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In 1556, he annexed the Astrakhan Khanate and destroyed the largest slave market on the river Volga. These conquests complicated the migration of the aggressive nomadic hordes from Asia to Europe through Volga and transformed Russia into a multinational and multiconfessional state.
Ivan IV corresponded with Orthodox leaders overseas as well. In response to a letter of Patriarch [[Joachim of Alexandria]] asking the Tsar for financial assistance for the [[St. Catherine's Monastery (Sinai)|Monastery of St. Catherine]] in Sinai, which had suffered from the Turks, Ivan IV sent in 1558 a delegation to Egypt led by [[archdeacon]] Gennady, who, however, died in [[Constantinople]] before he could reach Egypt. From then on, the embassy was headed by a Smolensk merchant Vasily Poznyakov. Poznyakov's delegation visited Alexandria, Cairo, and Sinai, brought the patriarch a fur coat and an icon sent by the Tsar, and left an interesting account of its two and half years' travels.<ref>[http://lib.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default.aspx?tabid=5142 ХОЖДЕНИЕ НА ВОСТОК ГОСТЯ ВАСИЛИЯ ПОЗНЯКОВА С ТОВАРИЩИ] (The travels to the the Orient by the merchant Vasily Poznyakov and his companions) {{ru icon}}</ref>
The Tsar had [[St. Basil's Cathedral (Moscow)|St. Basil's Cathedral]] constructed in Moscow to commemorate the seizure of Kazan. Legend has it that he was so impressed with the structure that he had the architect, Postnik Yakovlev, blinded, so that he could never design anything as beautiful again. In fact, it is known that Yakovlev designed several churches and the kremlin walls in Kazan itself in the early 1560s, as well as the chapel over St. Vasilii's grave that was added to St. Basil's Cathedral in 1588, several years after Ivan's death, indicating that he had not, in fact, been blinded by the tsar years earlier.
