Atkarsk

Atkarsk stands at the mouth of the Atkara, where it joins the Medveditsa. The town grew on the site of a Tatar settlement, in a district of woodland and rivers on the northern edge of the steppe. Its later inhabitants combined cultivation with service on a frontier exposed to nomadic raids.

In 1699 Peter I ordered a settlement of ploughing soldiers established on the right bank of the Medveditsa at the Atkara's mouth. Named Yetkara after the river, it was inhabited by soldiers who stood guard while also sowing and harvesting their own grain. Catherine II elevated the settlement to town status in 1780 and made the newly named Atkarsk the centre of a district. Its arms, approved in 1781, showed three fishing birds flying above a river. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the town remained small and had little commercial importance.