S3 E7. ICE(?) PART I – Yermak Timofeyevich

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast

This week, we join Yermak Timofeyevich and his band of Cossacks in a chilly adventure across the Ural Mountains and into Siberia.

CREDITS

Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis.

Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Twitter @ds_wack and Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett.

Logo by Riley. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @tallestfriend.

Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Armstrong, P.C.B. (1997). Foreigners, Furs And Faith: Muscovy’s Expansion Into Western Siberia, 1581-1649. MA Thesis. Dalhousie University. Available at: https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/mq24794.pdf
• ‘Conquest of the Khanate of Sibir’. (2021). Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_the_Khanate_of_Sibir
• Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2012). ‘Yermak Timofeyevich’, in Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yermak-Timofeyevich
• Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2015). ‘Siberia’, in Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/place/Siberia
• Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2020). ‘Cossack’, in Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cossack
• Frazier, I. (2010). Travels in Siberia. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Landers, B. (2009). Empires Apart: A History of American and Russian Imperialism. New York, NY: Pegasus Books. Available at: https://archive.org/details/B-001-000-179/page/n113/mode/2up?q=yermack
• Manning, C.A. (1923). ‘Yermak Timofeyevich in Russian Folk Poetry’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 43, pp. 206-215. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/593339.pdf
• Ostrowski, D. (2016). ‘Sibir’, Khanate of’, in MacKenzie, J.M. (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Empire. Vol. 4. New York, NY: Wiley, pp. 1-3. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe190
• Ratnikas, A. (n.d.). Timeline Siberia. Available at: http://timelines.ws/countries/SIBERIA.HTML
• Severin, T. (2014). The Man Who Won Siberia. Boston, MA: New Word City.
• Stépanoff, C. (2009). ‘Devouring Perspectives: On Cannibal Shamans in Siberia’, Inner Asia, 11(22), pp. 283-307. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23614964
• Vajda, E.J. (2002). ‘The West Siberian Tatars’, EA210: East Asian Studies. Western Washington University. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20070703182348/http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ea210/tatar.htm
• Volchek, D. (2021). ‘Conquest of the Khanate of Sibir’, Historystack. Available at: https://historystack.com/Conquest_of_the_Khanate_of_Sibir
• Yastrebov, Y.B. et al. (2021). ‘Ural Mountains’, in Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/place/Ural-Mountains/Climate
• Yerokhin, I.Y. (2014). ‘History of the Cossacks – the story of contradictions’, Актуальные проблемы гуманитарных и естественных наук, (3-1), pp. 82-85. Available at: https://publikacia.net/archive/uploads/pages/2014_3_1/24.pdf
• ‘Yermak Timofeyevich’. (2019). Encyclopedia.com. Available at: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/yermak-timofeyevich
• ‘Yermak Timofeyevich’. (2021). Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yermak_Timofeyevich
• ‘Yermak Timofeyevich, Conquest of Siberia’. (2020). Timeline Index. Available at: https://www.timelineindex.com/content/view/3705

TRANSCRIPT

Alix: Have you ever been really, really hungry?

Carmella: You’re listening to Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast.

A: I’m Alix.

C: I’m Carmella.

A: And now let’s tuck into the gruesome history of this ultimate taboo…

[Intro Music – Daniel Wackett]

C: Welcome to Episode Seven, the tale of Yermak Timofeyevich.

[Intro music continues]

C: Alix?

A: Hello.

C: You know how I’m fond of stories that are… hmm… difficult to authenticate?

A: Is this a Carmella classic?

[Pause]

C: I would love to introduce you to a gentleman called Yermak Timofeyevich.

A: Hello, Yermak Timofeyevich.

C: He’s a river pirate, a Cossack leader, and a folk hero.

A: Did he actually exist?

C: [Uncertain pause] Yes. He was [in a horribly bad Russian accent] “a man of colossal strength, broad-shouldered and compact, with a flat face, sharp brown eyes, and curly black hair”.

[Alix snorts]

C: How was that?

A: Beautiful.

C: Plus, [Russian accent, poorly maintained] “a brave, intelligent and and humane conqueror who crossed the Urals to subdue the pagan natives for the greater glory of God and Muscovy”. His spectacular victory for the Church and general derring-do transformed him into a figure of story and song. A 16th Century Russian King Arthur.

A: I was wondering if he was a bit of a Robin Hood, so… I’m also picturing him, from his description, solely because of his very flat face – you know when children draw faces on wooden spoons?

C: [Laughs] So he’s a wooden spoon? Cool.

A: He’s a wooden spoon on the front of a Bills & Boon novel.

C: I mean, I was gonna say– Yeah, Bills & Boon, definitely. Definitely. He is slightly more factual than King Arthur, or such-and-such. He did exist, but his story has been highly embellished and built upon over the years, and wasn’t particularly well-recorded at the time by his contemporaries. So… I will put a disclaimer at the start to say that it’s not all definitely, categorically true, but some of it must be. [Laughs].

A: On the scale of Douglas Mawson to Charlotte de Berry, where does he lie?

C: I’d put him somewhere solidly in the middle.

A: Okay, okay, we’ve got a good range.

C: Yeah.

A: My first question is: when is our story taking place?

C: Well, let me tell you, Alix, about Yermak Timofeyevich’s conquest of the Khanate of Sibir. From 1547 to 1575, in Russia – that’s where we are.

A: If that wasn’t already clear from the accent.

C: What there was of Russia back then was under the rule of Tsar Ivan IV, known as Ivan the Terrible.

A: Hold onto him, he will come up in a later episode.

C: [In anticipation] Ooh!

A: Well, don’t hold onto him literally.

C: Ha. He’s terrible.

[Alix snorts]

C: One of Ivan’s big things was expanding his territories east into Siberia, all the way to the Bering Strait. This is mostly motivated by Siberia’s rich resources of fur, and the benefit of a trade route through that way. In other words: money, money, money.

A: Everyone wants a Northwest Passage.

C: Aye-aye. The Tatar Empire in Siberia is under Muslim rule, whereas Ivan’s a Christian, so there is some religious motivation there as well, but money is the primary driving factor here.

A: I feel that you can say that for most conflicts in human history.

C: Money and religion.

A: Money and religion.

C: Yep. First step in Ivan’s project.

A: One foot in front of the other, all the way to Siberia.

C: Yes. Was to topple the Tatar Khanate of Kazan in 1552, which was the best entryway to Siberia. After that, the main barrier to his success – success being the complete domination of Siberia for Russia–

A: Not much.

C: Was the Khanate of Sibir, which is where the word Siberia comes from. This is based on the other side of the Ural mountains, and the Siberian Khanate is a feudal society ruled by Khan Kuchum. His subjects include his own Tatar people, as well as Kanty and Mansi tribes, and again, it’s a Muslim society, so the religious tension’s still there. After the fall of Kazan, Ivan appoints a wealthy merchant family, the Stroganovs (presumably inventors of Beef Stroganoff, but I can’t verify that ‘cause I haven’t Googled it)–

A: Human Stroganoff, surely? Given the direction that this is going.

C: Towards the Bering Strait.

A: East!

C: [Laughing] East. The Stroganovs are appointed to head up the eastern frontier in the Perm territory. Ivan can’t really afford to bankroll the expansion into Siberia himself, so this is a mutually beneficial agreement where the really rich merchant family can do it for him, and in return they are leased three million hectares of “uninhabited lands, black forests, wild rivers and lakes and uninhabited islands and marshlands”.

A: When they say ‘uninhabited’, they don’t mean ‘uninhabited’ though, do they?

C: Oh, probably not, no. So, what are they going to do with their new power and responsibility?

A: Good.

[Pause, then both laugh]

C: Yes. Of course!

A: Definitely.

C: Let’s go back to our friend Yermak.

A: Hi Yermak.

C: Very little is known of the early life of Yermak (or Ermak) Timofeyevich. He was born between 1432 and 1542. It’s said that his grandfather was a “renegade serf”, formerly a coachman from around Moscow, who ran away to the banks of the Volga river to join the Cossacks.

A: Really though that was going to be ‘join the circus’.

C: [Laughs] ‘Cossack’ at the time could mean a number of things, but in this case, it probably means the independent communities of ‘free’ Cossacks who lived in the Crimea and banks of the Volga, mostly made up of runaways from Russian service, Tatar tribes, the law, or slavery. They lived in communes with elected leaders, called atamans, and made a living through trade, mercenary hire, and protection money from caravans travelling through ‘their’ land.

A: A bit of a racket there.

C: Yes, definitely. They are maybe not outside the law, but on the very border of the law, I would say.

A: They are creating the law.

C: [Laughing] Yeah. In the late 1570s, Yermak appears to have been the ataman of a band of around 500 Cossacks, operating as river pirates on the Volga. There’s some suggestion that Yermak got into a fight in the Caspian Sea and killed the Persian envoy, which incited Ivan the Terrible’s wrath against him. But that doesn’t seem to have much factual basis. Equally, the Tsar could have just been pissed off at the Cossacks in general, because they’re being a piratical nuisance. But, either way, Russian soldiers get sent in to clean up the Cossack act on the Volga.

A: Soldiers versus pirates.

C: So when you were talking about Charlotte de Berry, I mean…

[Both chuckle]

C: Yermak flees into the eastern frontier, and he and his merry men make themselves known to the Stroganovs, who decide to employ them to protect their possessions against attack from the Tatars and other Siberian peoples.

A: See, that feels a bit like it could then piss off Ivan the Terrible.

C: Well, let’s see… At some point – it’s unclear whether the idea is the Stroganovs’ or the Cossacks’ – but it’s decided that Yermak and his men will head east into the Urals to attack the Khanate of Sibir, opening a trading route from Russia through Siberia.

A: They’ve been promoted quite quickly from bodyguards to elite assassins. Are you sure this isn’t the plot of one of the Assassins Creed games?

C: It sounds like possibly the Cossacks, despite being bodyguards, are still a bit of a nuisance, and maybe this is sort of like a, ‘Hey, you know what will occupy you and get you out of our town?’

A: ‘This is a really important job, we only give it to the most important bodyguards.’

C: Yeah, exactly. Or, equally, it could have been that the Cossacks were like, ‘You know what would be cool? If we could go and get all this expensive fur for ourselves’. Either way, there’s benefits on both sides to this. In July 1579 or 1580 – the dates are a bit, er, confused – Yermak, 540 Cossacks, and 300 Stroganov soldiers set out east.

A: Oh, those Stroganov soldiers drew the short straw there, didn’t they?

C: Well, I say ‘Stroganov soldiers’: it seems that they are Lithuanian and German prisoners of war, purchased by the Stroganovs from the Tsar as slave labourers. So they don’t have a choice.

A: Even shorter straw.

C: Yeah. Some accounts put the total figure at 5,000 men, but I think that figure would have been completely unaffordable, and it’s generally agreed that the 800-ish figure is more likely and realistic.

A: Yeah, I think 5,000 is a bit…

C: It’s a lot of men.

A: [Agreeing] It’s a lot of men.

C: Yermak was in command of the expedition as senior ataman. Beneath him were two other atamans, Ivan Kol’tso and Ivan Grossa. Good naming conventions here, they’re just all Ivan. And underneath them are four captains.

A: Ivan, Ivan, Ivan, and Ivan, I presume?

C: Presumably. Then they’re– Then they are split into companies of 100 men or so, each with their own commander.

A: Each with their own Ivan.

C: And then they’re further sub-divided into groups of 50 led by petty officers, presumably also called Ivan. The men carried old-fashioned flintlock muskets, pikes, swords, battle-axes, and bows and arrows with them.

A: I mean, you say ‘old fashioned’, and I will believe them, but 1580? That’s not bad.

C: Pretty well-armed.

A: If they went with a nuke, I’d be very surprised.

C: [Laughs] They also had three small canons originally, but those get abandoned as they’re too heavy to drag across the mountains.

A: I thought you were gonna say camels.

C: [Laughs] No camels! Each man carries food rations consisting of rye flour, oats, salt, biscuit, butter, and – for every two men – half a salted pig’s carcass.

A: Yum.

C: Yum. They headed up the Serebryanka River to the mountains. It’s slow going, as they had to man-handle their craft over the shallows, and Yermak found it hard to employ local guides, because the Cossacks have a little bit of a reputation.

A: Is it almost as though people don’t want to be employed to lead an invading army?

C: It’s partly that, it’s also that the Cossacks are just really rough-and-ready, and will be known as being the kind of people who are gonna come beat you up, murder your family, burn your village down, whatever – and you’re not gonna want to work for them if you can help it, right? Regardless of what you’re helping them to achieve.

A: It probably wouldn’t do much for your reputation.

C: I thought you were gonna say ‘for your career path’.

[Both laugh]

A: For your street cred. Also, I know this is a really obvious thing to point out, but when is this happening? When you said ‘79-‘80, are we assuming that that’s over winter?

C: This is just before winter. They head out in July.

A: I mean, the weather’s still going to be shit.

C: I’ll tell you all about the weather shortly.

[Alix laughs apprehensively]

C: I promise. I won’t forget to tell you about the weather. The Cossacks do run into some trouble, as well. One patrol even get attacked by a band of Mansi men. Cold weather hits as Yermak and his men climb up the western slopes of the Urals, and they’re forced to build a camp to overwinter.

A: There we go! I knew we were gonna have problems. What do they say? ‘Never invade Russia in the winter, even if you are Russia.’

C: [Laughs] The Urals were the eastern frontier, not only of Russia, but of Christian Europe. The western slopes, where they’re overwintering, see annual snow depth averaging 35 inches.

A: Fucking hell.

C: And in January, the average temperatures range from -21°C to -15°C, depending on where in the range you’re positioned. So it’s not the Arctic, but it’s still pretty cold.

A: A bit nippy, I’d say.

C: They’re gonna be chilly on the mountains.

A: [Insincerely] It’s okay, they’ve got half a pig’s carcass. That’ll last.

C: Now, Yermak and the men would also have heard stories of the Siberian Samoyeds who live in the mountains, who were known as “self-eaters”. It’s said that [in a ghoulish voice] they turned to cannibalism to survive in the winter!

A: [Sarcastically] Oh no, who could ever think of such a thing!

C: If a visitor arrived in their camp, it was said that they either devoured him, or, if they liked him, they’d kill their own children and serve it to him as a banquet.

[Alix snorts]

C: Definitely true.

A: They either ate him, or didn’t eat him.

[Carmella laughs]

A: Something you can say about all human interaction: you ate them or you didn’t eat them.

C: [Still laughing] It doesn’t–

A: I’m not wrong.

C: [Hysterically] No! [Pause to regain composure] It doesn’t appear that Yermak actually encounters any Samoyed cannibalism in his journeys, but I guess the thought would have been in the back of his mind.

A: It’s there for a bit of extra flavour.

C: [Sarcastically] Ho ho ho ho. In the Spring of the new year – yes, they survived the winter.

A: That is quite impressive, not gonna lie.

C: They continue their advance. By May, Yermak’s men had found a new mountain pass and reached the Tagil river, where they began to build rafts to take them into Siberia. The region has a wide network of natural waterways, meaning that Yermak and his guys have the perfect way to travel around.

A: They can just zoom their way through on rafts.

C: It takes them several weeks to build the rafts and then, once the water gets deep enough, they transfer to proper riverboats instead.

A: Do you know what? I quite like the fact that it takes them several weeks to build the raft.

C: Yes.

A: That feels like there’s some actual engineering going on, unlike normally where it’s just, ‘We’re going to peel this tree and going to hammer it together and oh why doesn’t it float?’

C: I will remind you, they are river pirates by background, so presumably actually know about how to build and steer boats.

A: How dare you accuse anyone in any of our narratives of knowing what they’re doing?

C: [Laughs] As they head downstream, they encounter more Mansi men, who shoot arrows at them in an ambush. However, when Yermak’s men return fire with their flintlocks, that suffices to scare off their assailants.

A: Who’d have thought.

C: You brought arrows to a gunfight. And they’re also able to loot the Mansi camp, so they’re feeling pretty smug with themselves. Later in the Autumns, Yermak’s scouts capture one of Kuchum Khan’s yasak gatherers, a Tatar chief named Kutugai. So the yasak is an annual tax in the form of fur, levied by the Khan of Sibir. This is big money. The Siberian forests have fox, marten, sable, and squirrel furs just ready for the taking.

A: Squirrel fur?

C: Yeah!

A: Didn’t in the original version of the Cinderella story, the slippers weren’t glass; they were squirrel fur?

C: More expensive.

A: More comfortable.

C: Back in Moscow, two black fox skins could buy a new cabin, fifty acres of land, five good horses, ten cattle, twenty sheep, a flock of chickens – and you’d still be left with half your money afterwards!

A: Oh, so that’s not two fox skins could get you one of these things – that’s all of it?

C: All of the above. These things are more expensive than gold.

A: Okay, I can see the value of going for fur trading now.

C: You see why they want Siberia?

A: I can definitely see why they want Siberia.

C: I mean, just some basic economics here: it’s gotta be about scarcity of supply versus demand, and surely they are going to be reducing the price of furs once they have easy access to them. But, you know what, let’s not go back in time and tell them that.

A: What stories would we have left to tell?

C: Yermak interrogated Kutugai for information about Kuchum Khan, then sent him back unharmed and dressed in a brightly-coloured Russian costume, and loaded with gifts and compliments, as a clever ruse of a sort of ‘We’re friends, actually! We’re not coming to invade your lands.’

A: That’s either a ruse, or a really, really cruel trick to play on him. Being like, ‘We’re gonna make everyone think that you love us, and you’ve gotta go back to your people with all of this stuff and they’re gonna think that you’re a snitch.’

C: [Laughs] After the Tagil river, they moved to the Tura, then the larger Tobol. Seems like all the rivers begin with T, don’t know why. The junction between those two and an old Tatar campsite is where Yermak sets up for another winter camp.

A: At this point, I’m sure they’re feeling quite confident. They seem to be doing quite well.

C: They’re steaming through Siberia.

A: I’m assuming that they have also been hunting en route, they’re still not living off one half pig carcass between two.

C: Yeah, they’re getting things as they go, they’re also, whilst they’re collecting the yasak, also collecting food and resources, I think.

A: [Suspiciously] ‘Collecting’.

C: ‘Collecting’, yep.

A: Finding it in camps.

C: They’re now much closer into the Khanate of Sibir heartland, so they’ve gotta keep their eye out. They spent the year heading out among the local tribes to demand the Khan’s yasak for themselves. They are very enthusiastic tax collectors.

[Alix snorts]

C: Leaving villages in smoking ruins behind them. In May, the rivers unthaw enough for the Cossacks to continue their travels, and they leave their winter camp. Apparently their clever ruse with Kutugai hadn’t worked, and they started to encounter proper, organised opposition to their journeys.

A: It’s almost as though people had started noticing that there was this consistent band of Cossacks within their land, ravaging and pillaging.

C: Taking all of their fur.

A: And their food.

C: Firstly, they’re attacked by half a dozen Tatar princes and their men.

A: Fur-stly. [Silence] I was making a joke about fur.

C: [With long-suffering weariness] Oh God. Firstly–

A: Fur-stly.

C: Boo! They’re attacked by half a dozen Tatar princes and their men, who they defeat after a skirmish. And then again, they run into more Tatar men at the hamlet of Berezov, where they’re ambushed from birch trees on the riverbank. There, to quote Semyon Remezov in a Russian chronicle from the late 17th Century–

A: [Sarcastically] So, very contemporary?

C: Mmhmm. [In a bad Russian accent] “The infidels were like sheep rushing out of their folds but with God’s help and the manifestation of heavenly hosts they too were defeated.”

A: Sorry, are we saying that angels came down from heaven?

C: Funny you should say that, because at some points in Remezov’s chronicle, there are literal visions and descending hosts, so yes! Then on 16 July 1582-ish, Yermak’s river boats are brought to a stop by a heavy iron chain slung across the river.

A: Very Game of Thrones.

C: As part of the Yermak-legend, apparently it’s Yermak’s boat that runs into the chain and he’s forced to turn with his crew rowing for their lives under arrow-fire. Yermak’s able to warn the rest of his men before they hit the chain.

A: ‘Oi, chain!’

C: ‘There’s a chain there!’ As it’s too heavy to break, they devise a trick. When the boats regroup out of sight, he sends most of his men ashore to outflank the enemy, and then he leads the boats in a feigned frontal assault. He has his men cut down bundles of birch poles, dress them in Cossack clothing–

A: Ha!

C: And arrange them on the boats to make it look like they’re all still aboard.

A: How bad was people’s eyesight back in the olden days?

C: I mean, apparently the Tatars fall right into that trap, concentrating fire on the boats as they’re hit from the rear by the Cossack landing party.

A: Well, granted, if I take my glasses off, you are just a beige blur from this distance, so I suppose if you’re in the middle of a river–

C: Yeah.

A: And I’m on a bank, I could easily mistake you for a tree.

C: Yeah, yeah. Emerging victorious from this encounter, after this, Yermak and his men stop for eight days at the mouth of the Tavda river to rest and to gather more information on Kuchum Khan’s position.

A: You are right, all of the rivers do begin with T.

C: From spies, Yermak hears that Kuchum Khan is holding his capital at the town of Sibir, which is, again, the Khanate of Sibir; Siberia. They’re all connected.

A: Ah! See what happened there.

C: The town or fortress was also sometimes known as Isker, or Ibis-Sibir, or Abir-i-Sibir. Anyway, that’s where the Khan is, and he’s summoned all his allies together, including outlying bands of Mansi and Khanty warriors. Kuchum Khan also has a defensive position prepared near the river Irtysh – oh, this one doesn’t begin with a T!

A: The river Irtysh.

C: [Laughing] Yeah. This is overlooked by Mount Chuvash, where the main Tatar army are assembled. So, he intends to draw the Cossacks out of the river, onto open ground, and then he can sic his Tatar cavalry on them.

A: Which will work because, as river pirates, they’re best in the water.

C: [Laughing] Yes. Legend – definitely legend here–

A: Okay?

C: Has it that for the whole year, the people living by the Irtysh saw a little black hound appear from the west every night, to meet a great, gaunt white hound from the east. The two animals would fight on the riverbank, and every evening the black hound won, and the wolf slunk off into the forest.

A: [Sarcastically] I’m seeing a bit of symbolism there; I’m really struggling to unpick it.

C: What does it mean, what does it all mean?

A: It will have to remain a mystery.

C: Maybe what happens next will illuminate it for you, Alix. The Battle of Chuvash took place over five days in October or early November 1582 or ‘83.

A: [Snorts] At some point.

C: Yermak got a bit confused about dates after the fact, as he sort of tried to write down details of his voyage and exploits retrospectively, and I guess just didn’t have the best memory for it. That’s fair, I find it difficult to pinpoint what year things happened, if I’m honest.

A: It’s the fact that he gets the date right but the year wrong that I find most incredible.

C: I guess you could remember the weather…

A: Like, ‘It happened at exactly 3:15 in the afternoon on a mild Tuesday. There was a faint smell of smoke in the air on a November day. Fuck knows what year it was, though.’

C: [Laughs] Yermak’s men allegedly fought 10,000 Tatar cavalry.

A: No they didn’t.

C: They fought some Tatar cavalry, commanded by Kuchum Khan’s son and most experienced general, Mehmetkol. The Cossacks struggled against a breastwork fortification set up by the Tatars.

A: Sorry, a what?

C: A breastwork fortification. It’s a type of barricadey-type fortification thing, a temporary barricade set up quickly during warfare.

A: It’s the name of a very structurally secure bra.

C: I did originally assume when I read it that it was referring to some kind of breastplate or something, but no, apparently not. Finally, they launch a grand assault on it. So many of them are felled in an arrow storm that the Tatar warriors come out from behind the breastwork to engage in hand-to-hand fighting, because they now think they’ll be easy pickings. But, when they come out from behind their fortifications, the Cossacks can get their guns out.

A: They realise that, in fact, all of the fallen warriors were just trees in T-shirts.

C: [Laughs] They realise that muskets hurt, and the Tatars are forced to fall back under gunfire. Kuchum Khan’s Mansi and Khanty allies at this point abandon the battle.

A: You would, wouldn’t you?

C: It’s not their fight. Mehmetkol is injured by the Cossacks and departs in a small boat, which signals the end of the battle. The Tatar cavalry flee, and Kuchum Khan falls back to Sibir to gather up all his possessions. A few days later, Yermak leads his men into the now-abandoned Sibir. The Cossack men are wounded and tired. They now number around 400, and again they need a place to overwinter. Sibir isn’t a great camp for this, having been stripped of its supplies by the Khan on his way out, and it’s actually fairly small – it’s mostly just made up of the houses of the Khan’s retinue and a wooden palisade on two sides, and not much else.

A: So while it would feel like a really good place to hunker down, it’s a bit shit for a capital city?

C: Yeah, it’s not got much going for it. With the Khan and his remaining men still out there in the forest somewhere, and winter coming on, retreat at that point is too dangerous, and they decide that they’ve gotta stick in the camp, even if it’s not great.

A: Well, it would take them years to retreat.

C: Plus, they don’t really have anywhere to go. If they go back to the Stroganovs, they aren’t gonna be pleased, because they haven’t completed their task for them. If they go back to Russia, they’re still in trouble with the Tsar, and that’s not gonna go well. So their only option is to stay in Sibir and try to actually conquer the rest of Siberia.

A: I feel that this was never going to work to begin with.

C: Well, we’ll see… Yeah. In the meantime, whilst overwintering, Yermak sends one of his atamans – Ivan Kol’tso – on an overland trek back west to appeal to the Tsar for help. Kol’tso and a small escort travel back to Moscow on snowshoes, with long narrow sledges pulled by dogs and reindeer. So they get all the way back to Moscow overland like this – pretty impressive.

A: That’s not bad.

C: And they carry the message that, even though he’s been formerly employed by the Stroganovs, Yermak is placing the conquered territories under the rule of the Tsar and Russia.

A: Very clever.

C: Very smart.

A: I mean, also how it would work anyway, if you want to keep your head.

C: Yeah. Well, the deal is also sweetened by Kol’tso taking with him a massive tribute of fur: 2,400 hundred sable, 20 black fox skins, and 50 beaver pelts.

A: Well, you’ve just under-written your own economy there.

C: Ivan the Terrible is having a pretty stressful time in Moscow at the moment. Now the Siberian Cossacks are no longer defending the frontier – because they’re all in Siberia – Mansi and Khanty raiding parties have been encroaching on Russian territory. I will remind Ivan that he’s the one who kicked the Cossacks out. He is massively pissed off at the Stroganovs, because he blames them for “disloyalty and treason” in allowing the Cossacks to leave. Again, Ivan, you started it. And he says that, unless they recall Yermak and the Cossack men immediately, he’s going to have Yermak and the atamans hanged, and the Stroganovs punished as well. But, when Kol’tso arrives with the furs and good news, Ivan changes his tune.

A: Suddenly it’s not so bad that the Cossacks are out in Siberia.

C: Suddenly the Cossacks are no longer nuisance criminals: they’re loyal empire-builders for Russia! To celebrate, the church-bells of Moscow are rung; special prayers of thanksgiving are offered; and alms are given to the poor of Moscow.

A: [Joking] Arms are given to the poor?! Is this where the cannibalism starts?

C: Alms.

A: I’m just saying, we’ve not had any cannibalism yet.

C: We’ll get there. The Cossacks are paid and lodged by the Tsar, and Yermak and the lads are granted a full pardon for when they do return.

A: If they return.

C: Ivan the Terrible decides to send a force of Russian infantrymen under a military governor to relieve the Cossacks, along with gifts for Yermak: a silver cup, two suits of body armour, and a fur coat taken from his own back. By which I mean a coat that he was wearing, rather than a coat made of back hair.

A: Eww!

C: [Laughing] I think!

A: I mean, I was going to say that surely more helpful gifts would be food, troops and supplies, but what do I know?

C: He’s sending troops. Now, Yermak’s also been having a stressful time in Sibir.

A: [Pretending surprise] No!

C: Finding food is a big struggle for the Cossacks. Their tactic has been to extract what they need by force from the local tribes. If the tribes refuse to hand over the food or to pay yasak, the Cossacks beat them up or shoot them to maim, and they have built up a pretty bad reputation in the area because of that.

A: [Sarcastically] I can’t imagine why that’s caused an issue.

C: On top of this, Kuchum Khan’s men were largely nomadic anyway, so the loss of their capital city hasn’t really hurt them that much. As we’ve established, it’s not the best capital city, it’s basically just, like, a couple of huts, right? The Tatars are always hovering around threateningly, waiting to pick people off. The now-recovered Mehmetkol and his men kill a party of around 20 Cossacks fishing at Lake Abalak. Yermak speedily sends 60 Cosscaks to find Mehmetkol’s camp. They attack it at night, take him prisoner, hoping to use him as a hostage against Kuchum Khan.

A: That seems like quite a sensible idea.

C: The Khan doesn’t really seem to care, refuses to negotiate, so Yermak sends Mehmetkol to Moscow in chains. Later on, Mehmetkol swears allegiance to the Tsar, and eventually becomes an officer in the Russian army, so he seems pretty happy with this.

A: Well, I suppose if you’re own father is just like, ‘Oh, well fuck him.’

C: Yeah.

A: And I was fully expecting the Cossacks just to kill him outright. So, he does quite well out of it.

C: The Tsar’s reinforcements arrive in Sibir in the Autumn of 1584. I think.

A: Probably.

C: By then, the Cossacks had subjugated most of the local tribes, but were still struggling with Kuchum Khan and the Tatars. And the Russians’ arrival is not a quick fix. In fact, it makes things worse, because they arrive just before winter…

A: Are there suddenly more people but strangely no more food?

C: Yes! I would say that’s exactly what’s happened.

A: Or… are they the food?

C: [Laughs] Despite having been able to store up some provisions from hunting and fishing, and some trade with local people–

Both: [Mockingly] ‘Trade’.

C: The Russians exhausted their provisions, and many starved to death. Scurvy breaks out. And, yes, here we are: the survivors turn to cannibalism!

A: Finally!

C: I’m afraid that’s all the detail I have on the cannibalism.

[Alix laughs]

C: This is when it happens and this is why it happens; I have nothing further to say on the cannibalism. I’m sorry. But cannibalism happens.

A: What comes next?

C: In the Spring of 1585 – almost certainly 1585 – Yermak and 50 Cossacks set out south to locate new tribes to subjugate, and to collect more yasak. Instead, he ends up being located by the enemy. On the night of 6 August, Yermak makes camp on a small island near the camp of the Vaga river, and there he’s attacked by Tatar warriors. Most of the Cossacks are massacred before they can even wake up properly. Yermak manages to smash through the Tatar ring, and then, the story goes, he runs for safety to the Cossack boats, tries to leap onto one from the riverbank. However, he falls short, and he’s wearing his fancy new suit of armour that Ivan the Terrible sent to him. The weight of it drags him down into the water, where he drowns.

A: That is not a very glorious end to a folk hero.

C: His body is found a few days later by a Tatar boy fishing in the river, and legend has it that the Tatars strung it up to use for target practice – but when their arrows struck him, the wounds bled fresh blood, and on seeing this, awed, they decided to bury him respectfully and hold a feast in his honour. His grave is declared a sacred place, and a ghostly blue light flickers over it every night. Hundred percent true. When the Cossacks hear of Yermak’s death, they retreat over the Urals, back to Russia proper. On the way, they meet a second Russian relief army, and so decide, actually, let’s try Siberia once more.

A: Oh, I’m sure that was entirely their choice.

C: Thanks to Ivan Kol’tso’s impressive fur gift, Russia is struck with fur-fever, and Russian adventurers start flooding across the Urals to claim some of the wealth for themselves. They want a slice of the pie. The action. What’s the saying? They want a slice of the fur. Behind them come government agents to build garrison posts on the waterways, formally placing Siberia in Russian control. After his death, Yermak’s legend grows and grows, with fun details being added through the ages, such as how, when his brigade came to the place that would become the town of Tobolsk, “they saw an unearthly city rising before their eyes, with fine houses and a multitude of church steeples, and even heard ghostly church bells ringing in muffled joy”. Some posthumous accounts even place him retroactively at the capture of Kazan in 1552, that pivotal moment in Ivan the Terrible’s reign and a big win for Christianity, so of course Yermak had to be there, even though he was a river pirate at the time.

A: But he was so inspired by the success of Christianity across Russia that he just had to spread it further, with the help of the angels.

C: Yes! Interpretations began to emerge, stressing the role of the Church in the conquest of Siberia. Yermak becomes this holy crusader, bearing religious icons as he rides into battle. This, of course, enhances the Church’s reputation, if they can claim they’re the ones that got all that fur. This appears to be bullshit, of course. Yermak and his men showed no inclination to destroy the religious sites of the people they conquered, and there are even reports of Yermak consulting with a shaman for advice on his route, so I don’t know about that good Christian faith that Yermak totally had.

A: I mean, very good Christian faith to maraude and steal and fight and cannibalise…

C: He features in many folk songs, folk art, stories, and his legend just grows and grows – without the cannibalism.

A: That is a bit of a shame that the cannibalism doesn’t feature more heavily, especially with such an ignoble end. He tried to run away. I’m like, come on, we can feature the cannibalism a bit further. Maybe there can be some hubris there, or maybe it could be a Jesus thing.

C: [Intrigued] Oh, could be a Jesus thing.

A: The Church do support a bit of cannibalism, we’ve seen that in other cases. We’ve got a new way for the myth to flourish.

C: And we’re starting that tradition now! You heard it here, folks: Yermak the cannibal.

A: Patron saint of Russia.

C: Anyway, that’s the story of the Conquest of Sibir, and also of some cannibalism that happened along the way.

A: All the best journeys have a little bit of cannibalism.

[Outro Music – Daniel Wackett]

A: Thank you for listening to today’s episode on Yermak Timofeyevich. Another Carmella special!

C: Join us next time for the Russians, the Polish, and the Great Kremlin Siege of 1612.

[Outro music continues]

A: Casting Lots Podcast can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr as @CastingLotsPod, and on Facebook as Casting Lots Podcast.

C: If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please rate, review and share to bring more people to the table.

A: Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast, is researched, written and recorded by Alix and Carmella, with post-production and editing also by Carmella and Alix. Art and logo design by Riley – @Tallestfriend on Twitter and Instagram – with audio and music by Daniel Wackett – Daniel Wackett on SoundCloud and @ds_wack on Twitter. Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network – search #MorbidAudio on Twitter – and the network’s music is provided by Mikaela Moody – mikaelamoody1 on Bandcamp.

[Morbid Audio Sting – Mikaela Moody]