The Empire of Muscovy, shut off from Western Europe by a Chinese--or, more correctly, Byzantine--wall, maintained during the sixteenth century its attitude of utmost prejudice towards the Jews, and refused to admit them into its borders. This prejudice was part of the general disfavor with which the Russian people of that period, imbued as it was with the traditions of Tataric-Byzantine culture, looked upon foreigners or "infidels." But the prejudice against the Jews was fed, in addition, from a specific source. The recollection of the "Judaizing heresy" which had struck terror to the hearts of the pious Muscovites at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century[208] had not yet died out. The Jews were regarded as dangerous magicians and seducers, superstitious rumors ascribing all possible crimes to them. The ambassador of the Muscovite Grand Duke, Basil III., at Rome, observed in 1526 to the Italian scholar Paolo Giovio: "The Muscovite people dread no one more than the Jews, and do not admit them into their borders." Jewish merchants of Poland and Lithuania visited occasionally, in connection with their business affairs, the border city Smolensk, but they had no permanent residence there. From time to time they would carry their goods even into the capital, Moscow, although such daring did not always pass unpunished. About 1545 the goods imported by Jewish merchants from Brest-Litovsk to Moscow were burned there, on which occasion the Muscovite ambassador called the attention of the Polish Government to the fact that the Jews had imported forbidden merchandise to Russia, though they had not even the right to travel thither. In 1550 the Polish King Sigismund Augustus addressed a "charter" to Tzar Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV.), demanding the admission of Lithuanian Jews into Russia for business purposes, by virtue of the former commercial treaties between the two countries. Ivan IV. rejected this demand in resolute terms: It is not convenient to allow Jews to come with their goods to Russia, since many evils result from them. For they import poisonous herbs [medicines] into our realm, and lead astray the Russians from Christianity. Therefore he, the [Polish] King, should no more write about these Jews. Ivan the Terrible soon had occasion to demonstrate concretely that he was not inclined to tolerate Jews in his domains. When, in 1563, the Russian troops occupied the Polish border city Polotzk,[209] the Tzar gave orders to have all local Jews converted to the Greek Orthodox faith, and those who refused baptism drowned in the Dvina. His attitude towards the Poles was more indulgent. He contented himself in their case with taking them captive and demolishing their churches. Fortunately a few years later, in 1579, Polotzk was restored to Poland through the bravery of Stephen Batory, the protector of the Jews.