Thanks to Prince Zasekin Grigory Osipovich efforts in the 16th century, the borders of the Russian state significantly expanded in the east. He was the first governor and founding father of the Russian fortresses on the Volga, which later became the huge cities of Samara, Saratov, and Perevoloka (Volgograd).
The exact date of birth of Prince Zasekin is unknown, but historians agrees that he was born around 1550. He came from the ancient family of the princes of Yaroslavi: the Zasekins. His father by the standard of that time was a very poor man. There is little known about his childhood but it can be assumed that he began his military service , under Ivan the Terrible at the age of about 15, which was the norm at that time for young nobles.
The beginning of his career fell on the final stage of the Livonian War of 1558 to 1583. He served on the western borders of the Russian kingdom, where regular military conflicts were commonplace. In 1570, Prince Zasekin was mentioned as a head of archers,
Grigory Zasekin first actions as head are connected with the Russian-Swedish war of 1570-1595. He carried out his military service in the fortress of Korela approximatively from 1574-1575 to 1579 with short breaks. In 1575, a battle with the Swedes took place there in which the Russian won. In 1577, Prince Zasekin served in the Oreshek fortress and participated in the Livonian campaign. For a short period of time during the autumn of 1577 his cousin Zasekin-Solntsev and himself were appointed junior governors in the town of Trikaten which had been captured during the war.
In the middle of the summer of 1579, Prince Zasekin participated in the campaign of Russian troops in which he pursued reconnaissance goals under the command of M.A. Beznin, the former Karelian governor. The beginning of this campaign was so successful for the Russian troops that Grigory Zasekin was sent with a personal report about the victory to the Tsar Ivan the Terrible , for which he received a “gold penny” as a reward.
However, he was already far from the Baltic before the defeats received by the Russian troops near Polotsk.
Under the command of Prince V.M. Lobanov he was appointed the second governor to the guard regiment in Kolomna. Then he served as governor in Kaluga and repelled the raids of the Crimeans.
In the 1580s, Zasekin-Solntsev and Prince Zasekin were sent to serve on the southern borders of the Russian state, to the wild field, in the Volga region.
In 1581, for the first time in his career, he became the first governor in the city of Mikhailov, which was a well-fortified defensive point on the Prony river.
After the annexation of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates to Russia in the middle of the 16th century, the entire Volga waterway up to the Caspian sea was in the possession of the Russian state, but because the new region was sparsely populated, the trade caravans passing here were often attacked so the building of fortresses became important.
After 1.5 to 2 years of preparation for the construction of the Samara fortress, Grigory Zasekin began to build a fortress far from the Volga on a hill. It took him and his archers a few days to build it, and the date of birth of the new city of Samara can be considered the feast of the trinity, which in the year of 1586 fell on May 22 . The city of Samara was built on a grand scale on a hill above the Samara river, where it divided into two channels.
The appearance of the fortress greatly upset the Nogai biy Urus until a detachment of Cossacks stole a herd of 500 heads from the Nogais. Grigory Zasekin captured the Cossacks and hanged them. He gave everything that had been stolen by the Cossacks back to the Nogai. After that event, many Nogai Murzas abandoned thoughts of independence and began to send their detachments to serve in the Russian army.
In the summer of 1589 Zasekin built the fortress of Perevolok at the crossing between the Volga and the Don which is a strategically important site. The fortified city was built in only 3 months.
Prince Zasekin was recalled to participate in the campaign against Narva in the spring of 1590 but was again on the Volga by summer. On July 12, Prince Grigory Zasekin and boyar Fyodor Turov founded the city of Saratov on the left bank of the river. At that time it was only an outpost of the Russian development of the Volga, but later became one of the largest city on the Volga. In 1674, by decree of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovoch, the city was moved to the right bank of the river.
In 1591, Prince Zasekin restored the fortress of Terki, in the Caspian sea (now the city of Kizlyar) founded back in 1735, but he died a year later. The documents do not indicate the cause of death, and it can assumed that the prince died of wounds received during the campaign or by a sudden illness.
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