Kudeyar

Kudeyar (Russian: Кудеяр) is a Russian folk hero whose story is told in Nikolay Kostomarov's novel of the same name (1875).

According to this legend, Kudeyar was the elder brother of Ivan the Terrible. His mother purportedly was Solomonida Saburova, whom Vasily III divorced on account of her barrenness, incarcerating her in a convent. Several months after the controversial divorce she bore a son, who was smuggled to the Cossacks living along the Don River, where he became their fearless ataman and champion in the manner of Robin Hood.

Actually, there were several Cossack robbers of this name. There is a letter of one Muscovite boyar to Ivan IV from Crimea, where he reports that "there is only one brigand left here - the accursed Kudeyar". The name is apparently Turkic, composed of two elements standing for "god" and "man".

The legend about Kudeyar. They say that the robber Kudeyar was the imbecile brother of Ivan the Terrible. The kinship with the uncontrollable brother made Kudeyar hide deep in the woods. In a big cave inside the hill Kudeyar made a huge dwelling in which some people are still looking for buried treasure [1]