For more than a century and a half, from the middle of the 16th century. and right up to the very end of the reign of Peter the Great, the archers were an integral part of the Russian army. They became the first Russian infantry, fully equipped with firearms and which can be called permanent and, in a certain sense, regular (adjusted for the realities of the era). Created in 1550, during the so-called. “reforms of Ivan the Terrible”, the Streltsy army underwent a baptism of fire in the most famous military campaign of the first Russian Tsar - the capture of Kazan in the fall of 1552. Having proven themselves from the best side during the Kazan epic, the “elected” “Fiery Streltsy” firmly took their place in the structure sovereign armies. Not a single major campaign or military enterprise of the era of Ivan the Terrible and his successors could be accomplished without the participation of the Streltsy, Moscow and policemen. The capture of Astrakhan, the confrontation with the Crimean Khan, the war in Livonia with the Lithuanians, Poles and Swedes, the Polotsk and Bathory wars, campaigns in the North Caucasus, countless battles and skirmishes during the Time of Troubles with foreign invaders and Russian “thieves” - the military chronicle of the Streltsy army to the limit eventful. The study by one of the leading experts on Russian military history of the early modern period recreates in detail the history of the Streltsy army at the first stage of its history - from the moment of its creation to the end of the Time of Troubles and the first years of the reign of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich. The weapons and tactics of the Streltsy, their organization and command hierarchy, Streltsy “everyday life” in the days of war and peace, the recruitment and training of Streltsy, the sovereign’s salary and much, much more - everything that has survived to this day in a few documents and other evidence of the era, in detail discussed in this book.