Alyosha Popovich alongside Dobrynya Nikitich

Dobrynya Nikitich

Dobrynya Nikitich is one of the most popular bogatyrs after Ilya Murometz from the Kievan Rus era. Many byliny center on Dobrynya completing tasks set him by the prince. Dobrynya is often portrayed as being close to the royal family, undertaking sensitive and diplomatic missions.As a courtier,...

 and Ilya Muromets

Ilya Muromets

Ilya Muromets is a Kievan Rus' epic hero. He is celebrated in numerous byliny . Along with Dobrynya Nikitich and Alyosha Popovich he is regarded as the greatest of all the legendary bogatyrs...

, is a bogatyr

Bogatyr

The bogatyr was a medieval heroic warrior of Kievan Rus' and the Novgorodian Republic, akin to a Western European knight errant.- Kievan Rus' :...

 (i.e., a medieval knight-errant

Knight-errant

A knight-errant is a figure of medieval chivalric romance literature. "Errant," meaning wandering or roving, indicates how the knight-errant would typically wander the land in search of adventures to prove himself as a knight, such as in a pas d'armes.The first known appearance of the term...

). He is the youngest of the 3 main bogatyrs of Kiev Rus.

The three of them are represented together at Vasnetsov's famous painting Bogatyrs.

In Byliny

Byliny

Byliny may refer to:*Byliny, plural of bylina, a traditional East-Slavic narrative poem*Byliny, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship...

 (oral stories) he is described as a crafty priest's son who wins by tricking and outsmarting his foes. He is known for his agility, slyness, and craftiness. Alyosha Popovich is fun-loving, sometimes being depicted as a "mocker of women," and may occasionally be a liar and a cheat. He defeated the dragon Tugarin Zmeyevich

Tugarin Zmeyevich

Tugarin Zmeyevich is a mythical creature in East European bylinas and fairy tales, which personifies evil and cruelty and appears in the form of a bogatyr of a dragon-like nature....

 by trickery. In later versions the dragon was transformed into the figure of a Mongol Khan

Khan (title)

Khan is an originally Altaic and subsequently Central Asian title for a sovereign or military ruler, widely used by medieval nomadic Turko-Mongol tribes living to the north of China. 'Khan' is also seen as a title in the Xianbei confederation for their chief between 283 and 289...

.

Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin

In this bylina Alyosha Popovich and his servant, Yekim, set out for Kiev to meet Prince Vladimir. When they arrive at Kiev

Kiev

Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

, Prince Vladimir is having a feast. Prince Vladimir offers Alyosha Popovich to sit next to him, but Alyosha Popovich refuses and decides to take the lowest place in the social hierarchy by sitting next to the stove. At the feast, the monster Tugarin insults the Prince by sitting between Vladimir and his wife. Tugarin also does not pray to God and gorges himself at the feast. Alyosha Popovich, who is disgusted with the way Tugarin is acting, insults the creature with stories about the deaths of a dog and a cow. Tugarin is provoked by these stories and throws a dagger at Alyosha Popovich. Then, Alyosha Popovich accepts Tugarin's challenge to fight. The battle takes place in an open field, and when Alyosha Popovich arrives, Tugarin is already flying in the sky on his wings made of paper. Alyosha Popovich prays for rain, and Tugarin falls to the ground because his paper wings get wet. Finally, Alyosha Popovich knocks Tugarin's head off with his staff, sticks it on a spear, cuts his body into small pieces, and presents it to Prince Vladimir's court.