Tsardom of Russia

In development of the Third Rome ideas, the Grand Duke Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) was officially crowned the first Tsar ("Caesar") of Russia in 1547. The Tsar promulgated a new code of laws (Sudebnik of 1550), established the first Russian feudal representative body (Zemsky Sobor) and introduced local self-management into the rural regions.[75][76]

During his long reign, Ivan IV nearly doubled the already large Russian territory by annexing the three Tatar khanates (parts of disintegrated Golden Horde): Kazan and Astrakhan along the Volga River, and Sibirean Khanate in South Western Siberia. Thus by the end of the 16th century Russia was transformed into a multiethnic, multiconfessional and transcontinental state.

In contrast to these great achievements in the East, Ivan IV's policy in the West brought quite disastrous results. The Russian state was weakened by the long and unsuccessful Livonian War against the coalition of Poland, Lithuania, and Sweden for access to the Baltic coast and sea trade.[77] At the same time Tatars of the Crimean Khanate, the only remaining successor to the Golden Horde, continued to invade Southern Russia in a series of slave raids,[78] and were even able to burn down Moscow in 1571

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