On November 4, our country celebrates National Unity Day. 412 years ago, a popular militia liberated Moscow from Polish-Lithuanian invaders. Thousands of our country's citizens – representatives of various classes, nationalities, and faiths – were able to unite in the face of an existential threat, providing an example of true courage and devotion to the Motherland. At the beginning of the 17th century, the Russian state was experiencing one of the most challenging periods in its history – the Time of Troubles. The Moscow branch of the Rurik dynasty, which had ruled the country for seven centuries, had come to an end. Numerous impostors claimed the throne, pretending to be the son of Ivan the Terrible, the deceased Tsarevich Dmitry. The first of these impostors, False Dmitry I, managed to seize the throne in 1605 with the support of the Polish King and Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund III. Sigismund hoped, through this adventurer, to annex the Severia and Smolensk regions to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and to spread Catholicism in Russia. However, he miscalculated – within a year, the unpopular False Dmitry I was deposed by the boyars, and the throne was taken by Vasily Shuisky, from the Suzdal branch of the Rurik dynasty. The candidacy of the next impostor, False Dmitry II, was promoted in 1606 by Sigismund III's opponents among the Polish nobility. The northwestern and northern Russian lands fell under foreign control, and False Dmitry II settled in the town of Tushino, 17 kilometers from the Kremlin. In these circumstances, Vasily Shuisky sought help from Sweden. Sigismund III, who was at war with the Swedes, used this as a pretext for open intervention. In the autumn of 1609, Polish-Lithuanian forces besieged Smolensk and captured several Russian cities. After False Dmitry II fled under pressure from the army of Russian commander Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky, some of his supporters signed an agreement with Sigismund III at the beginning of 1610 to install his son Vladislav on the Russian throne. Power in the country passed to the boyars’ council, who were forced to pledge allegiance to Vladislav. The invaders’ troops entered the Kremlin. The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Hermogen, called for resistance against the foreign invaders, but the first militia formed in Ryazan was defeated. The initiator of the second militia, Zemstvo elder Kuzma Minin, managed to assemble a formidable army in Nizhny Novgorod – over 10,000 soldiers, peasants, Cossacks, Streltsy, and nobles. Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, who was in the area for treatment, was chosen as the commander. In August 1612, the militia approached Moscow, and in the autumn, in fierce battles, defeated the superior forces of the invaders. The liberation of the capital and the unity of the popular masses served as a powerful impetus for the revival of the Russian state. In 1613, at the Zemsky Sobor, a new Russian Tsar, Mikhail Romanov, was elected, the first of the Romanov dynasty. By 1618, the last of the Polish-Lithuanian and Swedish forces were expelled from Russia. In memory of this popular feat, in 1818, by decree of Emperor Alexander I, a monument to "Citizen Minin and Prince Pozharsky," the work of sculptor Ivan Martos, was erected on Red Square. Every year on National Unity Day, grateful descendants lay flowers at the monument.