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Streletskaya Izba; Streltsy Hut
Topic Started: April 17 2009, 05:23 AM (70 Views)
Luke
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Chamberlain of the Royal Forks, Knives and Plates
The Streletskaya izba (Streltsy Hut) is the internal administration apparatus for the Streltsy, the military of the Tsar of Russia. The Hut manages administration of both the Moscow and Municipal Streltsy, their lands and property, payment of salaries and food rations, in addition to handling all court cases involving members of the Streltsy. The Hut also is tasked with tax collection from Streltsy. The individual tasked with managing the Hut is the Streletsky Prikaz.

The Streltsy itself is the military arm of the Tsar of Russia and was originally established in the late 1540s by Tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich, seeing combat during the Siege of Kazan in 1552. The membership of the Streltsy is traditionally hereditary, but originally consisted of free tradesworkers and free peasants, forming an elite cadre within the Russian military.

The organization of the Streltsy is divided principally into two primary groupings; the electives who guard the Kremlin in Moscow and are the primary force for military operations, in addition to fire guard duty in the Russian capital, and the municipal Streltsy, which works in local administration performing garrison and border guard duties. In times of peace the municipal Streltsy operates under the control of the provincial voivodes, the governors of the provinces, however in times of war they are automatically subordinated to the Streltsy Hut. The largest Streltsy formation is the regiment (polk) commanded by a prikazi who is always a boyar noble. Due to consistent shortages of revenues to pay the Streltsy, the salary of individual soldiers is supplemented by land grants.

The Streltsy numbers only about 20-25,000 officers and men and can be generally supplemented by the raising of western mercenaries, formed along European organization, and by raising regiments of Russian peasants, commanded by boyars and armed with hand-to-hand weaponry. The quality of mercenary regiments are typically good, however expensive, and regiments of peasants is generally mixed. The organization of these formations and management of their costs are the responsibility also of the Streltsy Hut.
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