Yermak: The Conquest of Siberia, 1581-85

Orel-gorodok began as a Stroganov fortress on the right bank of the Kama, built under a charter of 1564. From here, on 1 September 1581 or 1582, Yermak's Cossack band set out across the Urals; sources disagree on the year. Part of the old settlement is now flooded and lies on an islet in the Kama reservoir. A monument with Yermak was unveiled here in 1964, for the fortress's 400th anniversary.

Visitor guidance: The village of Orel sits on the Kama; the historic fort site is partly under reservoir water.

The Cossacks loaded their kit into high-sided river boats and rowed up the Chusovaya and its tributary, the Serebryanka, as far as the Siberian portage across the watershed. There they dragged the boats overland into the Zheravlya, where they were to winter. Without horses, they had to carry everything else on their backs across the Urals. The town of Chusovoy, on the river, opened a monument to Yermak in June 2013.

Location precision: The pin marks the town of Chusovoy; the route ran along the river and its tributaries, and chronicles disagree on details.

Where the Irtysh runs below Alafeyskaya hill near Tobolsk, a Tatar town called Chuvash-Tura stood when Yermak arrived. Here the Siberian army, led by Kuchum's nephew Mametqul, met the Cossacks in October 1582. The Cossacks formed a square with riflemen in the middle; Khanty and Mansi hunters, who had never faced firearms, panicked and fled. Mametqul was shot and carried off by boat. The cape is now part of a protected natural monument and of the "In the footsteps of Yermak" tourist project.

Visitor guidance: The cape lies on the Irtysh just outside Tobolsk and is on the “In the footsteps of Yermak” tourist trail.

Qashliq, also called Isker, had been the capital of the Sibir khanate since 1495. Abandoned by its people and by Kuchum himself, it was occupied by Yermak on 26 October 1582. Four days later Khanty from the Demyanka river arrived with furs and fish, and Yermak received them kindly and let them go with honour. The town was tiny: the historian Müller, visiting in the 1740s, measured it at no more than about 100 metres across. Today the Irtysh has washed away nearly all of the historic site.

On 23 February 1583 the Cossacks captured Mametqul on the Vagay river. Later, Yermak camped on a river bank at the mouth of the Vagay, and Kuchum attacked the sleeping Cossacks and killed almost all of them. Legend says Yermak, weighed down by the armour given to him by the tsar, sank while trying to cross the river. The exact details of his death are lost. With so few men left, the Cossacks gave up Siberia to Kuchum for a time, returning a year later with fresh forces.

Location precision: Sources date his death to 1584 (English) or 1585 (Russian) and give different camp sites; the pin marks Vagay village, not the lost camp.

Tobolsk was founded in 1587 and became the capital of Siberia in the seventeenth century. Its first fort was built from dismantled Cossack boats, so the vessels that carried the conquest became its walls. The stone St Sophia cathedral followed in 1683-1686, and the kremlin that grew around it still stands in the centre of the city.

Visitor guidance: The kremlin stands in the centre of Tobolsk.