October 2, 1552

Siege of Kazan

Ivan IV’s forces storm and capture Kazan

Before breaching the walls, the besiegers attacked the city underground — by mining its water supply.

2 October 1552, after more than forty days

On 2 October 1552 in the Julian calendar, after Kazan's garrison refused a demand to surrender, Ivan IV's army began its general assault on the fortified city. On a modern Gregorian calendar the date is 12 October.

The assault came after more than forty days of siege, mounted from the Muscovite base at Sviyazhsk.

Kazan's anti-Moscow leadership had expelled Shah Ali and the Russian-backed regime, refused Ivan's proposed direct rule, and invited Yadegar Muhammad to the throne.

The mines, and a midday collapse

Muscovite siege engineers had blown up parts of Kazan's water-supply system and undermined sections of the walls. The final mines opened the breaches for the assault.

By the middle of the day the attacking army had broken organized resistance and captured the city. Yadegar Muhammad was taken when it fell.

The engineer credited with the decisive mining survives in the chronicles only as Razmysl or Rozmysl. He has been variously identified as English, German, Lithuanian, Danish or Italian; the claim that he was an Englishman named Butler is not established.

The numbers that do not hold up

The often-repeated Muscovite army figure of 150,000 is traced by modern source criticism to a possible error or editorial alteration in an eighteenth-century chronicle, and is not accepted as a secure contemporary count.

A Tatar historical synthesis describes the defence as 3,000 Nogai horsemen and 10,000 irregulars inside the city, plus 5,000 cavalry operating behind the Muscovite army.

The fall of the capital ended the khanate's independent central government, not resistance across its former territory: revolts continued into 1556–1557.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited Traditional date

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Traditional date. This date is the conventional one, not one fixed by a contemporary record.

What the sources leave uncertain

The conventional date is 2 October 1552 in the Julian calendar used by Muscovy; its modern Gregorian equivalent is 12 October.
Army, defender and casualty totals vary drastically among late chronicles and modern accounts. The often-repeated 150,000-man Muscovite army is specifically challenged by modern source criticism.
The engineer called Razmysl or Rozmysl has been variously identified as English, German, Lithuanian, Danish or Italian and as “Butler,” “Erasmus” or other names. His identification as an Englishman named Butler is not established.