Russian "streltsy" oxymoron

[Sheogorath]

Weren't the Streltsy the palace guard units that did the dirty work for the Tzars? I seem to remember that Peter the Great executed most of them when he came of age and wrested power as payback for the murders of his mother & uncles when he was a young boy.

The Steltsy were the Russian equivalent of the Janissary Corps. They were basically a warrior caste and professional army. They were damn fine soldiers in their day (lets say, 1500 or so). Various units also acted as, as I said, police and firefighting units. I believe they also had a bodyguard unit, although Peter did away with that pretty quickly, much preferring his western trained soldiers.

As time wore on positions became hereditary, pay got higher and corruption went rampant. By Peter the Great's time they were attempting to position themselves as a sort of 'Praetorian Guard', able to decide, like the Janissary Corps, who would rule and who got locked in a tower for their entire reign.

Peter executed MOST of them because they sided with Sophia, the appointed regent who had no intention of giving up her post. The steltsy units that were loyal to him generally escaped his wrath, although they were virtually all disbanded by the end of the Great Northern War.

The Steltsy shown in ETW are fairly accurate in appearance, if you ignore the lack of muskets, which I'm sure most battlefield Streltsy would carry by this period.