“To the Don Cossack Ataman Ermak Timofeyevich, the Siberia conqueror from the grateful posterity. In honor of Don Cossack Army 300th Anniversary. He passed away in Irtysh waves on August 5, 1584.” Some believe that Yermak was born in the village of Kachalinskaya on the Don. Though this region has long claimed Yermak to be one of its own, there is no evidence that he was born there or ever visited.There is also a statue of Yermak at Tobolsk and one in the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg designed by Mark Antokolsky. Two icebreakers have been named after Yermak. The first, built in Newcastle, England, in 1898, was one of the first major vessels of that type ever built and the second, which entered the service in 1974, was the first of an impressive new type of ship. In commemoration of Yermak, there is a town named after him on the upper Irtysh. Similarly, a mountain in the Perm Region made up of three cliff stacks is called the Yermak Stone after Yermak. Legend has it that Yermak and his brigade passed one of the harsh Siberian winters on the cliff side. In popular culture Film Yermak makes an appearance in the 1947 film Tale of the Siberian Land (Skazanie o zemle sibirskoi) directed by Ivan Pyryev. The movie tells the story of a pianist named Andrei who moves to Siberia to work at a paper-processing plant after being wounded in World War II and losing his faith in music. Once in Siberia, Andrei reunites with a female singer with whom he had been in love in Moscow. When nothing comes of their second encounter, he heads far north in Siberia and becomes so enamored with the might of Soviet construction projects that he composes a choral symphony entitled the ‘Tale of Siberian Land.’ Andrei is then reunited with his beloved who finds him in the depths of Siberia. The two travel to Moscow where Andrei's symphony is performed in the Conservatory. The symphony tells his life story while presenting the “mysterious, wild, silver grey” landscape of Siberia to the audience. In displaying the “extreme might of the land,” he conveys “the extreme heroism of the Russian and Soviet conquest of Siberia.” The symphony introduces Yermak as a mighty figure who “made his way through the fog and mist to do battle with Siberia.” The film then begins a