Ivan Bolotnikov

Ivan Bolotnikov (1565–1608) led a great peasant uprising during the Time of Troubles. A slave of Prince Andrei Teliatevsky, he fled to the Cossacks, was captured by Crimean Tatars and sold as a helmsman on a Turkish galley, then freed by German ships and carried to Venice.

Returning through Poland, he heard tales of Tsar Dmitri and met Mikhail Molchanov. In 1606 Molchanov sent him to Putivl. There he raised rebels, defeated the tsar's troops at Kromy and besieged Moscow.

Driven back to Kaluga and then Tula, he surrendered to Vasily Shuisky in October 1607 after a long siege. He was taken to Kargopol, blinded and drowned in 1608.