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====The reign of Ivan the Terrible====
[[File: Siege of Kazan (Pyotr Korovin, 1890).jpeg|200px300px|thumb|left|Ivan the Terrible at the siege of Kazan]]
The early life of Ivan was harsh. The regency was passed among the feuding nobility and the young boy and his brother often went hungry they were so neglected. It was at this time that Ivan developed a hatred for the nobility. At the age of sixteen, he was crowned and he took the title Tsar of all the Russia’s. This claim at the time was ludicrous as Ivan and Moscow were very weak. Ivan despite his youth proved to be a capable administrator. He rebuilt Moscow after a fire. He introduced the first parliament, found a standing army, known as the Streltzi, reformed the Church and stamped out many clerical abuses.<ref> Madariaga, p. 23</ref> Ivan was also a modernizer and he introduced the printing press into Russia. However, he was concerned about the mobility of the peasantry and was the first to introduce a series of regulations that limited their freedoms and tied them to the lands. Ivan also introduced a measure of self-government into lands that had been recently colonized by peasants to encourage colonization of virgin territories. Ivan also sought to develop trade links with western Europe and in order to win allies in the west he once proposed to Elizabeth I.
In effect, Ivan IV had founded a new Russian Empire. Despite being a devout Orthodox Christian Ivan pursued a policy of toleration towards his many Muslim subjects. For many years Ivan was involved in a brutal war to the west, this was the Livonian War.<ref> Bobrick, p. 114</ref> It was an attempt by Russia to expand to the Baltic Sea and this involved it in a series of wars with Sweden, Denmark, and Poland among others. The war was inconclusive. During Ivan's reign, Russia started the exploration and colonization of Siberia. In 1555, shortly after the conquest of Kazan, the Tartar Khan in western Siberia pledged allegiance to Ivan. He failed to pay tribute and Ivan engineered his downfall. This left a power vacuum in the region and the Tsar instead of establishing another tributary state in Siberia, decided that he would rule it directly.
In 1558 Ivan gave the Stroganov merchant family the patent for colonizing an area east of the Urals. They built many forts and later hired Cossacks to protect their lands. The Tartars had by then established another Khanate in Siberia.<ref>Bobrick, p. 116</ref> The Cossack leader in 1580 began the conquest of Siberia and he forced many local tribes to pay tribute to Moscow. Later Ivan sent a large force of Streltsi or members of his army to assist in the conquest. By 1590 Ivan was also calling himself Tsar of Siberia. Ivan died of a stroke while playing chess and he was succeeded by his middle son Feodor. Russia at the time of his death was at the strongest it had in several centuries.
====Ivan and the Orthodox Church====
