Battle of the Pyana River (1367)

The battle of the Pyana River (1367) is a battle between the troops of the Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal Grand Duchy led by Dmitry Konstantinovich Suzdal and Boris Konstantinovich Gorodetsky against the forces of the Golden Horde led by Bulat-Timur, resulting in a decisive victory of the Russian troops.

Background
In 1359, a long struggle for power began in the Golden Horde. The Horde suffered defeat from the Grand Duke of Lithuania Olgerd Gediminovich in the Battle of the Blue Waters in 1362 and in the battle of the Shishevsky Forest from Oleg Ryazansky, Vladimir Pronsky and Tit Kozelsky in 1365.

Dmitry Ivanovich Moskovsky established himself on the Vladimir Grand Duke's throne in 1363, rejecting the claims of Dmitry Suzdalsky, but soon after the death of Andrei , the oldest of Konstantinoviches, in Nizhny Novgorod , sided with Dmitry Suzdalsky in the latter's dispute with his younger brother Boris for the Lower. In 1366, the union was sealed by the marriage of Dmitry Moskovsky and the daughter of Dmitry Suzdal Evdokia, and the following year the Horde prince Bulat Temir raided the Gorodets princedom.

The course of the battle
Little is known about the battle itself. The Russian army first broke the Golden Horde by the river Sundovik, and then overtook the river Pyana and threw it into the river. Ordyntsy could not retreat in an organized way and suffered heavy losses, many drowned. The rescued Bulat-Temir on his return to the Golden Horde was killed by the Khan Aziz-Sheikh.

Conseduences
f The victory secured the southeastern borders of the Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal Grand Duchy for about a decade and allowed further struggle to be transferred to the middle Volga basin. The defeat of one of the Golden Horde "princes" contributed to the concentration of power in the Golden Horde in the hands of Mamai (in particular, in 1370 Dmitry Suzdal helped the governor Mamai establish himself in the middle Volga).