lands, legal protection from possible oppression by officials, and the cessation of raids by the Mongols and Manchu. Since then, the internal situation in Eastern Siberia, in particular in Transbaikalia, has relatively normalized.

The memory of the feat of the Khorinsky envoys is still alive in the memory of the Buryat people.

• PETER FIRST AND BURYATIA
• 1839. Report on the origin of eleven Khorin clans.
• Reception at Peter the Great.
• In Buryatia, the 300th anniversary of the equestrian passage of the Khori-Buryats to Peter I will be celebrated