The first Russian tsar not from the Rurik family, Boris Godunov, died at the age of 53 on April 13, 1605. His death is enveloped in secrets, and to this day historians argue about whether his death was natural or violent.
Chronicle documents show that on the day of his death Godunov looked healthy, dined with great appetite and climbed the tower from which he loved to survey Moscow. Then he went down from her, feeling ill. The doctor summoned to the tsar could not do anything, the tsar bleed from his ears and nose, soon Godunov was gone.
As one of the representatives of the English ambassador Thomas Smith, who was at that moment at the court of the Russian autocrat, wrote, the tsar felt, in addition to nausea and pain in the stomach, and died before the doctor arrived.
The sudden death of Boris Godunov, stomach pains give reason to suspect that the tsar was poisoned. His death was beneficial, first of all, to the adherents of False Dmitry I, whose troops at that time were approaching Moscow.
There was also a rumor among the people that the tsar himself had poisoned himself in a fit of despair caused by his unpopularity among the people, hunger in the country and its occupation by the Poles.
Knowing Boris's temper, his character, the desire for supreme power, for which he was ready for anything (he was accused of poisoning Ivan the Terrible, the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry, son of Ivan IV), and which he achieved, becoming the de facto ruler of Russia under Fedor Ivanovich, you can to doubt the version of Godunov's suicide. The Russian people, his opinion of the tsar, were, most likely, indifferent to the autocrat. The advancement of the Poles across the country could not frighten the tsar either, because there were even worse times in Russian history, let us recall, for example, the invasion of the Mongol-Tatars into Russia.
It should not be forgotten that Godunov was often ill lately, and his death could be the result of a long illness of the autocrat.
