Legends about the glorious Cossack robber Kudeyar, the hero of folk tales of the Upper Don and Volga region, were not born out of nowhere. There were rumors throughout the central provinces of Russia that Kudeyar was not of ordinary origin, but... of royal origin. That is why his image was endowed with supernatural qualities and abilities.

As they say, there is no smoke without fire.

Let's look through the history of the Russian state together, paying attention to those places where we are talking about the family life of the collector of Russian lands, the Grand Duke (Tsar) of Moscow Vasily III. He lived for twenty-one years with his first wife, Solomonia Saburova, without having any offspring from her. Whatever the king and queen did, God would give them a baby. They gave rich gifts to churches and monasteries, went to famous saints to worship, distributed alms to the poor, pardoned hardened criminals, but nothing worked. Then, in despair, they turned to sorcerers and sorcerers, ready to bow to anything for the sake of the birth of an heir.

Stepanida Ryazanka, a well-known fortune teller throughout Rus', came to the Kremlin palace, looked at the queen and declared: There will be no children.

Vasily III had to turn to the holy fathers for permission to divorce Solomonia and remarry. However, he found understanding only with Metropolitan Daniel. The rest of the high priests, including the learned monk Maxim the Greek, invited from the Athos Monastery, took the position of condemning the Grand Duke for his sinful intentions, thus taking the side of his brother Yuri Ivanovich, who was already aiming for the Grand Duke's throne.

Basil III, together with Metropolitan Daniel, managed to get rid of his opponents with the help of secular and spiritual courts. Maxim the Greek, for example, was sentenced to imprisonment in the Volokolamsk monastery. The Grand Duke received Daniel's blessing for divorce and a new marriage. His wife was the young Lithuanian-Russian princess Elena Glinskaya, who after four and a half years gave Vasily III an heir. So on August 25, 1530, the future Tsar Ivan IV was born. Contemporaries, not without reason, suspected that the father of the child was Elena’s lover, Prince I.F. Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky. The prophets predicted: And cruelty was born in lawlessness and sensuality.

Consecrated as a nun under the name of Sophia, Solomonia Saburova, contrary to the church legend about voluntariness, rebelled for several years. At the moment of violent tonsure, they say, in a violent outburst, she trampled on the monastic robe. For this, the Tsar's adviser Ivan Shigona whipped her with a whip. Nun Sophia spent five years in exile in Kargopol, then she was transferred to Suzdal, to the Intercession Monastery. There, at about the same time as Elena Glinskaya, she became pregnant and, as knowledgeable monks claimed, also gave birth to a royal son.

The son of the former queen, named George, died in infancy. This is what Solomonia said to the envoys of Vasily III, who came to Suzdal to investigate this strange case. She even showed them a tomb in the common tomb of the monastery, where her son allegedly rested. At the same time, Solomonia threatened: the son would grow up and legally take the throne of his father.

The mysterious tomb of the royal son George has survived to this day. A scientific autopsy in 1934 made it possible to verify that instead of a baby, a doll in a boy’s shirt, wrapped in 16th-century cloth and surrounded by a belt with tassels, was buried in the coffin-deck. The archaeological find allows us to think about two versions: barren Solomonia did not have any son, or in fact, a forty-two-year-old nun, in revenge for Vasily III (the barren), gave birth to a son, George, from a man unknown to us and, in order to save him from her ex-husband, declared him dead, handing him over to raising faithful people.

Further search for Tsarevich George leads us to the glorious robber Kudeyar, who all his life did nothing but take revenge for the insulted honor of his mother. The compassionate attitude of the Russian people towards the humiliated and insulted by the supreme power gave rise to many oral tales about the legendary robber. Many central provinces of Russia considered him their fellow countryman. Well-wishers searched for and found the surest evidence of Kudeyar’s presence in their area.

For example, local historians of the Ryazan province in the 18th century found his robber’s lair on the banks of the Istra River in the Kamennye Kresty tract (the main thing, as they believed). Local historians considered the giant limestone stone with Kudeyar’s name inscribed on it to be indisputable evidence.

The treasure of the famous robber on the banks of the Don is looted goods obtained by Kudeyar together with his assistants Voldyr and Anna. This small band of robbers was hiding in the forests between Dubko and Lebedyan. She was engaged in robbery of ships carrying goods down the Don, to Azov. That is why the Don Cossacks took up arms against Ataman Kudeyar. The fellows of the Don tried to catch the famous robber and take possession of his treasure, but nothing came of it.

Researcher of the Kudeyar mystery G. Antonov advises treasure hunters not to confuse the legendary Kudeyar with a genuine historical figure:

In Russian history of the second half of the 16th century, during the time of Ivan the Terrible, the son of a boyar, originally from the city of Belev, Kudeyar Tishenkov, was known. The fate of the aforementioned Kudeyar Tishenkov is noteworthy. In May 1571, numerous mounted hordes of the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey made a swift attack on Moscow. Together with his supporters, Tishenkov went over to the side of the enemies and showed them the path to the capital. The Crimean Khan managed to set fire to Moscow, but then his troops were forced to retreat. However, the service to the enemies was invaluable, and this was enough to earn the khan’s trust. Retreating along with the Crimean Tatars, Kudeyar left the Moscow state and remained in Crimea.

There are known letters from the captive Vasily Gryazny from Crimea to Ivan the Terrible, in which Kudeyar is mentioned. After several years of exile, Kudeyar turned to the king with a request to forgive his guilt and allow him to return to his homeland. The royal consent was received. It is unknown what Kudeyar’s future fate was. His name was never mentioned anywhere else. There are no documents confirming that Kudeyar Tishenkov and the famous chieftain of the robbers are one and the same person...

Further, G. Antonov says that in the legends and traditions of the Tula province the name of the robber Kudeyar was associated with the former Belevsky district. That there is the village of Kudeyarovka and the Kudeyarovsky settlements. Allegedly, Kudeyar’s grave is located in Tula land: not far from Tula, behind Kosaya Gora...

Following the example of ancient Greek cities that argued among themselves for the right to be called the birthplace of Homer, and medieval cities that claimed to be the birthplace of Columbus, our Russian provinces competed for the right to be the last refuge of the robber Kudeyar.

Many interesting legends have been preserved about the past of our region. And the most common ones are associated with the robber Kudeyar. His name is preserved in the geographical names of forests, settlements, swamps, mountains, and all of them are in one way or another connected with legends about countless treasures.

This led many years ago a group of circle members of the Lgov House of Pioneers to search for the supposedly existing Kudeyarova Cave in the area of ​​​​the village of Pogorelovka. And so, a dozen and a half schoolchildren, among whom were Nikolai Kaplin, Gennady Goncharov, Boris Rudenko, Maria Gusenkova, Oleg Sergeev and others, as well as the author of these lines, began to collect materials and prepare for the hike.

(Photo by S. Lagutich).

First of all, several people went to Pogorelovka to talk with the old-timers. And luck smiled at us in the person of Nikanor Dmitrievich Simonov. He said that previously everything around was covered with forest. A gang of robbers led by Kudeyar lived in it. There were several caves in the forest and on the mountain. Then Pogorelovka was a small village. There were only a few courtyards of the Simonovs and Malenkins. There is a village opposite the mountain. Once it was called Tyutchevo, then Tyutchevo-Byki, and even later simply Byki. Chernetskaya Mountain stretches for four kilometers along the Seim, which in turn is divided into Lysaya, Kudeyarova and Chubataya.

Nikanor Dmitrievich himself and his friend Ivan Knyazev tried to get into the cave more than once as children. The entrance was covered, they expanded the animal holes and got inside through them. According to him, they walked 20-30 meters and ran into an oak door. They tried to knock it out, but then the ceiling began to crumble and they ran headlong upstairs. Adults just brushed aside their stories. Then, as an adult, N.D. Simonov told the NKVD commissioner about this, but he, under threat of arrest, forbade him to do anything on his own. Simonov no longer heard that there were any valuables in the area or that anyone else tried to get into the cave.

The conversation took place in late autumn, and we agreed that in the spring he would show the place where he got into the cave. But in March Nikanor Dmitrievich died, and no one else knew anything specifically. Although local residents claimed that back in the early 20s, the entrance was known to Mogilev Moisey Stepanovich, Knyazev Ivan Yakovlevich, Knyazev Petr Ivanovich.

However, local residents managed to write down an interesting legend. It is connected with the journey to the south of the country of Catherine the Second. According to this version, Kudeyar was the son of a landowner; his story resembles that told by A.S. Pushkin about Dubrovsky. This gang operated in our area, the real name of the leader was not preserved, but only the nickname he took - Kudeyar. Their camp was in a cave on the high bank of the Seim opposite the village of Byki. Catherine the Second's cortege stopped for the night not far from these places and was attacked by robbers at night. Of course, the security was good and quickly repelled the attack, but Kudeyar managed to steal a golden carriage with royal jewelry. Fleeing from pursuit, these treasures were hidden in a cave, and the entrance was filled up. A few days later they were all surrounded and killed.

Of course, this is just a legend; no evidence of it has been preserved in history. And the road along which the empress was traveling lay away from Pogorelovka. But legends do not require confirmation.

Our trip still took place. We walked in the heat and carried everything on ourselves. The mountain was a steep overgrown slope with white gullies from streams. Everything seemed much larger to us than expected: the mountain, the trees, and... the silence around. Nearby there was a spring with the purest spring water. We explored the mountain for several days. It was indeed dug with large holes, but no one dared to climb into them. We tried to dig them up, but also found nothing. True, at the very top a hole three meters deep was discovered; traces of soot were preserved on its walls. The idea arose that this was a chimney from a cave, but it was useless to dig it out without special tools.

That’s where this trip ended, leaving behind the memory of wonderful childhood adventures.

So who is this Kudeyar? The famous Kursk historian Yu. Lipking believed that it was not without reason that all these names were in one way or another connected with ancient settlements or settlements. The same mountain near Pogorelovka is a fortified settlement with defensive ramparts and ditches. According to Yu. Lipking, it can be assumed that 2,500 years ago, tribes with their own special language, customs and gods lived in these places. They were engaged in hunting and cattle breeding. They were not Slavs. In ancient written sources they were mentioned as “chud” (wonderful, unlike). Gradually, this name was replaced by “kud”, which began to be used to call ancient non-Slavic settlements. This is where the name of numerous gangs of robbers, consisting of fugitive peasants, Kudeyar, came from, since they lived, as a rule, in ancient sites.

However, there are other versions of historians that connect Kudeyar with a specific historical figure. One of them belongs to A.D. Varganov, former director of the Suzdal Historical Museum. He was appointed director of the museum, located in the famous Suzdal monastery, when nuns still lived there. The monastery itself was founded by the wife of Vasily the Third, Solomonia Saburova. Vasily lived with Solomonia for many years, but they had no children. The absence of an heir was bound to lead to unrest after the death of the king. Vasily decided to forcibly tonsure Solomonia as a nun and exile him to Suzdal, and himself marry the young beauty Elena Glinskaya. Which was done in 1526. And so, when the heir, the future Tsar Ivan the Terrible, was already born, Vasily learns that Solomonia also had a son in the monastery. And this again led to confusion. The king sends trusted people to the monastery with orders to kill the boy. The envoys found out that the child had already died a year ago; all the nuns confirmed this and showed him the burial place. With this everything calmed down.

In the monastery, Varganov found documents confirming that the boy remained alive. The nuns showed Varganov the grave. A commission was created to conduct the autopsy. And how amazed everyone was when they discovered a decayed doll in a boy’s clothes in a wooden block. All this was sent to Moscow to the restorer of the Historical Museum E. Vidonova. Some of the clothes later returned to Suzdal.

So, was the legend confirmed? Further research by Varganov established that Saburova lived in the monastery for another twenty years. And the boy was sent away from the royal eye to the south of Russia. There he was captured by the Turks, where he received his name Kudeyar, which translated from Persian means “helper of God.” He fled from the Turks and ended up with the Tatars. In 1571 he took part in the Devlat-Girey campaign against Moscow. But, seeing the devastation brought by the Tatars to Rus', he himself rebelled against them, which accelerated the defeat. He tried to meet his brother, Ivan the Terrible, but he died somewhere, surviving only in people’s memory.

This version is mentioned by the famous writer V. Soloukhin in the book “Vladimir Country Roads”. And the prominent historian Kostomarov wrote the story “Kudeyar” even before the revolution.

I read an interesting book, “Native Nests,” published in 1962 in San Francisco by a first-wave emigrant, Kursk resident Anatoly Markov, where he reports that in his family there was Kildeyar Ivanovich, the son of the boyar Mark Tolmach. So he, having escaped from the persecution of Ivan the Terrible, became the famous robber Kudeyar, who hunted until the death of the hated king. Then, according to family tradition, he became a monk and ended his life at the age of 80 under the name Pitirim in the Solovetsky Monastery.

So, Markov writes that in the family archive there was kept a half-decayed very ancient parchment, written, according to legend, by the hand of Kudeyar, which reported the signs of the location of a buried barrel of jewelry “fifty steps from the oak tree” in a tract on the Reuta River. But this sign is so primitive that no one looked for the place.

We can only say for sure that most of the robbers of past times who hunted in our area received the nickname Kudeyar. And we can assume that this name is a common noun: robber means Kudeyar.

Continuation...