The Chorna rada of 1663 (Ukrainian: Чорна рада) was a Cossack Rada meeting on 17–18 June, 1663 near Nizhyn, Ukraine, where thousands of common Cossacks, Zaporozhians, Ukrainian peasants, including the Cossack starshyna, where assembled to elect a new Hetman of Left-bank Ukraine. The main candidates were Acting hetman Yakym Somko, Nizhyn colonel Vasyl Zolotarenko, and Koshovyi Otaman Ivan Briukhovetsky. The starshyna proposed and supported Yakym Somko who was planning to reduce Muscovite influence in left-bank Ukraine, and restore Ukraine on both sides on the Dnipro, and Zolotarenko chose to support his opponent Somko as well. But the common Cossacks proposed Briukhovetsky, who promised to lower taxes. The tsar also supported Briukhovetsky's candidacy hoping to use him to increase Muscovite