Within half a year, after his father left for war for the Grand Prince’s Kyiv throne, Vladimir had to go through hard trials in his new status as the prince-delegate. His native uncle—the appanage prince of Dorogobuzh—initiated a revolt in Smolensk, which Vladimir crushed with the power of arms from his new infantry regiments. The uprising, drowned in blood, and the death of Vladimir’s father in the captured Kyiv—captured with the help of Polovtsian Khan Kotyan—opened new horizons for Vladimir…