Russian Cavalry

Long time absent but still fighting! It was a very busy summer, with a lot of unforecasted  events: both my research interests, my job as consultant, the broken wrist of my son (at a boy-scout summer camp, of course) and the extended family troubles all requested my full attention.

Now that the holidays are finally finished, we can go back to the relative safety of the ordinary life. Back to the “Project Holowczin”, it is the time of the Russian cavalry corps under Von Der Goltz which was divided into three groups: the first group under the command of Von Ifland, was comprised of the Pskovsky, Tverskoy and Belozersky Dragoon:

Pskovsky: raised in Moscow 1701 as Novikov’s.

Tverskoy: raised in Moscow 1702, from conscript and volunteers.

Belozersky: raised in Moscow, 1703 as Prince Schakovski’s, disbanded 1711.

All these regiments were dismounted when the swedish attack erupted: I painted a group of  generic dismounted dragoons to represent them as well as any other russian dismounted dragoon I need for the game:

The second group under the command of  Heinske was comprised of the Sankt Peterburgski, Azovski and Ryazanski regiments:

St. Peterburgski: raised in Moscow 1701 as Poluektov’s.

Azovski: raised in Moscow, 1706 from conscripts and disbanded units as Ivanov’s.

Ryazanski: raised in Smolensk 1705 as Goring from lesser nobility and men from three other regiments.

The last group was under the command of the Prince Von Hessen-Darmstatd and was formed by the Astrakhanski, Troitski, Novgorodski and Nishegorodski Dragoon regiments:

  

Astrakhanski: raised in Moscow, 1701 as Prince Lvov’s.

Troitski: raised in Moscow, 1701 as Kropotov’s. The grenadier caps are an artistic license. Indeed, since no informations are recorded if they were supplied with tricorne/karpus/grenadier cap, I choose to represent the outfit with the grenadier caps for "fun".

Novgorodski : raised in Moscow, 1701 as Prince Meschersky’s.

Nishegorodski: there were no informations at all on the uniforms , hence I replaced this regiment with the Jarovslavski dragoon (raised 1706 as Prince Volkonski’s from men of lower Volga and ukrainian cities) which, in 1706/09 were credited with a “blue grenadier cap with red lining”.

I searched for more informations or portraits of the Russian commanders. The only reference I was able to find (with no portrait) was to a Prince Friederich von Hessen-Darmstadt, son of the Landgrave Louis VI, born 1677, killed in battle 1708. There is a portrait of his older brother Philip, Imperial Field-Marshal (1671-1736) which ended his career as Governor of Mantua: