In the fate of Russia in the second half of the 15th-17th centuries, earth and sky, high and low, are mixed in equal proportions, a drawing by a learned clerk, accurately conveying the lines of rivers, lakes, forests in recently explored lands and the life of the holy monk who was the first to settle there. Looking at the map, it is not difficult to see that even in the middle of the 15th century, Muscovite Rus' was a small, poor, sparsely populated country. But by the beginning of the 16th century, it had grown into a great power, and at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries it turned into a giant state. It was the geographical environment of indigenous “European” Rus' that contributed to the extremely rapid colonization of the Russian North, the Urals and Siberia in the 16th-17th centuries. But it's not just about geography. The structure of the Muscovite kingdom is built on the rock of faith, permeated with Orthodoxy in all directions. The fact that he was filled for a long time with the self-awareness of the New Israel, the Third Rome, the Lot of the Most Pure One, gave him a mobilizing goal and meaning of existence. The publishing layout of the book is saved in PDF A4 format.