Under Peter I, this class of light cavalry began to serve as organized regiments on a semi-permanent basis in 1723 based on Serbian Hussars out of the Habsburg monarchy.

In the campaign, the subunits of the hussar regiment invariably were part of the vanguard and rearguard, hiding the movement of the main troops of the active formation, conducting reconnaissance of the enemy's actions.

[3] Our great sovereign, against his enemies of the state, gathers a host of many and uncountable, and the orders are different:Many thousands of spear companies are organized in hussars;The other many thousands of spear companies are organized in hussars, cavalry, with a fire fight, and in Reitar formation;...Then our great sovereign has a military structure.

[5] These companies showed themselves splendidly in the battles of the Russian–Polish War and in August 1661 they were deployed into a regiment, which received "hussar shafts" (spears) and armour from the Armoury.

[7] In 1701, this consolidated formation operated in the area of the Pechersky Monastery "to save the district peasants of the Pskov Uyezd", later it was reorganized into a garrison dragoon regiment, and in the period from 1713 to 1715 was in Smolensk.

Later, 1,500 Wallachian hussars were left in Russian service, of which three regiments were formed: They existed until 1721, when they were disbanded, after the conclusion of the Nystadt Peace Treaty, due to the high cost of their maintenance as mercenary units and their indiscipline.

In 1737, in addition to the Little Russian and Zaporozhye (Cherkasy) Cossacks, it was allowed to accept Hungarians, Wallachians, Transylvanians and Moldavians into the regiment.

On October 14, 1741, by decree of Anna Leopoldovna, the composition of the four existing hussar regiments (Serbian, Hungarian, Moldavian and Georgian) was brought to a uniformity: 963 people[11] in 10 companies.

The last mention of these irregulars is recorded in 1701, when they were transferred to newly raised Novgorod Dragoon Regiment of regular cavalry.

In 1707, Apostol Kigetsch, a Wallachian nobleman-serving Emperor Peter the Great, was commanded to form a khorugv ("banner" or "squadron") of 300 men to serve on the Ottoman-Russian border.

With the completion of a regular army by Peter the Great, as well as the permanent establishment of regiments, the existing hussars and other irregulars (other than the Cossacks) were disbanded.

In 1723 however, Tsar Peter authorized the formation of a hussar regiment, recruited exclusively from Serbian light cavalry formerly serving in the Austrian army.

During the regency of Grand Duchess Anna Leopoldovna, on 14 October 1741, four Hussar regiments, a Serbian (Serbskiy), a Moldavian (Moldavskiy), a Hungarian (Vengerskiy) and a Georgian (Gruzinskiy) were authorized.

Under Catherine II Rajko Preradović's and Jovan Šević's existing hussar units were merged into one – the Bahmutskiy Hussars- in 1764.

Two years later, additional hussar units were formed with Cossack, Bulgarian and Macedonian recruits these were disbanded.

The decision to abolish the traditions of the triumphant Russian army was very unpopular and widely opposed by military personnel.

The new uniforms were designed in a simplified style, imitating the national semi-historical Russian costume, and were considered too simple and rustic.

In 1907, after the defeat in Russo-Japanese War (which to a degree was caused by the unpopular 1882 reform), the government of Nicholas II decided to restore the prestige of the Russian army.