Shchenya was a Gediminid princeling whose great grandfather was a son of Patrikas, who settled in Moscow and married a sister of the grand duke.

[1] In 1489, the prince and his army of 64,000 men besieged and captured the city of Kirov (then known as Khlynov) of the Vyatka Land, the inhabitants of which had often pillaged northern Grand Duchy of Moscow.

In 1499, under the leadership of Prince Daniil Kholmsky, Shchenya defeated the Grand Hetman of Lithuania Konstanty Ostrogski in the Battle of Vedrosha and took him prisoner.

In 1501, his army was crushed in the Battle of the Siritsa River by Wolter von Plettenberg, master of the Livonian Order and ally of the Lithuanian ruler Alexander Jagiellon.

After the fall of Ivan Yuriyevich Patrikeyev, and his son-in-law Semeon Ivanovich Ryapolovsky, Shchenya took the post of the second voyevoda of Moscow.