A Cossack brigand under sentence of death escaped with his followers into the land beyond the Urals, and conquered a part of the territory, then returned and offered it to Ivan (1580) in exchange for a pardon.

The incident is the subject of a _bilina_, a form of historical poem, in which Yermak says: "I am the robber Hetman of the Don.
And now--oh--orthodox Tsar, I bring you my traitorous head, And with it I bring the Empire of Siberia! And the orthodox Tsar will speak-- He will speak--the terrible Ivan, Ha! thou art Yermak, the Hetman of the Don, I pardon thee and thy band, I pardon thee for thy trusty service-- And I give to the Cossack the glorious and gentle Don as an inheritance." The two Ivans had created a new code of laws, and now there was an ample prison-house for its transgressors! The penal code was frightful.

An insolvent debtor was tied up half naked in a public place and beaten three hours a day for thirty or forty days, and then, if no one came to his rescue, with his wife and his children he was sold as a slave.

But Siberia was to be the prison-house of a more serious class of offenders for whom this punishment would be insufficient.

It was to serve as a vast penal colony for crimes against the state.