What characterizes the golden age of piracy? The most famous pirates in history Myths of Blackbeard

Were there pirates in Rus'? The answer suggests itself - piracy is only possible with a fairly well-developed fleet, which Russia did not have before Peter I. However, not all so simple.

In 1558, during the Livonian War, Russian troops captured Narva, which soon became a rather bustling port. Ships of foreigners with various goods rushed here, seekers of a happy lot and adventurers rushed here. This could not cause much joy among Russia's neighbors. They began to organize privateering ships, the captains of which received letters of safe conduct from governments, high-ranking nobles, which gave them full right to capture and plunder all ships going to Russia. To combat this element, Ivan the Terrible did not find anything better than to form his own privateer flotilla, since the creation of a strong fleet required both a long time and a lot of money, which Russia, exhausted by the war and terror, did not have. And there were not many experienced sailors.

Carsten Rohde

Enough hunters were quickly found to respond to the king’s call. One of the first to appear at the royal court was an experienced sea tramp who had seen a lot at sea. His name was Karsten Rode, and he was Danish by birth and an out-and-out pirate, an adventurer by vocation. It was he who received a safe conduct from the tsar and received the official title of “royal sea chieftain.” The ataman was ordered to “... take the enemies by force, and find, hook and destroy their ships with fire and sword, according to our Majesty’s charter... And to our governors and clerks of that ataman Karsten Rohde and his skippers, comrades and assistants to our refuges at sea and on earth, in care and honor, keep reserves or whatever they need, as soon as the bargaining raises, sell and not offend.” Thus, Karsten Rode and his brothers found themselves in the service of the formidable Moscow Tsar and received the right to take refuge in Russian ports and in the ports of friendly countries such as Denmark. The first privateer ship was not large - it did not exceed 40 tons with a displacement and had several cannons on the side. But the experienced corsair Karsten quickly replenished his fleet, taking 16 ships from his rivals. The ships were based on Bornholm and in Danish ports. It seems that on board the privateer ships, in addition to foreign pirates, there were Russian Pomors and Moscow gunners. And one must assume that the flotilla of the royal “gentlemen of fortune” justified its purpose, since the authorities and rulers of hostile states staged a real hunt for Roda. And despite the fact that Russia was unlucky in the Livonian War, Karsten Rohde acted successfully. True, greed and piratical nature took their toll, and the corsair did not disdain the ships of Muscovy’s allies - his Danish compatriots - as a prize. Danish King Frederick II in 1570 ordered the arrest of the irrepressible pirate. He was captured and placed first in the royal castle in Gala, then transported to Copenhagen, where his traces were lost. After some time, the king remembered his admiral and in 1576 sent a message to the Danish king, which said: “For five years or more, we sent Karsten Rode to the sea on ships with military men for the robbers who were breaking our guests from Gdansk to the sea. And That Karsten Rode smashed those robbers at sea. He caught 22 ships, and he came to Bornholm, and then the people of the king of Sweden drove him away, and those ships that he caught, and our ships were caught from him, and the price of those ships and goods was five hundred thousand. Efimkov. And that Karsten Rode, hoping for our agreement with Frederick, fled from the Svei people to Kopnogov (Copenhagen). And King Frederick ordered him to be caught and put in prison. And we were quite surprised by this."

Stepan Razin

Stepan Razin was no less worthy of the title of the largest Russian pirate of the seventeenth century. Razin began his career on the Don and Volga, where, at the head of a large Cossack fleet, he robbed merchant and royal ships. But his most famous operation, not inferior in scope to the campaigns of Drake and Morgan, was the Persian campaign. At that time, Razin commanded an army of 1,200 people on 30 plow ships. Entering the Caspian Sea, the Cossacks first devastated the shores of what is now Dagestan and Azerbaijan, and then, having ravaged several Persian cities, moved to Astrabad. The Cossacks attacked Astrabad, massacred all the men, plundered the city and took with them more than 800 women, who, after a three-week orgy, were all destroyed. After this, the Cossacks went on plows to Astrakhan, where they defeated the royal army and plundered several monasteries, throwing the archimandrite and the governor from the bell tower. Only when Razin undertook his famous campaign against Moscow was he defeated by the tsarist troops and executed in Moscow.

Charles XII

The early eighteenth century was the dawn of piracy in the Indian Ocean. Around 1712, numerous and active Madagascar pirates came up with the idea of ​​legalizing their freemen by coming under the protection of some European power. The power had to be strong and militant enough and, at the same time, distant so that an alliance with it would not threaten pirate interests in the Indian Ocean. For seven years, pirate envoys tried to win the favor of the Swedish crown. The matter proceeded with varying degrees of success - in June 1718, Charles XII signed a letter of safe conduct for the pirates and equipped an expedition to Madagascar to organize a trading post and geological surveys, which was nevertheless canceled after his death. In 1721, Ulrika Eleonora equipped a second expedition under the command of Adjutant General Ulrich. Disguised as merchant ships, they headed south and soon dropped anchor in the Spanish port of Cadiz, where they stood for several months, waiting for a pirate envoy. Ulrich could not calm down the quarrels that flared up between the officers every now and then, and therefore, without waiting for the pirates, he hurried back to Sweden, where he was put on trial for disrupting the expedition.

Peter the First

Around this time, Peter the Great became aware of the pirate kingdom, who had long sought to find a way to India. Rear Admiral Wilster, a professional mercenary and experienced sailor, told Peter about the connections between the Swedes and Madagascar pirates. Peter sends the Swede Narcos to London with the task of making contact with representatives of the pirates, and after the news of the failure of Ulrich’s expedition, Peter orders Wilster to prepare an “extract” - a summary of all the information about the pirates and their relations with the Swedish court, which he presents on June 4, 1723 of the year. On November 3, 1723, the head of the Revel squadron, Fan-Goft, received an order from Peter to urgently equip and arm for long-distance voyages two new frigates, just built in Amsterdam: “Amsterdam-Galley” and “Dekrondelivde”, on which government commissioners were appointed - Lieutenant Commander Myasnoy and captain-lieutenant Koshelev. True, even they should learn about the purpose of the voyage only in the Atlantic Ocean from Wilster. Admiral General Apraksin, the only person in Russia other than Peter and Wilster, privy to the secret, was supposed to oversee preparations for the departure.
The expedition gathered in a mad rush and in December the ships were ready, however, only formally. On December 22, Wilster wrote to Peter that it was difficult to believe “that the sea man sent them.” So much sand was poured into the holds that there was nowhere to load supplies. Apraksin also understood this. But no one dared to contradict Peter, who was in a hurry to depart as if the fate of the state depended on it. The result was predictable: during the first storm, the Amsterdam-Galley leaked so much that the pumps barely had time to pump out the water. When trying to tilt it, it lay on its side and sank. Sixteen sailors died on the lower decks. However, Peter does not cancel the expedition, but passes through Apraksin a new order: to prepare the Prince Eugene for sailing or to select a suitable frigate in the port of Revel. The ships were chosen, but it turned out that they were not lined with wool (in those days it was believed that this was the best protection against shellfish in warm seas). There was no wool in the Revel warehouses; we had to look for it in neighboring towns. January 1724 passed in these worries. In February, Peter’s new order came: to cancel the expedition “until another favorable time.” Most likely, Peter received information from his intelligence in London that the pirate kingdom in Madagascar was a bluff. Perhaps Peter was also convinced by General Ulrich, the commander of the failed Swedish expedition, who met with Peter at that time. Soon Peter died and with him the ambitious project of the Russian-pirate kingdom in Madagascar ended.

Admiral Sinyavin

In the nineteenth century, during the war with Napoleon, Admiral Sinyavin, on behalf of and with the permission of the Russian authorities, issued letters of marque to the inhabitants of the Ionian Islands to fight the French. However, after the end of the Crimean War, the Maritime Convention abolished privateering. Nevertheless, privateers were remembered one more time, in 1878, when the Voluntary Fleet was created. In case of war, his ships could easily be converted into auxiliary cruisers used against England.

There isn't much documentary material on piracy. Many of the existing facts are only partly true. Information about who these people really were has undergone many different interpretations. As often happens in the absence of reliable first-hand data, quite a large amount of folklore is devoted to this topic. Considering all of the above, we decided to present dossiers on several legendary sea robbers.

Active period: 1696-1701
Territories: east coast of North America, Caribbean Sea, Indian Ocean.

How he died: he was hanged in a specially designated area in the docks located in east London. His body was subsequently hung over the Thames, where it hung for three years as a warning to potential sea robbers.
What is famous for: the founder of the idea of ​​buried treasure.
In fact, the exploits of this Scottish sailor and British privateer were not particularly extraordinary. Kidd took part in several minor battles with pirates and other ships as a privateer for the British authorities, but none of them significantly influenced the course of history.
The most interesting thing is that the legend about Captain Kidd appeared after his death. During his career, many colleagues and superiors suspected him of exceeding his privateering powers and dabbling in piracy. After irrefutable evidence of his actions emerged, military ships were sent for him, which were supposed to return Kidd to London. Suspecting what awaited him, Kidd allegedly buried untold riches on Gardines Island off the coast of New York. He wanted to use these treasures as insurance and a bargaining tool.
The British court was not impressed by the stories of buried treasure, and Kidd was sentenced to the gallows. This is how his story suddenly ended and a legend appeared. It was thanks to the efforts and skill of writers who became interested in the adventures of the terrible robber that Captain Kidd became one of the most famous pirates. His actual actions were significantly inferior to the glory of other sea robbers of that time.

Period of activity: 1719-1722
Territories: from the eastern coast of North America to the eastern coast of Africa.
How he died: He was killed by a cannon shot during a battle against the British fleet.
What is famous for: he can be considered the most successful pirate.
Although Bartholomew Roberts may not be the most famous pirate, he was the best at everything he did. During his career, he managed to capture more than 470 ships. He operated in the waters of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. In his youth, when he was a sailor aboard a merchant ship, his ship and its entire crew were captured by pirates.
Thanks to his navigation skills, Roberts stood out from the crowd of hostages. Therefore, he soon became a valuable resource for the pirates who captured their ship. In the future, an incredible career rise awaited him, leading to him becoming the captain of a team of sea robbers.
Over time, Roberts came to the conclusion that it was completely pointless to fight for the miserable life of an honest employee. From that moment on, his motto was the statement that it is better to live for a short time, but for your own pleasure. We can safely say that with the death of 39-year-old Roberts, the Golden Age of Piracy came to an end.

Period of activity: 1716-1718
Territories: Caribbean Sea and East Coast of North America.
How he died: in a battle against the British fleet.
What is famous for: successfully blockaded the port of Charleston. He had a bright appearance and a thick dark beard, into which during battles he wove ignition wicks, frightening the enemy with clouds of smoke emitted.
He was probably the most famous pirate, both in terms of his pirate prowess and his memorable appearance. He managed to mobilize quite an impressive fleet of pirate ships and lead it in many battles.
Thus, the flotilla under the command of Blackbeard managed to blockade the port of Charleston for several days. During this time, they captured several ships and took many hostages, who were later exchanged for various medicines for the crew. For many years, Teach kept the Atlantic coast and the islands of the West Indies at bay.
This continued until his ship was surrounded by the British fleet. This happened during a battle off the coast of North Carolina. Then Teach managed to kill many Englishmen. He himself died from multiple saber blows and gunshot wounds.

Active period: 1717-1720
Territories: Indian Ocean and Caribbean Sea.
How he died: died shortly after being removed from command of the ship and landing in Mauritius.
What is famous for: the first to use a flag with the image of the classic “Jolly Roger”.
Edward England became a pirate after being captured by a gang of thugs. He was simply forced to join the team. After a short stay in the waters of the Caribbean, he was in for a rapid rise up the pirate career ladder.
As a result, he began to command his own ship, used to attack slave ships in the Indian Ocean. It was he who came up with the flag with the image of a skull above two crossed femurs. This flag later became a classic symbol of piracy.

Active period: 1718-1720
Territories: waters of the Caribbean Sea.
How he died: hanged in Jamaica.
What is famous for: the first pirate to allow women on board.
Calico Jack cannot be classified as a successful pirate. His main occupation was the capture of small commercial and fishing vessels. In 1719, during a brief attempt at retirement, the pirate met and fell in love with Anne Bonny, who subsequently dressed as a man and joined his crew.
Some time later, Rackham's team captured a Dutch merchant ship, and without knowing it, they took another woman dressed as a man on board the pirate ship. Reed and Bonnie turned out to be brave and courageous pirates, which made Rackham famous. Jack himself cannot be called a good captain.
When his crew was captured by the ship of the governor of Jamaica, Rackham was so drunk that he did not even manage to get into a fight, and only Mary and Anne defended their ship to the last. Before his execution, Jack asked for a meeting with Anne Bonny, but she flatly refused and, instead of dying consoling words, told her former lover that his pitiful appearance caused her indignation.

John Rackham, aka Calico Jack (December 21, 1682 - November 18, 1720) was a respected pirate who became famous for several of his notable exploits.

First of all, Rackham dared to challenge Captain Charles Vane, known for his unparalleled cruelty. In addition, he had a special relationship with two legendary female pirates of his time - Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Both of them - in violation of all customs - served on his ship, and Anne Bonny was taken from her husband by Rackham. In addition, Rackham invented a pirate flag of his own design, which subsequently became incredibly popular. Well, finally, it’s worth saying that although Rackham did not pirate for long, he captured about $1.5 million worth of booty, which allowed him to enter the “golden twenty” of pirates. John Rackham, nicknamed Calico Jack (he received it for his passion for calico robes), is first mentioned in history as a quartermaster on the ship of the terrible Charles Vane. Apparently, Rackham came to Vane when the pirate squadron left the island of New Providence. Vane preferred to pirate; a peaceful life was not his thing. However, Rackham himself also always dreamed of the fate of a robber of the seas. Instantly winning the trust of Vane himself and finding a common language with the team, John Rackham was soon appointed quartermaster. His duties were to look after the interests of the crew and help the captain manage the squadron. As he later discovered, Charles Vane not only terribly abused the prisoners, but also constantly robbed his own crew. Moreover, the pirate captain preferred to attack only if he was absolutely confident of victory. The team didn't like this very much.

The last straw was Vane's deliberate reluctance to attack the rich French ship. The team rebelled and chose John Rackham as the new captain.

Steed Bonnet (1688 - December 10, 1718) - a venerable British pirate, another of the "golden twenty" who suffered a violent death. He robbed ships in the Atlantic Ocean and, of course, in the Caribbean Sea. In addition to his successful raids, which brought him a fair amount of booty, Bonnet went down in history as a corsair who was not afraid to come into conflict with Edward “Blackbeard” Teach himself, the pirate of pirates! In addition, he is perhaps the only one who, being a successful planter, suddenly decided to connect his life with the robbers of the seas.

Steed Bonnet was born in Bridgetown, Barbados, into a respectable and wealthy English family, Edward and Sarah Bonnet, who baptized their infant on July 29, 1688. After the death of his venerable parent in 1694, Steed Bonnet, at the age of six, became the heir to the entire family fortune. The prosperity of the Bonnet family, by the way, was based on the skillful management of plantations that occupied an area of ​​over 400 acres (approximately 1.6 km²).

Steed Bonnet received a very good education - his wealth fully allowed him to do so. When Steed turned 21, he took two very serious steps. Firstly, he ended his bachelor life and got married. His chosen one was a certain Mary Allamby. Their wedding took place on November 21, 1709. Steed and Mary subsequently had four children: three boys (Allambie, Edward and Steed) and one girl, Mary. Steed's eldest son Bonnet Allamby died early; his death occurred in 1715.

Secondly, Bonnet decided to learn how to hold a weapon in his hands, for which he joined the ranks of the municipal police. He quickly rose to the rank of major. Some historians admit that Bonnet's rapid growth in career was due to his status as a large landowner; everyone was well aware that slave labor was used on his plantations. And among the main functions of the police, the suppression of slave uprisings came first.

Thus, Steed Bonnet prospered as a planter, contributed to the maintenance of order and planned family life for years to come.

The peak of maritime robberies occurred in the 17th century, when the World Ocean was the scene of struggle between Spain, England and some other growing European colonial powers. Most often, pirates made their living through independent criminal robberies, but some of them ended up in government service and deliberately harmed foreign fleets. Below is a list of the ten most famous pirates in history.

1. William Kidd

William Kidd (22 January 1645 - 23 May 1701) was a Scottish sailor who was convicted and executed for piracy after returning from a voyage to the Indian Ocean to hunt pirates. Considered one of the most cruel and bloodthirsty sea robbers of the seventeenth century. The hero of many mysterious stories. Some modern historians, such as Sir Cornelius Neale Dalton, consider his pirate reputation to be unfair.

2. Bartholomew Roberts

Bartholomew Roberts (May 17, 1682 - February 17, 1722) was a Welsh pirate who robbed about 200 ships (according to another version 400 ships) in the vicinity of Barbados and Martinique over two and a half years. Known primarily as the opposite of the traditional image of a pirate. He was always well dressed, had refined manners, hated drunkenness and gambling, and treated the crew of the ships he captured well. He was killed by cannon shot during a battle with a British warship.

3. Blackbeard

Blackbeard or Edward Teach (1680 - November 22, 1718) was an English pirate who traded in the Caribbean in 1716–1718. He liked to strike terror into his enemies. During the battle, Teach wove incendiary wicks into his beard and, in clouds of smoke, like Satan from hell, burst into the ranks of the enemy. Due to his unusual appearance and eccentric behavior, history has made him one of the most famous pirates, despite the fact that his “career” was quite short, and his success and scale of activity were much smaller compared to his other colleagues on this list.

4. Jack Rackham

Jack Rackham (December 21, 1682 - November 17, 1720) was an English pirate, famous primarily for the fact that his crew included two more equally famous corsairs, female pirates Anne Bonny, nicknamed “Mistress of the Seas” and Mary Read.

5. Charles Vane

Charles Vane (1680 – March 29, 1721) was an English pirate who plundered ships between 1716 and 1721 in North American waters. He became famous for his extreme cruelty. As history says, Vane was not attached to such feelings as compassion, pity and empathy; he easily broke his own promises, did not respect other pirates and did not take anyone’s opinion into account. The meaning of his life was only production.

6. Edward England

Edward England (1685 - 1721) was a pirate active off the coast of Africa and in the waters of the Indian Ocean from 1717 to 1720. He differed from other pirates of that time in that he did not kill prisoners unless absolutely necessary. Ultimately, this led to his crew mutinying when he refused to kill sailors from yet another captured English merchant ship. England was subsequently landed in Madagascar where he survived for some time by begging and eventually died.

7. Samuel Bellamy

Samuel Bellamy, nicknamed Black Sam (February 23, 1689 - April 26, 1717) was a great English sailor and pirate who traded at the beginning of the 18th century. Although his career lasted just over a year, he and his crew captured at least 53 ships, making Black Sam the richest pirate in history. Bellamy was also known for his mercy and generosity towards those he captured in his raids.

8. Saida al-Hurra

Saida al-Hurra (1485 – c. 14 July 1561) - last queen of Tetouan (Morocco), reigning between 1512–1542, pirate. In alliance with the Ottoman corsair Arouj Barbarossa of Algeria, al-Hura controlled the Mediterranean Sea. She became famous for her fight against the Portuguese. She is rightfully considered one of the most outstanding women of the Islamic West of the modern era. The date and exact circumstances of her death are unknown.

9. Thomas Tew

Thomas Tew (1649 - September 1695) was an English privateer and pirate who made only two major piracy voyages, a voyage later known as the "Pirate Circle". He was killed in 1695 while attempting to rob the Mughal ship Fateh Muhammad.

10. Steed Bonnet

Steed Bonnet (1688 - December 10, 1718) was a prominent English pirate, nicknamed the "pirate gentleman." Interestingly, before Bonnet turned to piracy, he was a fairly wealthy, educated and respected man, owning a plantation in Barbados.

11. Madame Shi

Madame Shi, or Madam Zheng, is one of the world's most famous female pirates. After the death of her husband, she inherited his pirate flotilla and put sea robbery on a grand scale. Under her command were two thousand ships and seventy thousand people. The strictest discipline helped her command an entire army. For example, for unauthorized absence from a ship, the offender lost an ear. Not all of Madame Shi's subordinates were happy with this state of affairs, and one of the captains once rebelled and went over to the side of the authorities. After Madame Shi's power was weakened, she agreed to a truce with the emperor and subsequently lived to an old age in freedom, running a brothel.

12. Francis Drake

Francis Drake is one of the most famous pirates in the world. Actually, he was not a pirate, but a corsair who acted on the seas and oceans against enemy ships with the special permission of Queen Elizabeth. Devastating the coasts of Central and South America, he became immensely rich. Drake accomplished many great deeds: he opened a strait, which he named in his honor, and under his command the British fleet defeated the Great Armada. Since then, one of the ships of the English navy has been named after the famous navigator and corsair Francis Drake.

13. Henry Morgan

The list of the most famous pirates would be incomplete without the name of Henry Morgan. Despite the fact that he was born into a wealthy family of an English landowner, from his youth Morgan connected his life with the sea. He was hired as a cabin boy on one of the ships and was soon sold into slavery in Barbados. He managed to move to Jamaica, where Morgan joined a gang of pirates. Several successful trips allowed him and his comrades to purchase a ship. Morgan was chosen as captain, and it was a good decision. A few years later there were 35 ships under his command. With such a fleet, he managed to capture Panama in a day and burn the entire city. Since Morgan acted mainly against Spanish ships and pursued an active English colonial policy, after his arrest the pirate was not executed. On the contrary, for the services rendered to Britain in the fight against Spain, Henry Morgan received the post of lieutenant governor of Jamaica. The famous corsair died at the age of 53 from cirrhosis of the liver.

14. Edward Teach

Edward Teach, or Blackbeard, is one of the most famous pirates in the world. Almost everyone has heard his name. Teach lived and was engaged in sea robbery at the very height of the golden age of piracy. Having enlisted at the age of 12, he gained valuable experience, which would then be useful to him in the future. According to historians, Teach took part in the War of the Spanish Succession, and after its end he deliberately decided to become a pirate. The fame of a ruthless filibuster helped Blackbeard seize ships without the use of weapons - upon seeing his flag, the victim surrendered without a fight. The cheerful life of a pirate did not last long - Teach died during a boarding battle with a British warship pursuing him.

15. Henry Avery

One of the most famous pirates in history is Henry Avery, nicknamed Long Ben. The father of the future famous buccaneer was a captain in the British fleet. Since childhood, Avery dreamed of sea voyages. He began his career in the navy as a cabin boy. Avery then received an appointment as first mate on a corsair frigate. The ship's crew soon rebelled, and the first mate was proclaimed captain of the pirate ship. So Avery took the path of piracy. He became famous for capturing the ships of Indian pilgrims heading to Mecca. The pirates' booty was unheard of at that time: 600 thousand pounds and the daughter of the Great Mogul, whom Avery later officially married. How the life of the famous filibuster ended is unknown.

16. Amaro Pargo

Amaro Pargo is one of the most famous freebooters of the golden age of piracy. Pargo transported slaves and made a fortune from it. Wealth allowed him to engage in charity work. He lived to a ripe old age.

17. Arouge Barbarossa

Famous powerful pirate from Turkey. He was characterized by cruelty, ruthlessness, and a love of mockery and execution. He was involved in the pirate business together with his brother Khair. The Barbarossa Pirates were a threat to the entire Mediterranean. So, in 1515, the entire Azir coast was under the rule of Arouj Barbarossa. The battles under his command were sophisticated, bloody and victorious. Arouj Barbarossa died during the battle, surrounded by enemy troops in Tlemcen.

18. William Dampier

A sailor from England. By vocation he was a researcher and discoverer. Made 3 trips around the world. He became a pirate in order to have the means to engage in his research activities - studying the direction of winds and currents in the ocean. William Dampier is the author of such books as “Travels and Descriptions”, “A New Journey Around the World”, “The Direction of the Winds”. An archipelago in the North-West coast of Australia, as well as a strait between the western coast of New Guinea and the island of Waigeo, are named after him.

19. Grace O'Mail

Female pirate, legendary captain, lady of fortune. Her life was full of colorful adventures. Grace had heroic courage, unprecedented determination and high talent as a pirate. For her enemies she was a nightmare, for her followers an object of admiration. Despite the fact that she had three children from her first marriage and 1 child from her second, Grace O'Mail continued her favorite business. Her work was so successful that Queen Elizabeth I herself invited Grace to serve her, to which she received a decisive refusal.

20 . Anne Bonney

Incredible facts about pirates

1. In the 18th century, the Bahamas were a paradise for pirates

The Bahamas, today's respectable resort, and its capital, Nassau, were once the capital of maritime lawlessness. In the 17th century, the Bahamas, which formally belonged to the British crown, did not have a governor, and pirates took the reins of government into their own hands. At that time, more than a thousand sea robbers lived in the Bahamas, and squadrons of the most famous pirate captains moored in the island’s harbors. The pirates preferred to call the city of Nassau Charlestown in their own way. Peace returned to the Bahamas only in 1718, when British troops landed in the Bahamas and regained control of Nassau.

2. “Jolly Roger” is not a single pirate flag at all

The Jolly Roger, a black flag with a skull and crossbones, is often called the main pirate symbol. But it is not so. He is rather the most famous and spectacular. However, it was not used as often as is commonly believed. It appeared as a pirate flag only in the 17th century, that is, already at the end of the golden era of piracy. And not all pirates used it, since each captain himself decided under which flag to carry out raids. So, along with the Jolly Roger, there were dozens of pirate flags, and the skull and crossbones was not particularly popular among them.

3. Why did pirates wear earrings?

Books and films don’t lie: almost all pirates wore earrings. They were even part of the pirate initiation ritual: young pirates received an earring upon their first crossing of the equator or Cape Horn. The fact is that among pirates there was a belief that an earring in the ear helps preserve vision and even helps cure blindness. It was this pirate superstition that led to the mass fashion for earrings among sea robbers. Some even tried to use them for dual purposes, casting a spell against drowning on the earring. Also, an earring taken from the ear of a killed pirate could guarantee a decent funeral for the deceased.

4. There were a lot of female pirates

Oddly enough, women in pirate crews were not such a rare occurrence. There weren't even that few female captains. The most famous of them are the Chinese Cheng Yi Sao, Mary Read and, of course, the famous Anne Bonny. Anne was born into the family of a wealthy Irish lawyer. From an early age, her parents dressed her like a boy so that she could help her father in the office as a clerk. The boring life of a lawyer's assistant did not appeal to Anne, and she ran away from home, joining the pirates and quickly becoming a captain thanks to her determination. According to rumors, Anne Bonny had a hot temper and often beat her assistants if they tried to challenge her opinion.

5. Why are there so many one-eyed pirates?

Anyone who has watched a movie about pirates has probably thought at least once: why are there so many one-eyed people among them? The eye patch has long remained an indispensable part of the pirate image. However, the pirates did not wear it because they all lacked an eye. It was simply convenient for quick and more accurate aiming in battle, but putting it on for battle took too long - it was more comfortable to wear it without taking it off.

6. There was strict discipline on pirate ships

Pirates could do any obscenity on the shore, but strict discipline reigned on board pirate ships, because the lives of sea robbers depended on it. Each pirate, upon boarding a ship, signed a contract with the captain, stipulating his rights and obligations. The main duties were unquestioning obedience to the captain. A simple pirate did not even have the right to contact the commander directly. This could be done at the insistence of the sailors only by an appointed representative of the team - as a rule, the boatswain. In addition, the contract strictly determined the part of the booty that the pirate would receive, and an attempt to conceal the captured property was subject to immediate execution - this was done to avoid bloody showdowns on board.

7. The pirates included people from all walks of life

Among the sea robbers there were not only poor people who went to sea for lack of other means of subsistence, or fugitive criminals who did not know the possibility of legal earnings. There were also people from rich and even noble families among them. For example, the famous pirate William Kidd - Captain Kidd - was the son of a Scottish nobleman. He was originally a British naval officer and pirate hunter. But his innate cruelty and passion for adventure pushed him onto a different path. In 1698, under the cover of the French flag, Kidd captured a British merchant ship loaded with gold and silver. When the first prize turned out to be so impressive, could Kidd refuse to continue his career?

8. Buried pirate treasure is the stuff of legends.

There are many legends about buried pirate treasures - much more than there are treasures themselves. Of the famous pirates, only one is reliably known to have actually buried treasure - William Kidd did this, hoping to use it as ransom if he was caught. This did not help him - after his capture he was immediately executed as a pirate. Typically, pirates did not leave behind large fortunes. The pirates' expenses were high, the crews were numerous, and each member of the crew, including the captain, was succeeded by one of his friends and colleagues. At the same time, realizing that their life was short, the pirates preferred to waste money rather than hide it in the prospect of a very unreliable future.

9. A walk along the yard was a rare punishment

Judging by the films, the most common method of execution among pirates was the “yardwalk,” where a man with his hands tied was forced to walk along a thin yard until he fell overboard and drowned. In fact, such punishment was rare and was applied only to sworn personal enemies - to see their fear or panic. The traditional punishment was “dragging under the keel,” when a pirate or an obstinate prisoner punished for disobedience was lowered overboard with the help of ropes and dragged under the bottom of the ship, pulling out from the other side. A good swimmer could easily not choke during the punishment, but the body of the punished person ended up being so cut up by shells. stuck to the bottom, which took many weeks to recover. The punished could easily die, and, again, more likely from wounds than from drowning.

10. Pirates roamed all seas

After the film "Pirates of the Caribbean", many believe that the seas of Central America were the nest of world piracy. In fact, piracy was equally common in all regions - from Britain, whose privateers, pirates in the royal service, terrorized European ships, to Southeast Asia, where piracy remained a real force well into the 20th century. And the raids of the northern peoples on the cities of Ancient Rus' along the rivers were real pirate raids!

11. Piracy as a way to make a living

In difficult times, many hunters, shepherds and lumberjacks became pirates not for adventure, but for a banal piece of bread. This was especially true for residents of Central America, where in the 17th-18th centuries there was an endless battle between European powers for colonies. Constant armed clashes deprived people not only of work, but also of home, and residents of coastal settlements knew maritime affairs from childhood. So they went to where they had a chance to be well-fed and not think too much about tomorrow.

12. Not all pirates were outlaws

State piracy is a phenomenon that has existed since ancient times. Berber corsairs served the Ottoman Empire, Dunker privateers served Spain, and Britain, during the era of dominion over the ocean, kept a fleet of privateers - warships that captured enemy merchant ships - and corsairs - private individuals engaged in the same trade. Despite the fact that state pirates were engaged in the same craft as their free brothers, the difference in their position was enormous. Captured pirates were subject to immediate execution, while a corsair with the appropriate patent could count on the status of a prisoner of war, a quick ransom and a state reward - like Henry Morgan, who received the post of governor of Jamaica for his corsair service.

13. Pirates still exist today

Today's pirates are armed with modern machine guns instead of cutlass, and prefer modern high-speed boats to sailing ships. However, they act just as decisively and ruthlessly as their ancient predecessors. The Gulf of Aden, the Strait of Malacca and the coastal waters of Madagascar are considered the most dangerous places for pirate attacks, and civilian ships are advised not to enter there without an armed escort.

7 Most Scary Pirates in History

With the advent of the famous Jack Sparrow, pirates turned into cartoon characters of modern pop culture. And that makes it easy to forget that real sea robbers were more formidable than their Hollywood parody. They were brutal mass murderers and slave owners. In a word, they were pirates. Real pirates, not pathetic caricatures. As evidenced by the following...

1. Francois Ohlone

The French pirate François Ohlone hated Spain with all his heart. Early in his pirate career, Ohlone nearly died at the hands of Spanish marauders, but instead of reconsidering his life and becoming, say, a farmer, he decided to dedicate himself to hunting the Spanish. He clearly expressed his attitude towards this people after he beheaded the entire crew of a Spanish ship that came his way, with the exception of one single man, whom he sent to his fellows to convey the following words: “From this day forward, not a single Spaniard will receive from me not a cent."

But these were only flowers. Considering what happened next, we can say that the beheaded Spaniards got off lightly.

Having earned a reputation as a cutthroat, Ohlone gathered eight pirate ships and several hundred men under his command and set out to terrorize the coast of South America, destroying Spanish cities, capturing ships bound for Spain, and generally causing severe headaches for that state.

Nevertheless, Olone's luck suddenly turned away when he, returning from another raid on the coast of Venezuela, was ambushed by Spanish soldiers who outnumbered him. Explosions thundered here and there, pirates flew into pieces, and Olona barely managed to escape from this meat grinder, simultaneously capturing several hostages. But this was not the end of his difficulties, because Olona and his team still needed to escape alive from enemy territory and not run into another ambush, which they simply could not repulse.

What did Ohlone do? He took out a saber, slashed the chest of one of the Spanish hostages, pulled out his heart and “sank his teeth into it like a greedy wolf, telling the others: “The same thing awaits you if you don’t show me the way out.”

The intimidation worked, and soon the pirates were out of danger. If you're wondering what happened to the heads of the beheaded Spaniards we mentioned earlier... well, let's just say that for a week the pirates ate like kings.

2. Jean Lafitte

Despite his effeminate name and French origin, Jean Lafitte was a true pirate king. He owned his own island in Louisiana, robbed ships and smuggled stolen goods into New Orleans. Lafitte was so successful that when the governor of Louisiana offered $300 for his capture (at that time, 300 bucks was half the country's budget), the pirate responded by offering $1,000 for the capture of the governor himself.

Newspapers and authorities portrayed Lafitte as a dangerous and violent criminal and mass murderer, a sort of 1800s Osama bin Laden, if you will. Apparently his fame crossed the Atlantic Ocean, since in 1814 Lafitte was given a letter signed personally by King George III, who offered the pirate British citizenship and lands if he sided with them. He also promised that he would not destroy his small island and sell it piece by piece. Lafitte asked to be given a few days to think... and in the meantime he hurried straight to New Orleans to warn the Americans about the British advance.

So, maybe the United States did not like Jean Lafitte, but for Lafitte the United States was like family.

Even though he was not an American, Lafitte treated the new country with respect and even ordered his fleet not to attack American ships. Lafitte personally killed one pirate who disobeyed his order. In addition, the privateer treated hostages well and sometimes returned their ships if they were not suitable for the pirate business. New Orleans residents considered Lafitte almost a hero, as the contraband he brought in allowed people to buy things they otherwise could not afford.

So, how did the American authorities react to the report of a future British attack? They attacked the island of Lafitte and captured his people, because they thought that he was simply lying. Only after future President Andrew Jackson intervened, noting that New Orleans was not ready to withstand a British attack, did the authorities agree to release Lafitte's men on the condition that they agree to help their navy.

It can be said that it was only thanks to the pirates that the Americans managed to defend New Orleans, which otherwise could have been a significant strategic victory for the British. In this city the latter could gather their forces before attacking the rest of the country. Just think: if it weren’t for that unwashed French “terrorist,” the United States might not exist today.

3. Stephen Decatur

Stephen Decatur does not fit the typical pirate mold in that he was a fairly respected US Navy officer. Decatur became the youngest captain in the history of the Navy, which would be a ridiculous fiction if it were not true. He was recognized as a national hero, and for a time his portrait even appeared on the twenty-dollar bill.

How did he manage to achieve such popularity? Organizing some of the most epic and bloody raids in history.

For example, when Tripolitan pirates captured the frigate Philadelphia in 1803, 25-year-old Decatur gathered a group of men disguised as Maltese sailors and armed only with swords and pikes and entered the enemy harbor. There, without losing a single person, he captured the enemies and set fire to the frigate so that the pirates could not use it. Admiral Horatio Nelson called the raid "the boldest and most daring adventure of the century."

But that is not all. Later, returning from the capture of another ship whose crew was twice the size of Decatur's, the man learned that his brother had been mortally wounded in a battle with pirates. Although his crew was exhausted from a recent raid, Decatur turned the ship around and pursued the enemy ship, which he and ten others later boarded.

Ignoring the others, Decatur ran straight towards the man who had shot his brother and killed him. The rest of the team eventually gave up. Thus, in one day, the young man captured 27 hostages and killed 33 pirates.

He was only 25 years old.

4. Ben Hornigold

Benjamin Hornigold was Blackbeard's Emperor Palpatine. While his protégé became the most famous pirate in history, Hornigold forever became a footnote in the books about Edward Titch.

Hornigold began his pirate career in the Bahamas; at that time he had only a couple of small boats at his disposal. However, a few years later Hornigold sailed on a huge 30-gun warship, thanks to which it became much easier for him to engage in sea robbery. So much easier that, apparently, the privateer began to rob solely for fun.

Once, for example, in Honduras, Hornigold boarded a merchant ship, but all he demanded from the crew was their hats. He explained his demand by saying that last night his team got very drunk and lost their hats. Having received what he wanted, Hornigold boarded his ship and sailed away, leaving the merchants with their goods.

And this was not the only case. On another occasion, a crew of sailors captured by Hornigold said that the pirate released them with only “a little rum, sugar, gunpowder and ammunition.”

Alas, his crew did not seem to share their captain's views. Hornigold always considered himself a “privateer” rather than a pirate, and to prove this, he refused to attack British ships. This position did not find support from the sailors, and ultimately Hornigold was removed, and a good part of his crew and ships went to Blackbeard. Before he lost his head.

Hornigold left the pirate life, accepted a royal pardon and took the other side, starting to hunt for those with whom he once hung out.

5. William Dampier

The Englishman William Dampier was used to achieving a lot. Not wanting to be content with the status of the first person to travel around the world three times, as well as a recognized author and scientific researcher, he had a small business on the side - he plundered Spanish settlements and plundered other people's ships. All this in the name of science, of course.

Pop culture insists that all pirates were toothless, illiterate bums, but Dampier was the opposite: he not only respected the English language, but also filled it with new words. The Oxford English Dictionary refers to Dampier more than a thousand times in its articles, since it was he who wrote examples of the spelling of words such as “barbecue”, “avocado”, “chopsticks” and hundreds of others.

Dampier was recognized as Australia's first naturalist, and his contribution to Western culture is simply invaluable. It was his observations that Darwin based on when working on the theory of evolution, and he is also mentioned in a laudatory tone in Gulliver’s Travels.

However, his most striking achievement did not concern literature or science. In 1688, when his first trip around the world was almost over, Dampier sent his crew away and landed somewhere on the coast of Thailand. There he boarded a canoe and swam home. Dampier landed on the English coast only three years later; he had nothing on him except a diary... and a tattooed slave.

6. Black Bart

In the 17th-18th centuries, sailing on military or merchant ships was an extremely thankless task. The working conditions were disgusting, and if you suddenly angered a senior, the punishment that followed was extremely cruel and often led to death. As a result, no one wanted to become a sailor, so the military and merchants had to literally kidnap people from the ports and force them to work on their ships. It is clear that this method of hiring did not awaken in the sailors any particular loyalty to the cause and to their superiors.

Bartholomew Roberts (or simply “Black Bart”) himself became a pirate by force, which, however, does not make him worse than others. Roberts worked on a slave trading ship that was captured by pirates. When they invited the sailors to join them, he agreed without hesitation. Although there is a possibility that the robbers also threatened to kill him if he did not go with them. Thanks to his high intelligence and talent for navigation, Roberts quickly gained the captain's trust. When the latter was killed, he (by that time having lived with the pirates for only six months) was elected in his place.

Roberts became an outstanding pirate, but apparently never forgot where he came from. Having boarded a ship, he, before making money, asked the captured sailors whether the captain and officers had treated them well. If a complaint was made against anyone from the commanding staff, Roberts dealt mercilessly with the offenders. By the way, other pirates also practiced this. although their punishments were more sophisticated.

Roberts, being a civilized man, eventually forced his crew (the one who had previously captured him) to follow a strict 11-point code of conduct, which included: a ban on gambling, a ban on women on board, and an eight-hour blackout. evenings and mandatory washing of dirty bed linen.

7. Barbarossa

In movies and TV shows, a pirate can be considered lucky if they have at least one ship and a crew of a couple dozen people. But as it turned out, some real pirates were much luckier in life. Thus, the Turkish pirate Hayreddin Barbarossa had not only his own fleet, but also his own state.

Barbarossa started out as an ordinary merchant, but after an unsuccessful political decision (he supported the wrong candidate for sultan) he was forced to leave the Eastern Mediterranean. Becoming a pirate, Barbarossa began attacking Christian ships in the area of ​​what is now Tunisia until his enemies captured his base, leaving him homeless. Tired of being constantly kicked out from everywhere, Barbarossa founded his own state, known as the Algerian Regency (the territory of modern Algeria, Tunisia and part of Morocco). He succeeded in this thanks to an alliance with the Turkish Sultan, who, in exchange for support, supplied him with ships and weapons.

Stories about pirates excited the imagination back in the 19th century, but now, thanks to the series of Hollywood films “Pirates of the Caribbean”, this topic has become even more popular. We invite you to “get acquainted” with the most famous real-life pirates.

10 PHOTOS

1. Henry Every (1659-1699).

The pirate, known by the nickname "Long Ben", grew up in the family of an English navy captain. When a riot broke out on the ship where he served as first mate, Everett joined the mutineers and became their leader. His most famous trophy was the Indian ship Ganga-i-Sawai, loaded with gold and silver coins, as well as precious stones.

2. Anne Bonny (1700-1782).

Anne Bonny, one of the few women who succeeded in piracy, grew up in a wealthy mansion and received a good education. However, when her father decided to marry her off, she ran away from home with a simple sailor. Some time later, Anne Bonny met the pirate Jack Rackham and he took her on his ship. According to eyewitnesses, Bonnie was not inferior to male pirates in courage and ability to fight.

3. Francois Olone (1630-1671).

The French filibuster, known for his cruelty, began his career as a soldier in the West India Company. He then became a buccaneer in Saint-Domingue. The most famous Ohlone operations were the capture of the Spanish cities of Maracaibo and Gibraltar. The pirate ended his warlike and bloody journey at the stake of the cannibals, to whom he was captured in Nicaragua.

4. Edward Lau (1690-1724).

Edward Lau was born into a family of thieves and was himself a robber from early childhood. At one time he served as a sailor, then gathered a crew and captured a small sloop. Thus began his career as a pirate. During his voyage, Edward Lau captured more than a hundred ships.

5. Jack Rackham (1682-1720).

Before becoming a pirate, Jack Rackham served in the navy from an early age. At first, things did not go very well for Captain Rackham and his crew - they were almost caught several times. Fame came to the pirate after he met Mary Read and Anne Bonny, and began to rob in the waters of Jamaica. The glorious epic ended with the authorities announcing a hunt for them, as a result of which Rackham was hanged and Reed died in prison.

6. Steed Bonnet (1688-1718).

Steed Bonnet, a nobleman, served as a major in the colonial militia on the island of Barbados before becoming a pirate. According to rumors, the reason why Bonnet joined the pirates was the scandalous nature of his wife. The pirate plundered for a long time along the coast of North America and in the south, until he attracted the attention of the authorities, who sent two sloops to the pirate’s place of residence. Bonnet's ship was captured and he was hanged at White Point.

7. Bartholomew Roberts (1682-1722).

Bartholomew Roberts did not become a pirate by choice, but was forcibly assigned to the crew as a navigator after pirates captured the ship he was sailing on. Becoming captain after just six weeks, Roberts successfully fished in the Caribbean and Atlantic, capturing more than four hundred ships.

8. Henry Morgan (1635-1688).

The son of a landowner, Henry Morgan deliberately decided to become a pirate in order to make a fortune. Starting with the purchase of one ship, he soon commanded an entire flotilla of 12 pirate ships that captured entire cities. He was caught and sent to London, but soon the influential pirate was not only released, but also appointed lieutenant governor of Jamaica.

9. William Kidd (1645-1701).

According to some historians, William Kidd was not a pirate in the strict sense of the word, but carried out exclusively privateering contracts. Kidd fought in the War of the League of Augsburg, commanding various capital ships and capturing French and pirate ships in the Indian Ocean. His further expeditions took place in various regions of the world. Most of all, Kidd became known after his death, in connection with the legends about the treasures he hid, which have not yet been found.

10. Edward Teach (1680-1718).

The famous English pirate Edward Teach, nicknamed "Blackbeard", began his pirate career under the command of Captain Hornigold. Later, when Hornigold surrendered to the British authorities, Teach set sail on his own on the ship Queen Anne's Revenge. The most famous “feat” of the pirate is the blockade of Charlestown, during which 9 ships with influential passengers were captured, for which Teach received a huge ransom.

Yes, yes, the same Morgan, whose dynasty now stands behind the backs of many presidents of various countries and tells who and what to do.

Henry Morgan (1635-1688) became the most famous pirate in the world, enjoying a peculiar fame. This man became famous not so much for his corsair exploits as for his activities as a commander and politician. Morgan's main achievement was helping England seize control of the entire Caribbean Sea. Since childhood, Henry was restless, which affected his adult life. In a short time, he managed to be a slave, gather his own gang of thugs and get his first ship. Along the way, many people were robbed. While in the queen's service, Morgan directed his energy to the ruin of the Spanish colonies, which he did very well. As a result, everyone learned the name of the active sailor. But then the pirate unexpectedly decided to settle down - he got married, bought a house... However, his violent temper took its toll, and in his spare time, Henry realized that it was much more profitable to capture coastal cities than simply rob sea ships. One day Morgan used a cunning move. On the way to one of the cities, he took a large ship and filled it to the top with gunpowder, sending it to the Spanish port at dusk. The huge explosion led to such turmoil that there was simply no one to defend the city. So the city was taken, and the local fleet was destroyed, thanks to Morgan's cunning. While storming Panama, the commander decided to attack the city from land, sending his army around the city. As a result, the maneuver was a success and the fortress fell. Morgan spent the last years of his life as Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. His whole life passed at a frantic pirate pace, with all the delights appropriate to the occupation in the form of alcohol. Only rum defeated the brave sailor - he died of cirrhosis of the liver and was buried as a nobleman. True, the sea took his ashes - the cemetery sank into the sea after the earthquake.

Francis Drake (1540-1596) born in England, in the family of a priest. The young man began his maritime career as a cabin boy on a small merchant ship. It was there that the smart and observant Francis learned the art of navigation. Already at the age of 18, he received command of his own ship, which he inherited from the old captain. In those days, the queen blessed pirate raids, as long as they were directed against the enemies of England. During one of these voyages, Drake fell into a trap, but, despite the death of 5 other English ships, he managed to save his ship. The pirate quickly became famous for his cruelty, and fortune also loved him. Trying to take revenge on the Spaniards, Drake begins to wage his own war against them - he plunders their ships and cities. In 1572, he managed to capture the "Silver Caravan", carrying more than 30 tons of silver, which immediately made the pirate rich. An interesting feature of Drake was the fact that he not only sought to loot more, but also to visit previously unknown places. As a result, many sailors were grateful to Drake for his work in clarifying and correcting the world map. With the permission of the queen, the pirate went on a secret expedition to South America, with the official version of the exploration of Australia. The expedition was a great success. Drake maneuvered so cunningly, avoiding the traps of his enemies, that he was able to travel around the world on his way home. Along the way, he attacked Spanish settlements in South America, circumnavigated Africa and brought home potato tubers. The total profit from the campaign was unprecedented - more than half a million pounds sterling. At that time it was twice the budget of the entire country. As a result, right on board the ship, Drake was knighted - an unprecedented event that has no analogues in history. The apogee of the pirate's greatness came at the end of the 16th century, when he took part as an admiral in the defeat of the Invincible Armada. Later, the pirate’s luck turned away; during one of his subsequent voyages to the American shores, he fell ill with tropical fever and died.

Edward Teach (1680-1718) better known by his nickname Blackbeard. It was because of this external attribute that Teach was considered a terrible monster. The first mention of the activities of this corsair dates back only to 1717; what the Englishman did before that remains unknown. Based on indirect evidence, one can guess that he was a soldier, but deserted and became a filibuster. Then he was already a pirate, terrifying people with his beard, which covered almost his entire face. Teach was very brave and courageous, which earned him respect from other pirates. He wove wicks into his beard, which, when smoking, terrified his opponents. In 1716, Edward was given command of his sloop to conduct privateering operations against the French. Soon Teach captured a larger ship and made it his flagship, renaming it Queen Anne's Revenge. At this time, the pirate operates in the Jamaica area, robbing everyone and recruiting new henchmen. By the beginning of 1718, Tich already had 300 people under his command. Over the course of a year, he managed to capture more than 40 ships. All the pirates knew that the bearded man was hiding treasure on some uninhabited island, but no one knew where exactly. The pirate's outrages against the British and his plunder of the colonies forced the authorities to announce a hunt for Blackbeard. A massive reward was announced and Lieutenant Maynard was hired to hunt down Teach. In November 1718, the pirate was overtaken by the authorities and was killed during the battle. Teach's head was cut off and his body was suspended from a yardarm.

William Kidd (1645-1701). Born in Scotland near the docks, the future pirate decided to connect his destiny with the sea from childhood. In 1688, Kidd, a simple sailor, survived a shipwreck near Haiti and was forced to become a pirate. In 1689, betraying his comrades, William took possession of the frigate, calling it the Blessed William. With the help of a privateering patent, Kidd took part in the war against the French. In the winter of 1690, part of the team left him, and Kidd decided to settle down. He married a rich widow, taking possession of lands and property. But the pirate’s heart demanded adventure, and now, 5 years later, he is already a captain again. The powerful frigate "Brave" was designed to rob, but only the French. After all, the expedition was sponsored by the state, which did not need unnecessary political scandals. However, the sailors, seeing the meager profits, periodically rebelled. The capture of a rich ship with French goods did not save the situation. Fleeing from his former subordinates, Kidd surrendered into the hands of the English authorities. The pirate was taken to London, where he quickly became a bargaining chip in the struggle of political parties. On charges of piracy and the murder of a ship's officer (who was the instigator of the mutiny), Kidd was sentenced to death. In 1701, the pirate was hanged, and his body hung in an iron cage over the Thames for 23 years, as a warning to the corsairs of imminent punishment.

Mary Read (1685-1721). From childhood, girls were dressed in boy's clothes. So the mother tried to hide the death of her early deceased son. At age 15, Mary joined the army. In the battles in Flanders, under the name Mark, she showed miracles of courage, but she never received any advancement. Then the woman decided to join the cavalry, where she fell in love with her colleague. After the end of hostilities, the couple got married. However, the happiness did not last long, her husband died unexpectedly, Mary, dressed in men's clothing, became a sailor. The ship fell into the hands of pirates, and the woman was forced to join them, cohabiting with the captain. In battle, Mary wore a male uniform, participating in skirmishes along with everyone else. Over time, the woman fell in love with the artisan who helped the pirate. They even got married and were going to put an end to the past. But even here the happiness did not last long. Pregnant Reed was caught by authorities. When she was caught along with other pirates, she said that she committed the robberies against her will. However, other pirates showed that there was no one more determined than Mary Read in the matter of plundering and boarding ships. The court did not dare to hang the pregnant woman; she patiently awaited her fate in a Jamaican prison, not fearing a shameful death. But a severe fever finished her off early.

Olivier (Francois) le Vasseur became the most famous French pirate. He was nicknamed "La Blues", or "the buzzard". A Norman nobleman of noble origin was able to turn the island of Tortuga (now Haiti) into an impregnable fortress of filibusters. Initially, Le Vasseur was sent to the island to protect the French settlers, but he quickly expelled the British (according to other sources, the Spaniards) from there and began to pursue his own policy. Being a talented engineer, the Frenchman designed a well-fortified fortress. Le Vasseur issued a filibuster with very dubious documents for the right to hunt the Spaniards, taking the lion's share of the spoils for himself. In fact, he became the leader of the pirates, without taking direct part in the hostilities. When the Spaniards failed to take the island in 1643, and were surprised to find fortifications, Le Vasseur's authority grew noticeably. He finally refused to obey the French and pay royalties to the crown. However, the deteriorating character, tyranny and tyranny of the Frenchman led to the fact that in 1652 he was killed by his own friends. According to legend, Le Vasseur collected and hid the largest treasure of all time, worth £235 million in today's money. Information about the location of the treasure was kept in the form of a cryptogram on the governor's neck, but the gold remained undiscovered.

William Dampier (1651-1715) often referred to not just as a pirate, but also as a scientist. After all, he completed three voyages around the world, discovering many islands in the Pacific Ocean. Having been orphaned early, William chose the sea path. At first he took part in trade voyages, and then he managed to fight. In 1674, the Englishman came to Jamaica as a trading agent, but his career in this capacity did not work out, and Dampier was forced to again become a sailor on a merchant ship. After exploring the Caribbean, William settled on the Gulf Coast, on the Yucatan coast. Here he found friends in the form of runaway slaves and filibusters. Dampier's further life revolved around the idea of ​​traveling around Central America, plundering Spanish settlements on land and sea. He sailed in the waters of Chile, Panama, and New Spain. Dhampir almost immediately began keeping notes about his adventures. As a result, his book “A New Voyage Around the World” was published in 1697, which made him famous. Dampier became a member of the most prestigious houses in London, entered the royal service and continued his research, writing a new book. However, in 1703, on an English ship, Dampier continued a series of robberies of Spanish ships and settlements in the Panama region. In 1708-1710, he took part as a navigator of a corsair expedition around the world. The works of the pirate scientist turned out to be so valuable for science that he is considered to be one of the fathers of modern oceanography.

Zheng Shi (1785-1844) considered one of the most successful pirates. The scale of her actions will be indicated by the facts that she commanded a fleet of 2,000 ships, on which more than 70 thousand sailors served. The 16-year-old prostitute "Madame Jing" married the famous pirate Zheng Yi. After his death in 1807, the widow inherited a pirate fleet of 400 ships. Corsairs not only attacked merchant ships off the coast of China, but also sailed deep into river mouths, ravaging coastal settlements. The emperor was so surprised by the actions of the pirates that he sent his fleet against them, but this did not have significant consequences. The key to Zheng Shi's success was the strict discipline she established on the courts. It put an end to traditional pirate freedoms - robbery of allies and rape of prisoners was punishable by death. However, as a result of the betrayal of one of her captains, the female pirate in 1810 was forced to conclude a truce with the authorities. Her further career took place as the owner of a brothel and a gambling den. The story of a female pirate is reflected in literature and cinema; there are many legends about her.

Edward Lau (1690-1724) also known as Ned Lau. For most of his life, this man lived in petty theft. In 1719, his wife died in childbirth, and Edward realized that from now on nothing would tie him to home. After 2 years, he became a pirate operating near the Azores, New England and the Caribbean. This time is considered the end of the age of piracy, but Lau became famous for the fact that in a short time he managed to capture more than a hundred ships, while showing rare bloodthirstiness.

Arouj Barbarossa (1473-1518) became a pirate at age 16 after the Turks captured his home island of Lesbos. Already at the age of 20, Barbarossa became a merciless and brave corsair. Having escaped from captivity, he soon captured a ship for himself, becoming the leader. Arouj entered into an agreement with the Tunisian authorities, who allowed him to set up a base on one of the islands in exchange for a share of the spoils. As a result, Urouge's pirate fleet terrorized all Mediterranean ports. Getting involved in politics, Arouj eventually became the ruler of Algeria under the name of Barbarossa. However, the fight against the Spaniards did not bring success to the Sultan - he was killed. His work was continued by his younger brother, known as Barbaross the Second.

Bartholomew Roberts (1682-1722)

Captain Bartholomew Roberts is no ordinary pirate. He was born in 1682. Roberts was the most successful pirate of his time, always well and tastefully dressed, with excellent manners, he did not drink alcohol, read the Bible and fought without removing the cross from his neck, which greatly surprised his fellow corsairs. A stubborn and brave young man who set foot on the slippery path of sea adventures and robberies, during his short four-year career as a filibuster, he became quite a famous person of that time. Roberts died in a fierce battle and was buried, in accordance with his will, at sea.

Sam Bellamy (1689-1717)

Love led Sam Bellamy to the path of sea robbery. Twenty-year-old Sam fell in love with Maria Hallett, the love was mutual, but the girl’s parents did not let her marry Sam. He was poor. And in order to prove to the whole world the right to the hand of Maria Bellamy, she becomes a filibuster. He went down in history as “Black Sam.” He got his nickname because he preferred his unruly black hair to a powdered wig, tying it in a knot. At his core, Captain Bellamy was known as a noble man; dark-skinned people served on his ships along with white pirates, which was simply unthinkable in the era of slavery. The ship on which he sailed to meet his beloved Maria Hallett was caught in a storm and sank. Black Sam died without leaving the captain's bridge.

The Golden Age of Piracy was a short period from 1650 to 1720, when the stereotypical image of the dashing sea robber was formed. A period filled with special romance for us and fear for those who were unlucky enough to find themselves on the other side of the pirate sword.

How it was?

Despite the fact that the first pirates began to rob even before the construction of the Egyptian pyramids (14th century BC), the heyday of the era, as we see, came much later (17-18th centuries). What influenced this?

Let's go back to history. The 16th-18th centuries were a time of sea voyages, geographical discoveries, and the struggle for colonies. The competition between England and Spain was especially fierce. Not surprisingly, there were frequent skirmishes on the water, especially in the Caribbean. In the 17th century, the religious wars in Europe ended, which contributed to maritime trade. Ships with valuable cargo began to ply the seas and oceans again, which could not go unnoticed by numerous lovers of easy money.

The Golden Age is divided into 3 periods:

1. Buccaneering (1650-1690)

The term buccaneers originally referred to the French hunters who lived in Haiti in the early 17th century. In the 30s they were expelled to Tortuga, where the British joined them. The Spaniards were not happy about this: conflicts constantly occurred between these European states over their colonies. Not surprisingly, this led to clashes. Moreover, London supported the buccaneers by providing them with marque patents - special documents allowing them to attack enemy ships. However, already at the end of this century, the government abandoned such tactics, and the buccaneers, having lost support, were forced to cease their activities.

2. Pirate circle (1693-1700)

The English government was not the only one who was tired of the buccaneers (the injured Spaniards do not count). The activities of the pirates did not find a positive response from the Caribbean authorities, which forced the pirates to seek adventures outside the Caribbean Sea. The standard route started in the western Atlantic, then skirted Africa and headed towards Yemen or stopping in Madagascar. It was especially difficult at this time for the ships of the East India Trading Company, as well as for the Muslims. According to some sources, this route operated until 1728, and its decline was influenced by the activities of local Indian pirates and increased security of ships.

3. Rise and decline

The heyday of the pirate era occurred in 1713, when the Treaty of Utrecht was concluded. Thus ended the War of the Spanish Succession, which left many highly skilled sailors unemployed.

However, the rapid growth in the number of pirates has not gone unnoticed. The authorities began to intensively fight the problem, creating anti-piracy troops. And soon there was almost nothing left of the former greatness of the sea robbers.

Many legendary pirates, who became the prototypes of heroes and films, acted precisely during the Golden Age of Piracy.

Bartholomew Roberts

A dandy pirate whose constant success aroused not only envy, but also sincere amazement. In addition to the fact that in 2 and a half years he managed to capture about five thousand ships, Roberts is also interesting for his life story. He became a captain after first being enslaved by pirates.

Henry Morgan

Not just a pirate, but also a politician: it was he who helped England control the Caribbean Sea. Like Mr. Roberts, Henry was also originally a slave. But unlike him, Henry did not suffer from abstinence from alcohol: he was inseparable from a bottle of rum until the very end.

Mary Read

Despite their limited rights, female pirates also met: Mary had to pretend to be a man named Mark. Nevertheless, she met her match in the cavalry, but soon Mary’s husband died. The girl became a sailor, and then ended up with pirates.

What pirate attributes were formed during the Golden Age of Piracy?

Flags

The Jolly Roger appeared in the early 18th century. Before this, pirates sailed under other people's banners, trying to gain the trust of the captains of ships passing nearby. During the Golden Age, the flag helped to instill fear in potential victims, who would surrender without a fight at the sight of the flag.

Parrots

Parrots were frequent guests on ships, but these intelligent birds acted more as goods than as friends.

Cloth

When you think about pirate attire, images of sea robbers from your favorite children's books and films certainly appear in your head. For example, long camisoles, satin trousers, black cocked hats. Such associations arise precisely because of the Golden Age. Pirates of that time were still “fashionable”, and the icon of pirate style was the well-known Bartholomew Roberts. It is clear that satin, velvet and feathers in a hat are not the most practical things in battle. Therefore, ordinary pirates were a little more modest.

Hooks and wooden legs

Piracy is hard work. If you get carried away, it’s easy to lose your limb. Captain Hook from Peter Pan and John Silver from Treasure Island played an important role in the formation of the image of armless or legless pirates.

Maritime piracy appeared simultaneously with navigation and sea trade; all coastal tribes who mastered the basics of navigation were engaged in piracy.
Pirates are sea robbers who robbed ships of all countries and peoples.
Military courts of all countries were obliged to pursue pirate ships, and to judge captured pirates, including the death penalty.
Piracy (from the Greek “peirates” - robber, pirate)
In addition to the pirates, who carried out sea robbery at their own peril and risk, who could be hanged on the yardarm if captured, there were also privateers (from German - kaper), corsairs (from French - corsaire), privateers (from English - privateer), filibusters (from the English freebooter - “free breadwinner”), etc.
But these were private individuals, lovers of adventure and profit, who captured or plundered on their armed ships merchant ships of the enemy, and often of neutral countries, having permission or a patent from the supreme power of the state they hired to serve.

Privateering patent issued to French
to corsair Antonio Bollo February 27, 1809

But essentially they all carried out the same sea robbery as pirates.
The state not only issued privateers a license to carry out this robbery, but also took a deposit from them to pay compensation to victims of illegal privateering actions.
Formally, privateers had to observe all the customs of naval warfare and deliver all captured ships (prizes) to the ports of the state that issued the patent, where the maritime court considered the legality of the seizure.
But such procedures were performed extremely rarely in the 18th century, and not even because of the ill will of the corsairs, but simply often because of the complexity of such a procedure.
Historically, privateering is believed to have ceased in the second half of the 19th century, when the Paris Declaration of the Sea on April 16, 1856 declared privateering abolished.
All states joined it except Spain, the USA, Mexico, Bolivia, and Venezuela.
The Military Encyclopedia, published in Petrograd in 1915, says:
“Piracy is sea robbery committed by private individuals, on private initiative and for selfish purposes, against the property of others.”
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GSB) gives a broader formulation of piracy:
“Piracy is the unlawful seizure, robbery or sinking of merchant or other civil vessels, committed on the high seas by private or government vessels.”
But at the same time, historians note that piracy has provided great services to the art of navigation.
Pirates were in many cases its pioneers, daring to go to seas where merchant ships had not yet dared to go. In shipbuilding technology and especially equipment, they were also often ahead of their time, because the success of the risky craft depended most of all on the speed of travel and good control of the ships.
Greek myths sometimes simply deify the pirates of the Mediterranean Sea, attributing to them a higher culture, useful inventions, and the founding of various cities and colonies.
Historically, attacks during war by ships, submarines and military aircraft on merchant ships of neutral countries are equated to piracy.
According to the written and unwritten laws of the sea, a military or privateer ship, having sunk a merchant ship, was obliged to take on board the crew and passengers. Otherwise, the ship was declared pirated, and the commander and his crew were subject to a military trial.
But at the beginning of the 20th century, this rule of law became almost an anachronism - neither submarines nor surface ships almost ever rescued people from sunken ships

During the First and Second World Wars, England and the United States considered any actions of German ships against merchant ships to be pirates.
But this did not stop the American submariners themselves from sinking, allegedly by “mistake,” Soviet merchant ships—the ships of their allies in World War II.
For the period 1941 - 1945. American submarines, operating in the Sea of ​​Japan and the Pacific Ocean, torpedoed and sank 6 Soviet cargo ships and 1 fishing trawler. At the same time, 128 Soviet citizens who were on board at the time of sinking died, including 21 women and 3 children.
Including the sinking of the cargo steamer Transbalt, which became the last victim of World War II among the ships of the USSR Marine Fleet. It was the largest ship of the Soviet transport fleet, its deadweight (carrying capacity) was 21,400 tons, its length was 152 m.
American underwater pirates who acted on the “Sink’em all” principle were described in the article “Sea Pirates of the 20th Century” posted on my blog.
Everything connected with sea pirates (privateers, corsairs) of the Middle Ages in books and films is covered with an aura of romance and mystery. Many of us have been reading the novels of Stevenson, Sabatini, Jules Verne and others since childhood.
We smile at the words: “Piastres, piastres...! Billy Bones, black mark...!”
A huge number of films have been made about pirates. Only in our country, since 1937, there have been three film adaptations of R. Stevenson’s novel “Treasure Island”.
And who doesn’t know the famous song by Yu. Vizbor to the words of G. Lepsky and P. Kogan:
“... Tired of talking and arguing.... In the filibuster's distant blue sea, the brigantine raises its sails... The jolly Roger beats in the wind, Flint's people sing a hymn to the seas....", (Captain John Flint, as we remember, is the captain of the pirate ship "Walrus" from Stevenson's novel " Treasure Island").
And even now there are films on TV like “Pirates of the Caribbean” and others.

The 17th century is the golden age of piracy.
The English “gentlemen of fortune” became most famous and many of them became famous historical figures: Edward Teach - Captain Blackbeard, Henry Morgan - King of the Pirates, Steed Bannet, etc.
Some of them, such as Francis Drake, who also became a famous navigator, enjoyed the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Queen Elizabeth was very pleased with Drake's plan to attack the Spanish colonies in America. He received government funding and even the Queen's personal money for the event.
As a result of the pirate robbery, the English treasury received huge profits.
F. Drake was awarded the rank of rear admiral, he became a national hero, applauded by all of England. The pinnacle of honors was the solemn ceremony that took place on board the Golden Hind, F. Drake’s flagship, when Elizabeth I, lowering her sword on the kneeling Francis Drake’s shoulder, elevated him to knighthood.
Pirate Henry Morgan was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica and Commander-in-Chief of its fleet.
At the end of the 18th century, several hundred ships flying the English flag were engaged in privatization, otherwise legalized piracy.


Replica of the galleon "Golden Hind" - flagship ship
F. Drake in Brixham (England)

But we tended to believe that sea pirates were somewhere far away, in England, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, etc., more precisely in distant foreign countries, and sea piracy was never typical of Russia.
But the 1915 Military Encyclopedia, speaking mainly about foreign pirates, still mentions our domestic pirates:
“The Turks, not without reason, accused Russia of encouraging the sea robbery of the Don and Dnieper Cossacks. Cossack piracy was stopped under Catherine II.”

It turns out that we were not white and fluffy with regard to piracy, and our history includes sea and river piracy.

Let's look into our history then.
The first Russian sea pirate (privateer) was the Dane Karsten Rode, hired for this service by Tsar Ivan the Terrible (John IV).
The Russian state desperately needed access to the Baltic Sea. After all, overseas merchants at that time were forced to get to Muscovy by roundabout routes - around Scandinavia, into the Barents Sea.
Realizing this, Tsar Ivan the Terrible, apparently, as historians say, began a war against the Livonian Order. In 1558, Russian troops captured Narva, which soon turned into a large port.
Now merchants could transport their goods by a shorter route, but this route was not safe either.
Polish and Swedish pirates robbed merchant ships no less often than the Caribbean filibusters known by that time. But Ivan the Terrible did not have his own fleet to protect the merchant ships.
In order to protect merchant ships, Ivan the Terrible decided to form his own privateer fleet.
And one of the first to respond to the king’s call was professional corsair Karsten Rohde.
He received from Ivan the Terrible a “charter” - a letter of marque, dated March 30, 1570.
This letter, which is now kept in the archives in Copenhagen, pointed out the need to protect maritime trade from Polish privateers, who “with their robbery custom, ships are broken, goods are robbed and from many lands the way to our state is blocked for trading people.”

Maybe it looked like this
Karsten Rohde - the first Russian privateer

The Tsar's privateer was initially bought a ship and equipped with cannons.
He pledged to transfer every third captured ship to the treasury. But Karsten Rohde succeeded and quickly expanded his flotilla, taking about 20 ships from his rivals and enemies.
The crews of the ships were replenished by gunners from the Moscow Prikaz and Arkhangelsk Pomors.
Rode's squadron, acting in the interests of the Russian Tsar, became master in the Gulf of Finland.
Despite the fact that the squadron under his leadership was quite strong, the source of Russian support soon dried up - Russia lost the Livonian War, and Rode’s fleet was abandoned to its fate.
The Polish king Sigismund forced the Danish king to arrest Rohde for piracy. He was captured and placed in a castle.
But after some time, Ivan the Terrible remembered his pirate and in 1576 sent a message to the Danish king that said:
- “For five years or more we sent Karsten Rode to the sea on ships with military men for the robbers who defeated our guests from Gdansk to the sea. And that Karsten Rode smashed those robbers at sea, caught 22 ships, and came to Bornholm and then the people of the king of Sweden drove him away. And those ships that he caught, and our ships were caught from him, and the price of those ships and goods was five hundred thousand efimki. And that Karsten Rohde, hoping for our agreement with Frederick, ran away from the Svei people to Kopnogov (Copenhagen -sad39). And King Frederick ordered him to be caught and put in prison. And we were quite surprised by this.”

So Tsar Ivan the Terrible also tried to “open a window” to Europe. And as we see, he “cut through”, although maybe not a window, but just a window, but with the defeat of Russia in the Livonian War, it quickly slammed shut and the story of the first pirate of Russia also ended.

Russia again resorted to the services of privateers under Peter I, during the Great Northern War.
By Senate decree of 1716, Lieutenant Ladyzhensky and Second Lieutenant Laurens Berlogen were issued passports so that they could privateer Swedish ships on the Natalya and Diana ships.
The same decree determined the procedure for dividing prizes, with a significant percentage - 62% determined in favor of the treasury.

In the 17th century, in the south of the Russian state, piracy acquired a completely different shade - Cossack.
In Rus', Cossacks began to be called people without a specific occupation or place of residence, “free”, walking.
Although the word “Cossack” was first registered at the end of the 14th century in the north of Rus', historians still consider the southern steppe outskirts of Moscow Rus' and Ukraine, adjacent to the water spaces of the Volga, Dnieper, Don, Ural, Caspian, Azov and Black Seas, to be the original homeland of the Cossacks.
Fugitive serfs, military deserters and criminals fleeing justice flocked intensively to the southern borders of Russia. They joined the Cossacks or created their own detachments, which for a long time brought real terror to merchant ships in the Black and Caspian Seas.
On the part of Russia, Turkey, the Crimean Khanate, and Persia, many attempts were made to curb this piracy - the “free Cossack thieves”, but they were little successful.
The fortresses of Kara-Kermen (now Ochakov), Azov, Astrakhan, etc. were built at the mouths of the rivers, the rivers were blocked with thick chains, a coast guard was created, and demonstrative executions of captured “gentlemen of fortune” were carried out, but piracy continued.
The Cossacks learned to bypass the obstacles they created, using portages for their small ships - “gulls”, bypassing fortified cities along small channels, etc.

Cossack “seagull”

The French engineer Boplan, who visited the Cossacks, described these seagulls as follows:
- “The basis is a willow or linden boat 45 feet (13.7 m) long; boards are stuffed onto it so that a boat is 60 feet (18.3 m) long, 10–12 feet (3–3. 7 m) width and the same depth.
The boat is surrounded by a roll of tightly and firmly tied bundles of reeds. Then they arrange two rudders, behind and in front, put a mast for the sail and 10-12 oars on each side. The boat does not have a deck, and when it is rough, it fills with water, but the aforementioned reed cushion prevents it from sinking.
Within two to three weeks, 5–6 thousand Cossacks can produce from 80 to 100 such boats.
Each boat carries 50–70 people. There are 4–6 small cannons mounted on the sides of the boat. Each boat has a quadrant (to determine the direction of the journey). In the barrels there are provisions - crackers, millet, flour.
Thus equipped, they sail along the Dnieper; in front is the ataman with a flag on the mast. The boats move so closely that they almost touch each other.
The Turks usually keep their galleys at the mouth of the Dnieper so as not to miss the Cossacks, but the latter choose a dark night during the new moon and sneak through the reed thickets.
If the Turks notice them, a commotion begins throughout all lands, right up to Constantinople; the Sultan sends messengers to coastal areas, warning the population, but this helps little, since after 36–40 hours the Cossacks find themselves already in Anatolia (on the Asia Minor coast).
Arriving at the shore, they attack cities, conquer them, rob them, burn them, moving away from the shore a whole mile, and return home with the booty.
If they happen to meet galleys or other ships, they do this:
Their seagulls rise above the water only 2.5 feet (0.75 m), so they always notice the enemy ship before they notice them...
The enemies see how they are suddenly surrounded by 80–100 boats, the Cossacks quickly fill and capture the ship. Having taken possession of it, they take money and things, also guns and everything that is not afraid of water, and the ships themselves, along with the people, are sunk.”
And here is what the Dominican abbot Emilio Asconi, who visited Crimea in 1634, wrote:
- “Up to 30, 40 and 50 boats go down to the sea every year and in battles cause such severe harm that the shores of the Black Sea have become completely uninhabited, with the exception of a few places protected by fortresses.
At sea, no ship, no matter how large or well armed it is, is safe if it unfortunately encounters seagulls, especially in calm weather. The Cossacks are so brave that not only with equal forces, but even with twenty seagulls they are not afraid of the padishah’s thirty galleys.”

Here are just some examples of these pirate raids:

In the summer of 1614, up to two thousand Zaporozhye Cossacks undertook a campaign to the Black Sea and moved to the shores of Asia Minor (Anatolia), to Sinop, where they destroyed the castle, cut off the garrison, plundered the arsenal, burned several mosques, houses and ships standing at the pier, slaughtered many Muslims, freed all Christian slaves and left the city;
- In May 1616, over two thousand Cossacks and Donets went to sea.
In the Dnieper-Bug estuary they attacked the squadron of Ali Pasha. The Turks were defeated, and fifteen galleys became the prey of the Cossacks;
- In 1623, Don Ataman Isai Martemyanov led a campaign to the coast of Crimea and Turkey. 30 Don plows, with more than 1000 Don Cossacks, ravaged the coast of Crimea and Taman;
- In the spring of 1622, a detachment of Cossacks, together with the Don people, moved on plows down the Don. At the mouth of the Don, the Cossacks attacked a Turkish caravan and captured three ships. Then the Cossacks robbed the Tatars in the area of ​​Balykleya (Balaklava), “walked” near Trebizond and, not reaching 40 kilometers from Istanbul, turned back. On the way back they were intercepted by a Turkish squadron of 16 galleys. 400 Cossacks died in the battle, and the rest returned safely to the Don;
- In June 1624, about 150 seagulls again broke into the Black Sea, three weeks later the Cossack seagulls entered the Bosphorus and moved towards Constantinople. The Turks closed the Golden Horn Bay with an iron chain made by the Byzantines. The Cossacks burned several Turkish settlements and then sailed back;
- In 1625, 15 thousand Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks on 300 seagulls entered the Black Sea from the Sea of ​​Azov and moved to Sinop. Each seagull carried 3–4 falconets. 43 Turkish galleys under the command of Redshid Pasha entered the battle with them. At first the Cossacks gained the upper hand, but then failed.
270 seagulls were sunk, and 780 Cossacks were captured. Some of them were executed, and some were sent to the galleys forever;
- In 1628, the Don Cossacks captured Balaklava, then climbed the mountains and attacked the city of Karasubazar. The Crimean Khan wrote a denunciation to Moscow:
- “The Cossacks fought in their Crimean uluses and burned their villages and burned out the town of Karasubazar (now Belogorsk - sad39), and now the Cossacks stand in the Crimean uluses and cause harm to people”;
- In 1631, one and a half thousand Donets and Cossacks landed in Crimea in Akhtiarskaya Bay, the future Sevastopol, and moved deeper into the peninsula. In Chersonesus they set up their base, from which they carried out raids and devastated the surrounding area. But then they went back, plundering Inkerman as they left;
- In March 1637, four thousand Cossacks came to the Don. Three thousand Donets joined them, and together they moved towards Azov. Some of the Cossacks sailed on plows, and the cavalry walked along the shore. On April 24, the Cossacks besieged Azov. The Donets and Cossacks launched an assault.
Azov was taken. All Muslims, including civilians, were killed, Russian slaves were freed, and the Greeks who lived in Azov were released.
In Azov, the Cossacks captured 200 Turkish guns. The Don Cossacks remained in Azov, and the Cossacks with their booty retired to the Sich.
The Donets offered Muscovy to occupy the fortress with government troops. The Zemsky Sobor even met on this issue, but for various reasons Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich refused to accept Azov from the Cossacks.
Then the Don people, having destroyed the fortress and the city to the ground, went to the Don.
Only in 1702 did Peter I take the fortress of Azov from the Turks again;
- In 1638, a joint campaign of 1,700 Zaporozhye and Don Cossacks on 153 seagulls to the Black Sea ended in their defeat from the Turkish fleet of Kapudan Pasha Rajab.
Campaigns of the Zaporozhye and Don Cossacks for booty took place almost every year.
The piracy of the Zaporozhye Cossacks was stopped only under Catherine II.
On August 3, 1775, Empress Catherine II signed the manifesto “On the destruction of the Zaporozhye Sich and on its inclusion in the Novorossiysk province”

Piracy on the Volga and Caspian Sea is also associated with the name of the Cossack ataman Ermak, the future conqueror of Siberia, and who, like F. Drake in England, became a national hero of Russia.
The chronicle “A Brief Description of the Siberian Land” reports that the Cossacks destroyed the royal ships on the Volga and robbed the Kizilbash, that is, Persian, ambassadors, after which Tsar Ivan the Terrible sent governors against them.
Many Cossacks were hanged, and others “ran away like wolves,” 500 of them “ran away” up the Volga, “with the elder Ataman Ermak in them.”

The peak of Russian piracy on the Volga and the Caspian Sea occurred in the era that was called “Razinshchina” in history, that is, in the 60-70s of the 17th century, when the foundations of the Russian and Persian states were shaken by the Cossack freemen.
In 1667, a gang of Don Cossacks, led by Ataman Stenka Razin, went “for a walk on the blue sea” to get themselves “treasury as much as needed.”
On the Volga, not far from Tsaritsyn, the Razins smashed and robbed caravans of merchant ships carrying goods that belonged to wealthy Russian merchants, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, and even the Tsar himself. Numerous caravan guards and those who tried to resist were chopped down and hanged.
In 1669, off the coast of Azerbaijan, a naval battle between Razin’s Cossacks and the Persian fleet of Meneda Khan took place. Of the 50 Iranian ships, only three survived. Razin captured the son and daughter of the commander of the Persian fleet.
In terms of the scale of actions in Persia, Stenka Razin clearly surpasses his contemporaries, the English pirates Henry Morgan......,
This is how the writer A.N. writes. Sakharov about the Razins:
“The Cossacks walked along the seaside like a thunderstorm, burst into villages, scattered whooping and whistling into houses, chopped with sabers, beat the shah’s soldiers with flails, dragged Persian women from their houses by their long black hair, grabbed carpets, weapons, dishes, fabrics, pushed prisoners towards the plows with pikes men, as they walked, they dressed themselves in expensive robes, hung gold and pearl necklaces around their necks, and put expensive rings on their roughened fingers that did not bend from long rowing.”

In the Persian campaign - a classic case of sea piracy, the Razins took rich booty and, dressed in brocade and silk (even the sails and ropes on their plows were silk), appeared in Astrakhan, where they “beat” the king.
“...The Cossacks walked through the streets of the city to the enthusiastic cries of the residents. All of them were hung from head to toe with gold and silver jewelry, rings with precious stones sparkled on their fingers, checkers were decorated with the same priceless stones, heavy gold chains dangled from their necks, pistols with gold notches stuck out from their belts, and sabers worth A fortune.
The Cossacks lived in Astrakhan for ten days. Stenka himself walked through the streets and threw gold coins at the people.”

Razin handed over his horsetail to the governors - a sign of power, returned several plows, some prisoners, cannons and banners, for which a “gracious royal letter” arrived from Moscow.
But as we know, Stepan Razin did not even think of becoming an obedient subject to the tsar...
According to historians, he was convinced that since the tsar himself took him into account, sending his “merciful letter,” and the prince-voivodes were afraid of him, then he would now be able to raise the Cossacks and peasants everywhere throughout the country.
On September 4, 1669, Razin's plows set off up the Volga, which was the beginning of the war with Muscovy - Stepan Razin's peasant war.
He decided to lead his army to Moscow not “for zipuns,” but for Monomakh’s hat.
But the hat turned out to be not like Stenka...., if you slightly change the old Russian proverb - “not like Senka’s hat.”
On June 6, 1671, on Red Square, Stepan Razin met his fierce execution: he was quartered, and his body parts were skewered on stakes in the so-called Swamp in Zamoskvoretsk.
And legends, tales and songs about the famous rebel Stepan Razin remained forever with the Russian people.


IN AND. Surikov: "Stepan Razin."

In July 1762, Catherine II ascended the throne.
Our wise ruler understood that sooner or later she would have to fight with Turkey. Preparing for war with the Ottomans, she turned her attention to the Mediterranean Sea in order to be able to strike Turkey from there.
Before Catherine II, Russian ships - both military and commercial - were not in the Mediterranean Sea.
And so in 1763, the Tula merchant Vladimirov, for no apparent reason, organized a joint-stock company with a capital of 90 thousand rubles for trade with the Mediterranean countries.
And Ekaterina herself becomes one of the company’s shareholders and gives her 10 thousand rubles.
On June 4, 1764, a 34-gun frigate was launched, which received the name "Nadezhda Blagopoluchiya"
In the “Gazette of Ships and Other Vessels” of the Baltic Fleet, dated August 26, 1764, it is said about this frigate:
“...It was built for commerce in the Mediterranean Sea...” (Mediterranean Sea –sad39).
There was a military crew on it, “Navy Captain Pleshcheev” was appointed commander,
The frigate, with a cargo of iron, linen, ropes, etc., was ordered to sail under the merchant flag, which was specifically stipulated in the instructions given from the Admiralty Board to Captain F.S. Pleshcheev.
In December 1764, the Hope of Prosperity arrived in Livorno. The goods were unloaded and a cargo of sandalwood, lead and macaroni was accepted in return.
On September 12, 1765, the frigate returned safely to Kronstadt.

Thus, exploration of the Mediterranean was carried out!

That this was indeed reconnaissance is evidenced by the fact that many officers who took part in the voyage of the Hope of Prosperity were assigned to the ships of G.A. squadrons in 1768–1769. Spiridov, J. Elphinston, V.Ya. Chichagov, who soon went to the Mediterranean Sea and formed the Archipelago Expedition.
The experience of the frigate's Mediterranean voyage was also taken into account when preparing the fleet's ships for the passage to the Archipelago.
For example, with the arrival of the “Nadezhda Prosperity” in Kronstadt, it turned out that the underwater part of the outer plating of the frigate, made of inch-thick boards, was worn away by worms, and it had to be completely replaced. It was necessary to take this into account for the future, which was done when preparations for the Archipelago expedition began.
Captain Pleshcheev from January 14 to February 17, 1769, in connection with the preparation of the expedition, performed the duties of a guard master (chief of fleet artillery and was equivalent to a rear admiral).
He was then appointed flag captain on Admiral Spiridov's flagship "St. Eustathius"16, but died when the ship exploded in the Battle of Chios on June 24, 1770.

On September 25, 1768, the Turkish Sultan Mustafa III ordered the Russian ambassador Alexei Obreskov to be imprisoned in the Seven Tower Castle and declare war on Russia. Moreover, it is not an ordinary war, but a holy one.
Catherine delayed the war in every possible way, and in 1765–1768. made a number of concessions to the Sultan. However, upon learning of the declaration of war, the empress was furious.
From Catherine’s letter to the Ambassador in England, Count I.G. Chernyshev:
“The Turks and the French decided to wake up the cat, who was sleeping; I am this cat who promises to make himself known to them, so that the memory will not quickly disappear. I find that we were freed from a great burden oppressing the imagination when we untied ourselves from the peace treaty; it took thousands of cajoleries, deals and empty nonsense to keep the Turks from screaming. Now I’m free, I can do everything that my funds allow me, and Russia, you know, has quite a lot of funds.”
Catherine decides to send a squadron to the Mediterranean Sea to strike the Turks from there.
This plan was very risky and looked like a complete gamble.
Türkiye simply could not imagine that Russian warships could end up in the Mediterranean Sea.
How to act in the Eastern Mediterranean for the Russian fleet, which has no place to base, repair, where to get food, treat the wounded and sick, etc.?!
What did Catherine hope for in this difficult situation when she sent a squadron there?
To the hatred of the peoples conquered by Turkey, especially Greece, who languished under the Turkish yoke since the 15th century towards their enslaver, that is, towards the rebels, freedom fighters and that they join Russia in the fight against the Turks..
With the outbreak of war, Catherine turned to Balkan Christians with calls for an uprising.
On January 19, 1769, the “Manifesto to the Slavic peoples of the Balkan Peninsula” was published.
It said:
“The Ottoman Porta, out of ordinary malice towards our Orthodox Church, seeing the efforts made for our faith and our law, which we tried in Poland to bring to its advantages approved by ancient treatises, which at times were forcibly stolen from him, breathing vengeance, despising all the rights of the people and the truth itself, for only one thing, due to its inherent treachery, destroying the eternal peace concluded with our empire, began a most unjust, for without any legal reason, war against us, and thus convinced us now to use the weapon given to us by God...
We, out of jealousy for our Orthodox Christian law and out of regret for the peoples of the same faith who are suffering under Turkish enslavement, living in the above-mentioned regions, exhort all of them in general and each one especially, to take advantage of the circumstances of the present war that are beneficial for them to overthrow the yoke and bring themselves to -as before, in independence, taking up arms wherever and whenever it is convenient, against the enemy common to all Christianity, and trying to cause possible harm to him.”
The Greek rebels did not only operate on land. If on the Greek mainland the Turkish authorities still managed to control most of the territory, then on the islands the situation was completely different.
Residents of many Greek islands began to engage in piracy back in the 16th century, creating dozens of large and small bases on the islands of the Aegean Sea.
When the ships of the Russian squadron arrived there, the Mediterranean was swarming with sea pirates - Greeks, Albanians, Maltese, etc.
Pirate Greek ships, called trattas, were hiding in every bay. They were long and narrow, like canoes, each with 10, 20 or even 30 men, armed with a musket and pistol, rowed with great speed, and turned into their lawful prey any ship that was not capable of defense.
The vast majority of the islands' population were Orthodox.
The Russian squadron sent by Catherine to the Eastern Mediterranean included seven ships: “Europe”, “Svyatoslav”, “St. Eustathius Placis”, “Three Hierarchs”, “St. Ianuarius”, “Northern Eagle” and “Three Hierarchs”
In addition, the squadron included:
frigate "Nadezhda Blagopoluchiya", 10-gun bombardment ship "Grom",
four 22-gun ships (two- or three-masted sailing ship with slanting lateen or straight sails): “Solombala”, “Lapomink”, “Saturn” and “Venus”, as well as two packet boats (mail ship) - “Flying” and “ Postman."
The squadron was called “sheathed” because the hulls of all its ships were sheathed on the outside with an additional row of oak boards with a sheep’s wool lining, so that the underwater part would not be worn away by a sea worm, as happened with the “Nadezhda Prosperity”.
The squadron's artillery consisted of 640 guns. In addition to the ships' crew - 3011 people, there were landing troops on the ships - 8 companies of the Kexholm infantry regiment and 2 companies of artillerymen, craftsmen for repairing ships and artillery, for a total of 5582 people.
On July 26, 1769, the squadron under the command of Vice Admiral Spiridov set sail.
Count Alexei Orlov was appointed commander-in-chief of all Russian armed forces (landing forces and navy) in the Mediterranean.
Here are the instructions given by Catherine II to Russian admirals on how to behave with Mediterranean pirates:
“As for the African corsairs in the Mediterranean Sea, coming from Tunisia, Algeria and other places, although they are considered to be under Turkish citizenship, nevertheless, leave them alone on the way, and if only they themselves do not do dirty tricks to you will become, and if again you do not happen to catch them in an attack on any Christian ship, for here, without considering the nation, no matter what it is, you have to beat them and free Christians from captivity, allowing in other matters the protection of all Christian courts ours, since they can use it from you on the way.”
. On October 9, 1769, the 2nd Archipelago Squadron under the command of Rear Admiral D. Elphinstone left Kronstadt.
It consisted of the 66-gun ships "Don't Touch Me", "Saratov" and "Tver", 32-gun frigates "Nadezhda" and "Afrika", as well as three transports.

On February 8, 1770, Spiridov’s squadron arrived in the Greek port of Vitullo, on the Maina Peninsula. The inhabitants of this peninsula never recognized the power of the Turks over themselves.

By June 11, 1770, all Russian ships of the Archipelago squadron were concentrated near the island of Milos.
Count Alexey Orlov took command of the fleet, raising the Kaiser's flag on the ship "Three Hierarchs".
And then, as we know, the Turkish fleet was defeated.
The famous Battle of Chesma on July 5-7, 1770!
Glory to the Russian fleet!
July 7 is the Day of Military Glory of Russia - the Day of the victory of the Russian fleet over the Turkish fleet in the Battle of Chesme.

Historical literature has always covered in great detail the events of the Archipelago squadron's campaign in the Mediterranean Sea and the Battle of Chesma, and further events were somehow modestly kept silent.
But even after the defeat of the Turkish fleet, the Russian squadron continued to remain in the Mediterranean for four years.
What did the Russian fleet do in the Archipelago during these four years?

To answer this question, I will turn to A. Shirokorad’s book “Russian Corsairs”.

After the Battle of Chesme there was an attempt to break through the Russian fleet into the Straits, but it was unsuccessful.
Winter was approaching - cold and storms. There was no point in thinking about capturing any port on mainland Greece. It was necessary to take care of the basing of the fleet.

The main base of the Russian fleet was the island of Paros, from the ridge of the Cyclades islands in the southern part of the Aegean Sea.
Only Greek pirates knew the secret of entering the bay of this island, blocked by a large underwater reef and an old flooded embankment. Between two neighboring islands - Paros and Antiparos - the pirates managed to build an underwater wall with several narrow passages, which they also kept in the strictest confidence.
By the beginning of December 1770, almost all the ships of the Archipelago squadron had gathered there.
By the beginning of 1771, 27 inhabited islands of the Aegean Sea were already occupied by Russians and Greeks, who voluntarily went over to their side, and the population of the islands appealed to the command of the squadron with a request to accept them as citizenship of Catherine II.
As A. Shirokorad writes, “in fact, in the Aegean Sea, around the island of Paros, a kind of “province” of the Russian Empire was formed.”
There were no Turkish authorities on the island, and the Greeks joyfully welcomed our ships. Russian sailors used both bays of the island - Auzu and Trio, where ship moorings were equipped.
But the capital of the “province” was the city of Auza, built by the Russians on the left bank of the bay of the same name.
Soon, reinforcements arrived in the Mediterranean from the Baltic.
On July 15, 1770, the 3rd Archipelago Squadron departed from Revel, consisting of the new 66-gun ships Vsevolod and St. George the Victorious", as well as the new 54-gun ship "Asia".
The squadron escorted chartered British ships that carried weapons and provisions to the Archipelago.
In addition, on board these ships there were 523 guardsmen of the Preobrazhensky Regiment and 2,167 infantry from other regiments.
The squadron was commanded by Rear Admiral Ivan Nikolaevich Arf, invited by Catherine II in 1770 from the Royal Danish Navy. Together with him, several dozen Danish officers and sailors were accepted onto the ships of the squadron.
From January 1771, the Russian fleet began to use another base on the island of Mykono (now Mykonos), located approximately 35 km northeast of Paros.
On January 16, 1771, the frigate “Nadezhda Blagopoluchiya” arrived there, and on January 21, the ships “Asia” and “Pobedonosets” arrived there.
From that time on, the island of Mykono became the second most important base for the Russian fleet in the Archipelago after Paros.

It was necessary to provide a fleet of up to 50 pennants and several infantry regiments.
Imbo Island is only 17 miles from the Dardanelles and was the Russian fleet's forward base.
In Catherine Bay there were ships and ships blocking the Dardanelles.
3 thousand Greeks lived on Imbo under the rule of a bishop, and they supplied timber to the Russians. There were 4 thousand Orthodox Greeks on the island of Tasso, they were also ruled by a bishop.
And on other islands, bishops, both Orthodox and Catholic, willingly collaborated with the Russian authorities and played, as it were, the role of mayors in the “island province.”
On the island of Naxia, 4 miles east of Paros, lived 6 thousand Greeks, both Orthodox and Catholic, and each community had its own bishop. From Naxia, the Russians received bread, wine, wood and cotton fabric.
The Russian authorities established a Greek gymnasium on the island, where not only Naxians, but also residents of other islands studied.
In 1775, during the evacuation of the “province,” all students of the gymnasium (with their consent) were taken to St. Petersburg.
Many of them later occupied important government positions in Russia.
But the “province” itself could not provide all the needs of the fleet and ground forces. Weapons, uniforms and food were transported by sea from Russia and England, but this was extremely expensive.
Everything that the Russians wanted was willingly sold by the Maltese and residents of the free city of Livorno, but this was also expensive.
Therefore, the main source of supply for the “province” was corsairship!

That is why Count Alexei Orlov drew attention to the Greek pirates and smugglers of the Eastern Mediterranean, throwing out a cry, the essence of which was very simple: “Join us, we will beat the Turk together!”

With the arrival of the Archipelago squadron to the shores of the Morea (the medieval name of the Peloponnese peninsula), dozens of Greek pirate ships set out to sea.
In general, in the 18th century in the Eastern Mediterranean, which the Turks called the White Sea, pirates were considered worthy people engaged in semi-legal fishing.
The total number of pirate, or corsair, ships operating in 1770–1774 was at least 500.
Among them were several ships purchased by Russia. Their owners, as a rule, were accepted into Russian service, they were given officer ranks, and a civilian crew of Greeks, Albanians, Slavs, etc. It seems that she was also in the Russian service and received a salary. These ships raised the St. Andrew's flag.
Such ships are spoken of as “voluntarily joining the Archipelago squadron”;
There were also privateering ships that considered themselves Russian privateers and raised St. Andrew's flag as necessary. Periodically, the command of the Russian squadron supplied such ships with money, weapons and food;
But there were also ships that did not obey the Russian authorities, but if necessary, they raised the St. Andrew’s flag.
It is clear that the Russian command tried not to advertise the actions of the Greek corsairs, and they were mentioned extremely rarely in official documents.
Therefore, only the names of the largest corsair ships remained in history.
In official correspondence, Russian sailors and diplomats during the time of Catherine the Great used all three terms - privateers, corsairs and privateers, meaning the same thing.
As mentioned above, according to the laws of the 18th century, the state not only issued privateers a patent to conduct military operations, but also took a deposit from them to pay compensation to victims of illegal privateering actions.
Catherine II set the amount of bail for privateers at 20 thousand rubles.
Here are several ships bought by Russia in the Archipelago at the end of 1770 - these are frigates: “Gregory”, “Paros”, “Pobeda”, “Fedor”.
The frigate "St. Nicholas" under the command of the Greek A.I. Policuti joined the Russian squadron in 1770.
Count A. Orlov formally bought the ship, and it began to be listed as a 26-gun frigate. Policouti received the rank of lieutenant in the Russian fleet, and his crew became sailors of the Russian fleet.
February 21, 1770 at “St. Nicholas" the St. Andrew's flag was raised.
The frigate "St. Paul" was purchased by Russia in 1770. The Greek Alexiano Panaioti became the commander.
He entered the Russian service back in 1769 and took part in the Battle of Chesma on the ship “Rostislav”. For this he was promoted to lieutenant of the Russian fleet and appointed commander of the frigate “St. Paul".
Panaioti sank two Turkish frigates and many small ships.
In 1776, Alexiano Panaioti became the commander of the 66-gun ship St. Alexander Nevsky in the Baltic. In 1783, he was promoted to captain 1st rank and sent to the Black Sea; he died in 1787 with the rank of rear admiral.
At the beginning of 1771, the Serb midshipman Voinovich, who arrived in the Archipelago with the squadron of Rear Admiral Arfa, was assigned to command the corsair polukra (a small sailing ship common at that time in the Mediterranean) “Auza”.
It should be noted that she was not even included in the lists of ships of the Russian fleet.
At the end of 1771, Voinovich became the commander of the 16-gun frigate Slava, purchased by Russia in the Archipelago in 1770.
The following year he was promoted to captain 1st rank and sent to the Black Sea, where from 1785 he commanded the Sevastopol naval squadron. In 1787, Catherine promoted Voinovich to rear admiral.
Another Russian admiral was the Greek corsair Anton Alexiano.
He entered Russian service in 1770.
In 1772, midshipman A. Alexiano was appointed commander of the 22-gun frigate Constance, purchased in the Archipelago, on which he sailed until the end of the war.
During the second Russian-Turkish War, he commanded the 40-gun frigate "St. Jerome" on the Black Sea. Anton Alexiano died in Sevastopol with the rank of vice admiral.
Corsairs who made a career in the Russian fleet were not only Greeks.
For example, the “Maltese cavalier” Count Masini at the beginning of 1770 bought a frigate with his own money and pirated in the Eastern Mediterranean.
On December 4, 1772, Catherine II promoted the count to rear admiral.
Here are four corsairs who later became Russian admirals.

In 1770, the Greek Varvakis, who traded in piracy, along with his 20-gun half-acre, joined the squadron of Alexei Orlov.
Catherine awarded him the rank of lieutenant. After the end of the war, Varvakis continued to pirate in the Aegean Sea. The Turks somehow managed to capture him and imprison him in the Seven Tower Castle.
Varvakis faced execution, but he was saved by the Russian ambassador in Istanbul.
Upon arrival in Russia, Varvakis was received by the empress, from whom he received a thousand chervonets and the right to duty-free trade for 10 years.
(The film “Pirates of the Aegean Sea” was made about his fate).

By May 1771, there were already 2,659 natives of the Balkan Peninsula serving in the Russian fleet.
The Greek corsairs operating in the Archipelago shared with the Russian command not only their booty, but also their captured ships.
At Orlov's request, the largest and fastest captured Turkish ships were delivered to Auza, where they were converted into frigates.
In 1770–1772 The frigates “Archipelago”, “Delos”, “Zeya”, “Milo”, “Naktsia”, “Tino”, “Andro”, “Mikono”, “Minerva” and “Santorin” were introduced into the Russian squadrons in this way. captured by corsairs.

On May 19, 1772, Russia and Turkey concluded a truce. which operated in the Archipelago from July 20, 1972.
The Kuchuk-Kainardzhi peace treaty, which ended the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774, was concluded only two years later - July 10 (21 in the new style) 1774.

But even during the truce, the Russian fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean was very active, and the Greek pirates opened a real pirate war against the Turkish trade and military forces.
Alexey Orlov demanded that the commanders of Russian ships and corsairs stop the supply of food to Constantinople, both on Turkish and French ships.
He ordered his manifesto to be sent to the Mediterranean ports of Europe, in which he warned neutral nations against delivering provisions to the Turks.
To block the Dardanelles, A. Orlov sent there the squadron of Admiral S.K. Greig, consisting of 10 ships: “Victory”, “Three Saints”, “Vsevolod”; frigates “Nadezhda”, “Africa”, “Victory”, “Paros”, “Gregory”, “Constance” and the bombardment ship “Molniya”.

Corsair activities continued. Here are just some examples:
- On October 22, 1772, four corsair frigates flying the St. Andrew’s flag, accompanied by the Russian bombardment ship “Molniya,” attacked the Chesmu fortress. A landing force of 530 people was landed. But it was not possible to take the fortress, and the landing force, which limited itself to plundering the surrounding area, was accepted onto the detachment’s ships;
-September 9, 1772 Panaioti Alexiano on the frigate "St. Paul" approached the island of Stanchio and landed troops, captured the small Turkish fortress of Keffano, where 11 guns were taken. For this, Catherine II awarded Alexiano the Order of St. George, 4th degree.

But with the conclusion of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace Treaty in 1774, the campaign in the Archipelago ended...

The Turks did not allow the Russian fleet to go home by the shortest route - through the Straits to the Black Sea ports.
Under the terms of the peace treaty, all warships were to sail back to the Baltic around Europe.
The passage of Russian warships through the straits was not permitted by the treaty.
The Russian “province” was also subject to evacuation!
Residents of more than twenty Greek islands accepted Russian citizenship, many thousands of Greeks, Albanians, and other peoples fought on the side of Russia.
In the first two or three years of the war, Catherine set a goal for diplomats: to achieve the assignment of the “province” to Russia during peace negotiations.
But, unfortunately, this could not be achieved.
Russia tried to correct the situation with its allies with various half-measures.
Firstly, they provided an opportunity for those wishing to move to Russia.
Secondly, the articles of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace contained the Sultan’s obligation not to take revenge on the Russian allies from among the Ottoman subjects.

In March 1775, the last Russian frigate Nadezhda left Auza for the Baltic.

But according to the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace, Russia for the first time received the opportunity to conduct its merchant ships through the Straits.
Article 11 of this agreement stated:
“For the benefit and benefit of both empires, there is free and unhindered navigation for merchant ships belonging to the two contracting powers in all the seas washing their lands, and the Sublime Porte allows such exactly as merchant Russian ships, which other states trade in its harbors and everywhere use , free passage from the Black Sea to the White (Aegean-sad39), and from the White to the Black, as well as to approach all harbors and piers on the shores of the seas and in passages or canals connecting these seas, located.”

They decided to take advantage of this and sent a number of corsair ships under a merchant flag through the Straits to the Black Sea.
Two problems were solved at once: the delivery of ships to the Black Sea that could be used for military purposes, and the delivery of thousands of Greeks and Albanians to their new place of residence.
From March to May 1775, under the trade flag of Russia, the frigates Archipelago, Tino, Pobeda, St. passed through the Straits. Nicholas" and "Glory", shelves "Patmos", "St. Ekaterina" and others.
Smaller ships carrying Greeks came to Constantinople under the guise of coastal ships, and then went to the Black Sea.
Catherine II, taking into account the commitment of the Greeks and Albanians to Russia and the services provided, by decree of March 28, 1775 addressed to Count Orlov-Chesmensky - the initiator of the admission of Greeks and Albanians to the service - ordered to find measures for the settlement of new settlers, allocating them lands near the fortresses of Kerch and Yenikale, which passed to Russia.
The Empress approved a project to establish a special Greek infantry regiment with a staff of 1,762 people.
The regiment consisted of 12 companies, or ekatontarchies, which were supposed to be given historical names: Athenian, Spartan, Theban, Corinthian, Thessalian, Macedonian, Mycenaean, Sikyonian, Achaian, Ionian, Epirus and Cephalonian.

This is how the Greeks began their settlement throughout Russia.
After the departure of the Russians, the capital of the “province”, the port of Auza, and the entire island of Paros quickly returned to their original state.
And gradually the events that took place there were forgotten.
In 1922, Russian sailors from the Bizerte squadron, accidentally finding themselves on the island, could not find any traces of the Russians being there in 1770–1775.
Now Paros is a famous Greek resort, also visited by Russians.

It was in these bays of the island of Paros that the Russian ships of the Archipelago squadron once stood.

On July 19, 1787, near the Kinbur Spit, a Turkish squadron attacked the frigate Skory and the boat Bityug without declaring war.
A new Russian-Turkish war began.
By the beginning of the war, the Russian fleet on the Black Sea consisted of five ships, nineteen frigates, a bombardment ship and several dozen small vessels.
On August 31, 1787, the Sevastopol squadron under the command of Rear Admiral Mark Voinovich went to sea. But this exit ended in failure for the squadron. While searching for the Turkish fleet, she was caught off the Turkish coast by a terrible, prolonged storm. One ship was lost, another without masts was carried into the Bosphorus and here captured by the Turks. The rest returned to Sevastopol in very shabby condition.
The next departure to sea of ​​the Sevastopol squadron took place almost a year later - June 18, 1788.
But this does not mean at all that for a whole year Russian ships stood quietly in Sevastopol and the Dnieper-Bug Bay, and the Turks had unchallenged control of the Black Sea.
On July 3 (14), 1788, a battle took place near the island of Fidonisi (now Zmeiny), by which the Turks were defeated. F.F. Ushakov commanded the battleship “St. Paul” in this battle.

Due to the numerical superiority of the Turkish fleet over the Russian, His Serene Highness Prince G.I. Potemkin supported the idea of ​​​​creating a corsair flotilla on the Black Sea.

In October 1787, by order of Grigory Potemkin, the first marque patents began to be issued on the Black Sea.
In 1790, the Black Sea Fleet already had 37 privateer ships and 26 sea boats.
These were ships with Greek commanders and Greek crews. These ships were called “cruising”.

Potemkin distributes cannons and gunpowder to the Greeks, as well as naval and army ranks. They are even paid a salary, although extremely irregularly. We thought for a long time what to call these pirate ships. Corsairs and privateers were never included in our lists of ships, which is why the term “cruising ship” was introduced.

Where did the Greeks get their ships from?
Firstly, some Greek ships already carried out coastal shipping on the Black Sea by 1787.
During the war of 1787–1792. Turkish authorities have tried several times to close the Bosphorus to commercial ships. But prices in Istanbul markets immediately flew up, and riots began not only among the population, but even among the Janissaries.
As a result, after a few weeks the Bosporus had to be reopened, which the Greek ships took advantage of and passed into the Black Sea.
For example, from Constantinople they came to the Black Sea Fleet: “St. Helen", "St. Matthew", "St. Nicholas", "Abeltage", "Phoenix", "St. Andrew”, “Prince Alexander”, “Panagia” “Apotumangana”, “St. Nikolai" and "Krasnoselye". “Panagea di Duseno” and others.
All of them became “cruising ships” and were purchased by the treasury.

They cruised across the Black Sea under St. Andrew's flags, or even without a flag at all, sank and captured merchant ships, plundered and burned small towns and villages on the Turkish shores.
It must be said that our historians modestly kept silent about the role of these cruising ships, but they caused significant damage to Turkey, repeatedly even causing famine in Constantinople, often capturing ships with food.
In almost every battle of the squadron F.F. Ushakov, who became commander of the Black Sea Fleet instead of Voinovich on March 14, 1790, took part in several such cruising ships.
On May 19, 1788, Potemkin writes to the Empress:
“The Greeks cruising act very bravely and willingly. It would be good if our marines were like them, but they were ruined by science, which they use more for excuses than for actions.”
Here, of course, Potemkin had in mind primarily Voinovich, who by this time had lost his former corsair prowess and became very cautious.
In a letter to Potemkin dated April 12, 1791, F.F. Ushakov reports on cruising ships based in Sevastopol:
“I consider it my duty to inform your Lordship about the basis for maintaining cruising ships at Sevastopol. All the cruising ships located here are composed, estimated, and how much they cost.
The smallest part of the money was given to the owners, while others were given nothing at all, therefore they are all under the command of those very commanders who are also considered the owners of these ships, they support sailors by hiring them from themselves and hire them with their own boat.”

The Greek corsair Lambros Katsonis (1752–1805) became especially famous. His name alone terrified the captains of merchant ships.
Back in 1769, seventeen-year-old Katsonis, together with his older brother, captured a merchant ship and began piracy in the Archipelago. Later, two more Greek ships joined him.
With the arrival of the Russian squadron in the Mediterranean, this detachment of corsairs joined it.
Soon, the elder Katsonis was killed in a naval battle with the Turks, and the pirate frigate was lost.
Katsonis continued to participate in the capture of Turkish ships and fought on the shore.
In 1775 he moved to Kerch, entered service in the Greek regiment of the Russian army, and rose to the rank of captain.
In April 1783, by decree of Catherine II, Katsonis was “granted to the noble Russian nobility and included in the second part of the Genealogical Book of the Tauride Nobility.”
With the beginning of the new Russian-Turkish war, Katsonis put together a detachment of Greeks, which in October 1787, not far from Hajibey (future Odessa), captured a large Turkish ship in boats.
It was named “Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky” and became the flagship of his “cruising” flotilla.

“Prince Potemkin-Tauride”

At first, Katsonis's flotilla operated in the Black Sea, undergoing repairs and wintering in Sevastopol.
In January 1788, Potemkin gave Katsonis a patent for operations in the Mediterranean Sea.
In 1788, under the guise of a private individual, Katsonis bought a frigate in the port of Trieste, which he named “Minerva of the North” in honor of Catherine II, and in the next two years he struck fear into the entire Eastern Mediterranean - the Aegean and Adriatic Sea, intercepted Turkish merchant and warships, and ruined Turkish fortresses.
By May 1788, his flotilla numbered 10 ships (about 500 sailors) and was so strong that it was able to successfully storm the Turkish fortress on the island of Castel Rosso.
In another report to Potemkin, the corsair wrote:
“It is thundering throughout Turkey that the Archipelago is filled with Russian ships, but in fact there are no more corsairs in the Archipelago than me and my ten ships.”
The names of the rest of his ships also spoke of their owner’s commitment to Russia: “Grand Duke Constantine” and “Grand Duke Alexander”, “Grand Duchess Maria” and “Grand Duke Pavel”, etc.
Katsonis became so bold that he captured ships at the very entrance to the Dardanelles.
But from Katsonis the ships of neutrals also suffered, about which foreign ambassadors complained to the empress, which follows from the decree of the Admiralty Board of September 25, 1788 on the “forgiveness of Major Lambro Katsonis,” in which he was apparently mercifully forgiven for the sinking of the ships of “neutrals.”
He wore a fez with an image of a woman's hand embroidered in silver and the inscription: "Under the hand of Catherine."

Catherine II was concerned about cases of attacks by Greek corsairs on neutral ships. She didn't want to turn into the patroness of pirates.
By her decree of May 23, 1788, she sent Major General S. Gibs to Livorno “to stop the oppression inflicted on the subjects of neutral powers by armators sailing under the Russian military flag.”
With it, special rules were sent for the “Particular Corsairs” with its resolution “Be according to this.”
On May 27, 1788, Catherine signed the Decree “On penalties to which corsairs may be subjected” who violated the highest approved rules.
The corsairs were required to “refrain from harassing neutral subjects and act against the enemy.”
On May 7, 1790, Katsonis's flotilla was defeated by a Turkish squadron. But Katsonis recruited a new crew and began piracy again, despite the fact that the Treaty of Iasi was signed between Russia and Turkey in 1791.
After another defeat from the Turks, he managed to avoid the gallows and made his way to Russia in 1792.
At the end of hostilities, Catherine ordered all Katsonis ships to be disarmed in Trieste. And then sell some of the ships on the spot, while sending others through the Straits to the Black Sea, loading them with Greeks who want to go to Russia.
In the spring of 1792, six corsair (cruising) ships arrived in Sevastopol from the Mediterranean Sea. All six ships were commissioned into the Black Sea Fleet, where they served for several years.
In 1795, Katsonis was introduced to Catherine, who gave him an estate in Crimea.
While living in Crimea, Katsonis bought the town of Panas-Chair not far from Yalta, which translated from Greek means “sacred meadow”. There he begins construction of his estate, which he renames Livadia, after his hometown Livadia, where he was born.
So Crimean Livadia owes its appearance to Lambros Katsonis.
In connection with the dispatch of Admiral Ushakov’s squadron to the Adriatic Sea for the war with France in 1798, Katsionis turned to Paul I with a request to allow him, at his own expense, to arm a ship “for traveling against the French” in the Mediterranean Sea.
While the highest permission was given - “to allow him these weapons,” the war with France ended, and Katsonis was no longer able to go to sea.
Katsonis died in 1805 under unclear circumstances; it is believed that he was poisoned.
Katsonis's grave was lost at the end of the 19th century.
After the death of Katsonis, the estate changed owners several times, was rebuilt, and since 1860 it became the southern residence of Emperor Alexander II.
The current Livadia Palace was built in 1911.

The son of Lambros Katsonis, Lycurgus Katsonis, entered service in the Black Sea Fleet in 1812, then became the commander of the Balaklava battalion, and ended his career as an inspector of the Kerch quarantine. The pirate's grandson Alexander Likurgovich began serving in the Black Sea Fleet, and then in the Baltic.
Lambros's great-grandson Spyridon Katsonis, born in 1858 in Feodosia, became a famous lawyer and then a writer. He was the brother-in-law of the artist I.K. Aivazovsky.
In Greece, Lambros Katsonis became a national hero.
And in Europe they remembered him much better than in Russia.
In 1813, Byron wrote the famous poem "The Corsair". The prototype of the main character of Conrad's poem was Lambros Katsonis.
In our time, Valentin Pikul was the first to remember Katsonis, who dedicated his historical miniature “The First Listrigon of Balaklava” to him.

As stated at the beginning of this article, privateering is historically believed to have ceased in the second half of the 19th century when the Paris Declaration of the Sea of ​​April 16, 1856 declared privateering abolished.

But Russia also made attempts to wage a corsair war at the beginning of the 20th century.
A “special meeting” held on February 13, 1904 recognized the possibility of carrying out such operations using either mobilized and armed high-speed steamers of the Voluntary Fleet, or ships specially purchased abroad.
General management of the organization and conduct of cruising operations was entrusted to Rear Admiral Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich.
The purpose of these operations was to interrupt Japan's sea communications and supplies from neutral states not participating in the Russo-Japanese War. The task was to stop cargo ships in the area of ​​the islands and inspect them for military contraband on board.
The search, inspection and detention of ships of neutral states was supposed to be carried out on the basis of data received from the Main Naval Headquarters through special agents.

To carry out such operations, six auxiliary cruisers were armed: Don, Ural, Terek, Kuban, Petersburg and Smolensk.
Here are just some examples of the actions of these courts.
- In June 1904, in the Red Sea, near the island of Maly Hanish, “Petersburg” stopped the English steamer “Malacca”. The prize party boarded the ship to check the documents.
Military contraband was discovered on board the Malacca: about two hundred steel plates, bridge parts, an electric crane, machines whose purpose was not indicated in the documents, as well as alcohol, canned food, biscuits, acids and other cargo. The cargo was addressed to Japan. The steamer was arrested;
- In July 1904, “Petersburg” and “Smolensk” arrested three more English ships loaded with military contraband in the Red Sea. The Smolensky was also stopped for inspection by the German steamship Prinz Heinrich. The prize party removed from the ship all mail addressed to Japan and released the Prince Henry;
- In May 1905, when the 2nd Pacific squadron of Admiral Rozhdestvensky was approaching the Ryukyu Islands, the cruisers Kuban and Terek separated from it, which headed for the Pacific coast of Japan, and the cruisers Dnepr and Rion headed for operations on enemy communications in the southern part of the Yellow Sea.
The cruisers were given the task of “without hesitation, sinking” all the ships on which military contraband was discovered.
On May 23, 1905, the cruiser Terek intercepted the English steamship Ancona, which was carrying five thousand tons of rice to Japan. The cargo was recognized as contraband, they decided to scuttle the ship, and 73 members of the English crew were taken to the Terek. Several artillery salvos were fired at the ship and it sank.
On June 8, the Danish steamer Princess Mary was discovered. The prize party discovered about 3.5 thousand tons of steel and iron on the ship for Japan.
It was decided to sink the steamer by placing several explosive cartridges in its holds. In total, during its cruising, the Terek inspected several dozen steamships and sank two of them.
The cruiser Rion, operating in the southern part of the Yellow Sea, detained and inspected several steamers.
On two of them (the German transport "Tetortos" and the English "Shilurium") the prize party discovered military contraband. After the commands were removed from the detained transports, they were scuttled along with the cargo.
The cruiser Dnepr, a hundred miles from Hong Kong, sank the English steamer St. Kildty with a cargo of military contraband.

In July 1905, the British ambassador in St. Petersburg handed over to the Russian Foreign Ministry a note from the British government, which indicated the illegality of the seizure of the Malacca steamer, which allegedly did not have contraband cargo on board.
After this, Emperor Nicholas II ordered to stop all these cruising activities and return all the arrested ships.

The actions of Fyodor Raskolnikov can also be classified as corsair actions, when in the summer of 1918 he was appointed commander of the Volga Flotilla by Trotsky.
Arriving on the Volga, where he met Larisa Reisner, who worked in the political department of the flotilla.
His flotilla, moving along the river, literally lands pirate troops who robbed all the estates on the shore.
The sailors dragged the most valuable things and jewelry to Reisner, who made her flagship the yacht “Mezhen”, on which the imperial couple had previously sailed.
Writer Vsevolod Vishnevsky will make Larisa Reisner the prototype of his main character, the commissar, in the play “Optimistic Tragedy.” Frankly speaking, it’s not a very well chosen prototype...
But the Whites also had sea robbers, in their flotilla in the Caspian Sea, created by order of General Denikin.
While fighting the Bolsheviks, they also robbed all the fishing schooners and terrorized the coast.
The commander of this pirate flotilla, or “expedition” as it was called, was Captain 1st Rank Konstantin Schubert.
This flotilla consisted of sailing fishing schooners, called rybnitsa in the Caspian Sea. These were wooden boats up to 17 meters long. They were armed with machine guns, and some were equipped with small guns.
The sailors of this flotilla even composed a song to themselves (to the tune of the song “Because of the island to the core.”):
“Because of the island on the seashore,
Where there is free water,
The combatants swam out
Schubert's Bones of the Court".

With the end of the Civil War, this pirate bacchanalia also ended.
This is where we can finish our short excursion into the history of Russian corsairs.

From the 17th century to the early 18th century, pirates owned many of the famous ships. Their combined fleet was capable of repelling the navies of the most powerful nations. Often, pirates captured powerful warships, changed their names and turned them into their flagships, 15 of which are described in the list below.

Top 15 most famous pirate ships

Wanderer

Charles Vane was a notorious pirate who terrorized French and English ships and plundered gold and treasure. He tortured sailors for information and always captured ships that were better than his. He renamed each of his captured ships "Pathfinder". However, a Spanish brig captured in 1718 was given the name "Wanderer".

Rising Sun

The owner of this ship was Captain William Moody. The pirate ruled the Caribbean on his ship with 36 guns and a crew of 150 people. As a rule, all the ships he captured were plundered and burned.

Speaker

In 1699, Captain George Booth captured a 45-ton Indian slave ship and named it the Orator. It was his most treasured prize and had long service as a pirate ship even after George's death. The Orator ran aground in 1701 off the coast of Madagascar.

Revenge

Originally named "Caroline", his name quickly changed after John Gow and other crew members mutinied and killed the captain as well as soldiers loyal to him. Gow took over as captain, and renamed the ship "Revenge".

Bachelor's Delight

40 gun ship under the command of John Cook and Edward Davis. In 1684, this pirate ship was captured by them in West Africa and attacked many Spanish cities and ships throughout South America.

flying dragon

After Christopher Condent became a pirate and began wreaking havoc on the Atlantic, he came across a Dutch ship, captured it, and renamed it the Flying Dragon. This ship brought even greater success to Condent, allowing him to capture other ships and treasures at sea.

William

The small but fast twelve-ton sloop carried only four guns and had about thirteen crew members. He was captured by Captain Anne Bonny, also known as "Toothless Annie". Under Bonnie's command, the ship caused true terror in the Caribbean.

Kingston

Jack "Calico Jack" Rackham was a member of the pirate crew under the command of Captain Charles Vane. He later became a captain in his own right and eventually got his hands on a very large Jamaican ship called the Kingston. Using this ship as their flagship, Rackham and his crew were able to evade capture for a long time.

Satisfaction

At the helm of this ship was Captain Henry Morgan. In the 17th century he was a privateer in England and was considered very successful, excelling in capturing ships of the Spanish fleet. Ultimately, however, the Satisfaction succumbed to the battle against powerful storms and reefs.

Rebecca

This 6-gun ship belonged to the ruthless Edward Lowe, and was given to him by Captain George Lowther. With the Rebecca, Lowe was able to expand his pirate power and had significant successes on the seas. He later replaced the Rebecca with a large fishing vessel.

Adventure

Built in 1695 by Captain William Kidd, the ship could sail at 14 knots and was armed with 32 cannons. The ship was initially used as a privateer to hunt down pirates until Kidd became one of the sea robbers himself.

Sudden death

Once the Russian ship "Man of War" with 70 crew, it was captured by the pirate John Derdrake off the coast of Norway. Derdrake, at the time, had a much smaller ship, but he somehow found a way to capture such a formidable vessel. The new owner gave him the name "Sudden Death".

Pride

It was the favorite ship of Jean Laffite, the notorious Louisiana war hero, pirate, privateer, spy and governor. He made much of his business out of the Pride and made the ship his home. When the United States government began catching him for piracy, he burned his colony and headed south, continuing to ravage South American shores.

Saint James

Captured by pirate captain Howell Davis, this 26-gun ship was the flagship of his fleet after he raided Mayo Island. This ship contributed to a turning point in his pirate career. Davis became admiral over two other pirate captains and captured four large English and Dutch ships loaded with ivory and gold.

Queen Anne's Revenge

Owned by the infamous pirate Blackbeard, this ship is almost as famous as its captain. It was a French ship converted into a pirate ship, armed to the teeth with 40 cannons and carrying a large number of armed crew. Instead of engaging in bloody battles, Blackbeard intimidated his prey, and it often worked. Queen Anne's Revenge sank in 1718 and was found again off the coast of North Carolina in 1996.