His charisma drew people to him and influenced their behavior. Numerous troops led by atamans M. Osipov, M. Haritonov, V. Fedorov, Alena (a nun) and others acted there. By the summer of 1668 Razin had a 2-thousand army.

The free land of the Cossacks Of the four great rebellions that Russia experienced between 1600 and 1800 peasant wars as some historians say, the one led by the Stenka Razin has evoked the most popular feeling and memories, and the name of Stenka Razin has come to signify the very essence of Russian folk spirit. In November, 1671, Astrakhan, the last bastion of the rebels, fell. 11 thousand people were executed in the town of Arzamas alone.

But with the influx of great masses of fugitive peasants, peoples of the Volga Region – Mordva, Tatars, Chuvashis, – the social structure and orientation of the movement changed strongly. That complicated the Russian-Persian relations strongly and aggravated the government against the Cossacks.

In April 1667, he led a group of about one thousand Don Cossacks to the Volga River for the purpose of brigandage. He seized trading vessels belonging to the Tsar and the Patriarch, appropriated their rich cargoes, and released political prisoners bound for Astrakhan and Terki. As many as one thousand Cossacks took part in this campaign, which struck not only at the shipping on the Caspian, but also attacked commercial settlements and towns of the Caucasus along the western shore, from Derbent south to Baku. Although his attempt to gain greater freedom for the Cossacks had the opposite effect, he became a martyred hero whose memory was immortalized in folklore. Lyrics to 'The Ballad of Stenka Razin (Volga Volga)' by RUSSIAN RED ARMY CHOIR : From beyond the wooded island / To the river wide and free / Proudly sailed the arrow-breasted / Ships of Cossack yeomanry. Here they were protected by the unwritten law – "There is no extradition from the Don'. When the garrison commander and 170 soldiers refused to join the pirates, they were slaughtered.

Tales of Stepan’s exploits were told again and again.

He was met triumphantly.

Stepan and 40 Cossacks disguised themselves as pilgrims and requested permission to pray in the cathedral. Lured by the bountiful traffic of the Shah of Persia, he decided to attack the coastal towns of Persia. Czar

Those officers who remained faithful to the Tsar suffered even worse fates. Thus he acquired the reputation of invincibility. In the summer Cossacks crushed the fleet of the Persian Shah consisting of 70 ships at Svinoy Island (southward of Baku), which was regarded by historians as one of the biggest Russian victories in the Caspian Sea. The first one was Derbent, a prosperous port on the western coast of the Caspian Sea.

Yakovlev's forces captured Stenka Razin in May and brought him and his brother Frol in an iron cage to Moscow. Doch in den Legenden des Volkes blieb er lebendig, in Romanen und Filmen, in Sinfonien von Glasunow und Schostakowitsch - und in diesem Lied, in dem Stenka Rasin als grimmig entschlossener Freiheitskämpfer sehr drastisch unter Beweis stellt, dass er alles, Liebe und Leben, zu opfern bereit ist für den Kampf gegen Knechtschaft und Unterdrückung.

The Shah of Persia ordered one of his commanders to pursue and eliminate the Cossack pirates. The Cossack class was subdivided into the well-to-do and the poor. Twice wounded, Razin fled. Fearing the loss of their freedom and autonomy, a group of Cossack elders devoted to the Tsar in the spring of 1667 betrayed the location of Razin's camp on the Don to the ataman (chieftain) Kornilo Yakovlev.

In May 1670, the seven thousand strong army of Razin seized the city of of Tsaritsyn. Incluso sus propios establecimientos en Sarátov y Samara se negaron a abrirle sus puertas por miedo a las represalias de los boyardos, y otros cosacos, sabiendo que además de hallarse en desventaja ahora el Stenka Razin es el héroe de una canción popular rusa (la letra es de Dmitri Nikoláievich Sadóvnikov (Дмитрий Николаевич Садовников), mejor conocida por las palabras "Volga, Volga, mat' rodnáia" (Volga, Volga, madre querida /literalmente en ruso, nativa/).