Everyone, of course, know the song about the walls of Razin "Because of the Island on Strazhen." Many often sang her after a pair of glass of alcohol. But who thought about where the Persian Princess, which, which he casually throws "in a recruitment wave, took from the Donskaya, Zaja Cossack? And where did his companions come from "Ostrodny Chelny"? Cossacks in those days floated on flat-bottomed shiphs, and the "Ostrodny Chelny" is a vessel adapted for swimming in maritime expanses. Everything is explained simply - and Princess, and sea ships were pirated prey. And the walls of the Razin himself was a pirate. Flibuster of the mysterious and mysterious sea - Caspian.
Pirates on it appeared much earlier than on advertised and propagated in the cinema southern seas. All sorts of caribbean, on Bermuda, Seychelles and Madagascar.
Of course, because here one of the sections of the Great Silk Road from China to Europe. On the banks of the Caspian Sea were large and rich cities - Baku, Derbent and others. Naturally, they attracted various adventurers who wanted to live.
The first reliable information about piracy in the waters of the Caspian can be attributed to the IX-X centuries. Muslim chronicler Ibn-Isfendiyar describes? As in 864, a large detachment of pirates, or Viking, or Russa-Varyagov, attacked the rich city Abeskun. At that time, the troops of the local Emir managed to reflect the raid and even retrive all pirates. But the words of the ancient chroniclers should be treated with caution - they used to exaggerate the forces of the enemy, and small victories to take to the great. Otherwise, why, despite the crushing defeat, Pirates-Russa appear in the following years? And get to the southern banks of the Caspian Sea.
In 913, Pirates-Russy appeared in general in unmeared quantities - 500 chelnts and on each of the hundreds of warriors. That is, 50 thousand people! Figures for those times unreal. The historian describes the sailing robbers: "This mighty people, the physique of them is large, the courage is big, they do not know the flight, none of them runs away until it kills or will not be killed. In the usual, they have anything weapon. "
Having taking the city of Bird, standing on the river Kura, they made it a support base. Many times the local king tried to knock them out from there, but the defeat was invariably. Only a few years later, rewarding good and slaves, taking a big redemption, pirates left.
In the XI-XII centuries, pirated raids of Ruses have noticeably reduced. It is quite possible that it is due to feudal disassembly between the Russian principalities, and maybe their strengthened competitors are not allowed to the Caspian to the Caspian. But they themselves also rarely went to the sea, preferring to rob ships on the shallows, where they had to drag the wolf. In the absence of Grozny Russa in the Caspian Sea, the championship took Persian robbers.
After the Mongol-Tatar invasion, the Russians generally lost their way out to the Holy Sea, as they called the Caspian. But the sacred place is not empty. Many other flibusers broke out, including not only local, but also Western European. A summary of the Genoese Luccino Torigo from the Crimean Kafa, who, having moved to the Caspian, began to "rob and heat all in a row." And the unsurpassed connants of Mongol-Tatars themselves did not disappear to engage in river, or even by marine piracy. They cooked from their horses and "saddled flat and oxrodnye cheft". The same great traveler and walker "For three seas" Tver merchant Athanasius Nikitin originally did not plan to go to India. But when in the Volga Delta, Astrakhan merchant ships robbed "Tatar pirates", he, not wanting to go back home, decided to correct financial affairs in distant countries: "I went from many things to India, since I had nothing to go to Russia , no product remains ... "
At the very Caspian Sea, the pirates of Turkmen tribes were commissioned, who chose the base in the region of modern Krasnovodsk (Turkmenbashi). As modern Somali pirates on duck boats, they attacked separate merchant vessels. In the XVI century, they began to close the gang of Yaitsky, Teresky and Don Cossacks-Pirates. In the XVII century, they became the caspian fellow owners. The bases of the pirates were at the mouth of the Yaika (Urals), on the southern and eastern shores of the sea. There they walked, repaired ships, equipped not worse than the "sovereign" courts of Russia and Persia. From there they made raids. In essence, the XVI-XVII century became the flow of Caspian piracy.
For example, it is known that in the summer of 1621, Ataman Trenskiy mustache ruled the caravan of "merchants and serving people" and even besieged Astrakhan. In 1632, Vatagi Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks were covered in Baku, Derbent and Gilan. Returned to Don with rich prey. In 1636, Ataman Ivan Polenov with 500 Cossacks committed a good trip to Ferahabad. In 1649-50, Cossacks Ivan Kondreyreyov practically paralyzed Caspian shipping. No better things were on the Volga. Due to the fear of pirated attacks, caravans of vessels from Astrakhan up the river were sent by large groups, not less than 50 stops. In the years, when the robbing was especially lying, the caravans sent only twice a year - in the spring and autumn several hundred ships under the strengthened Streletsky security.
In 1660, the Cossacks took particularly large raid on the Persian shores. The Iranian army of Abbas II could not cope. Persian Vladyka had to contact the Russian king Alexei Mikhailovich, so that even somehow dumbered by the broken pirates. Alek Alexey, although nicknamed silent, but soon on violence, the Cossacks were wounded and left Persia with rich prey.
Soon, on their way, the stronger and decisive Vataga, headed by Ataman, who was not afraid of God, nor the feature, nor, especially, the Russian Tsar and Persian Shaha. It was the most famous pirate of the Caspian Sea - Stepan Razin. About his campaign to "Persian Bregar" we will tell in a separate article. A risky enterprise deserves this.
After the uprising, the raid of power decided not to ceremony with Cossack Volnitsa. Not only that they undermined their pirated raids and diplomacy, so also the chief pirate of the wall was removed to become a king. Volzhsky and Yaitsky shores settled the faithful government to the Cossacks who pledged to fight piracy. Combat "Summary of the Court" ruthlessly pursued "Gentlemen of Good luck". In the time of Tsar Peter in the Caspian Sea, the order and peace was established. But as soon as Peter I died, the pirates appeared again.
This time, the Turkmen began to engage in robbing fishery. The Persian government even turned to the Russian authorities as a request to influence the gangs that attacked ships from nearby Islands - the Turkmen pirates attacked the coastal Iranian settlements and took the population into slavery.
Kazakh Adaitsa
At the beginning of the XIX century, there was a new turn of the sea scope. In addition to the Turkmen piracy began to be engaged in the Kazakhs from the genus Aday, inhabited by the Mangyshlak peninsula. Cuddling, but poorly armed they did not dare to attack the major vessels, but the fishing schooners and small merchants robbed mercilessly. Often, the pirates themselves masked under fishermen. So Astrakhan Tatar merchant Nyaz under the guise of fishermen organized a large pirate flotilla engaged in marine robbery and slave trade.
The Governor Governor Perovsky, concerned, concerned about the rampant Pirates in 1836, sent a military expedition to Mangyshlak to destroy pirated settlements. But the soldiers and the Cossacks coped with the task only partially. Piracy though decreased, but it remains. Only in 1842 Admiral Ephraim Putyatin finally eradicated piracy on Mangyshlaka.
And the Turkmen pirates ended only by 1870, when Kokandsky, Khiva and Bukhara Khanate were attached to Russia. Only then the marine robbers disappeared from the water of the Caspian Sea.
Although recurrences still happened. That the Kazakh-Adai will rise and come out again in the sea, then the Turkmen from the hunger will begin to robbing. Even in our XXI century, pirates appeared on Caspians! Poachers from Dagestan are combined in the gangs, terrorize the fishermen, selecting the catch from them, and even dare to attack border trial. For example, during Putin 2007-08, border guards were attacked seven times.
In the end, the border guards of Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan had to be united and carry out military operation with the involvement of military aviation. It would seem that the Pirates of the Caspian Sea are finished ... but for a long time?
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