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Samara and the stronghold of Ufa in northern Bashkiria (founded in 1586), Tsaritsyn, later Stalingrad (1589), Saratov (1590) and Tsivilsk — forts and future cities with alliterative, romantic names — were all founded on the middle and lower reaches of the Volga at this time. The government’s hold of the steppe was furthered both by founding new towns and by refor-tifying others: Voronezh and Livny (1586), Kursk (1587), Yelets (1592), Kromy (1595) and in 1598 Belgorod on the river Donets. The purpose was to create strong defensive points and governmental centres to administer the growing population of those parts, for since Tsar Ivan’s time Russian settlement had been growing denser south and east of the centre. In pursuing this policy, therefore, the state was trying to catch up with its own population, and at the same time to promote, protect and control commerce. But it also probed regions beyond. In 1586 an emissary was sent to spy out the land of Kakhetia south of the Caucasus Mountains. He returned with an envoy from the local king. This proved the beginning of a long, close association between Russia and Georgia. ³

Before the end of the century Moscow was also in touch with the Kazakhs of the southern steppe, and further north, across the Urals, it was extending its authority into Siberia. Tiumen was founded in 1585, Tobolsk in 1587, as well as Pelym, Tara and other strong-points, including eventually Verkhoturia. This was a remarkably swift follow-up of Yermak’s conquest of the Tatar state of eastern Siberia and the Stroganovs’ exploitation of it. The building boom extended to established towns too. Astrakhan and Kazan were given new stone citadels at this time, and Smolensk on the western frontier was developed into the strongest fortress of all. ⁴

The chief purpose of the government’s extension into Siberia was to secure that invaluable source of furs — a major export — and to administer the native population, the hunters and trappers, who all paid their taxes in furs. Russia was creating an immense colonial empire in Siberia and the southern steppe. But it did so innocently, without realizing the world significance of the fact, ⁵ its long-term strategic significance in giving Moscow control of the world’s most extensive land mass. But, though the motive was short-term and practical, the policy was systematically pursued. Every strong-point, whether built of logs upon earthworks, of brick or of stone, was strategically sited and provided a serviceable district centre for the government’s representative, who acted as both civil governor and military commander. ⁶

Scattered as many of them were, it would be the work of decades to develop these strong-points into an integrated system of defence. In the meantime older expedients still had their uses, like that of which the Elizabethan venturer Jerome Horsey wrote in 1588: ‘The moving Castle \gulaigorod]… so framed, that it may be set up in length … two, three, foure, five, sixe or seven miles’. A double wall of timber spaced with three yards in between and closed at both ends, the structure could be dismantled, transported and re-erected where needed, and was an effective block to Tatar and other raiders from the steppe. ⁷

Careful thought as well as improvisation lay behind these essentially expansionist developments — as behind the stabilization programme and the economic and foreign policies — and Boris Godunov was the moving spirit behind all of them. He had a particular interest in the south-east, and some relevant expertise, having earlier run the department which administered Kazan, Astrakhan and Siberia. He knew all about running a central financial department and how the palace was administered, was supported by some very able helpers, and made it a principle to promote and exploit talent. Apart from the Shchelkalov brothers, he furthered the careers of men like Foma Petelin, the treasury specialist whom the English merchant Giles Fletcher considered outstandingly efficient and politically astute, and Eleazar Vyluzgin, chief administrator of the department of service estates, who seems to have headed the regents ‘private office and who, in 1591, was sent to Uglich with the commission of inquiry into the sudden death of the Tsarevich Dmitrii.

The untimely death of the Tsar’s younger brother is popularly attributed to Boris, but the charge is unjust. Boris had no motive to kill Dmitrii in 1591, when Tsar Fedor, whatever his mental strength may have been, was in good health and expected to sire heirs. Generations of good historians from V. I. Klein to Ruslan Skrynnikov have sifted the evidence and concluded that Boris was innocent and that, as the investigation report concluded, Dmitrii died by accident or misadventure while playing with a sharp instrument in the courtyard of the palace at Uglich. ⁸ Why, then, has the contrary view prevailed?