Tsar Ivan passed a decree on 1 October 1550 "on the stationing in Moscow and surrounding districts of one thousand service people," which is considered to be the formal founding of the streltsy regiments.

While earlier in the 16th century they had been an elite force, their effectiveness was reduced by poor training and lack of choice in recruiting.

[4] Streltsy were subdivided into "select" (выборные, vybornyje), later "Muscovite" (московские); and "municipal" (городские, in different Russian cities).

The largest military administrative unit of the streltsy forces was the body responsible for the issuing of gear or kit (прибор).

The commanders of the streltsy (стрелецкие головы) and colonels in charge of regiments served as senior officers of the prikazy.

These uniform coats were red, yellow, blue or green (kaftans) with orange or natural leather coloured boots.

[citation needed] The streltsy and their families lived in their own neighborhoods or districts settlements and received money and bread from the State Treasury.

They often fired from a platform and employed a mobile wooden "fortification" known in Russian as a "gulyay-gorod" (literally a "walking fort").

Even though the streltsy demonstrated their fighting efficiency on several occasions, such as during the siege of Kazan in 1552, the war with Livonia, the Northern Wars in the early 17th century, and military operations in Poland and Crimea, in the second half of the 17th century, the streltsy started to display their backwardness compared to the regular soldier or reiter regiments (see Imperial Russian Army).

Military service hardships, frequent salary delays, abuse on the part of local administration and commanders led to regular streltsy, especially the poorest ones, to participate in anti-serfdom uprisings in the 17th and early 18th centuries.

In the late 17th century, the streltsy of Moscow began to actively participate in a struggle for power between different government groups, supporting the Old Believers and showing hostility towards any foreign innovations.

Tortures included roasting the bare back, tearing flesh with iron hooks, and crushing feet in wooden presses called butuks.

The most efficient streltsy regiments took part in the most important military operations of the Great Northern War and in Peter’s Pruth River Campaign of 1711.