Belorechensk

This place lies on the Belaya River, a left tributary of the Kuban that rises on the main watershed of the Caucasus, flows through deep canyons and joins the Kuban in the lowlands. Before the Russian conquest, Circassian (Adyghe) communities held the valleys and foothills of this river, and their pastures and mountain roads linked the uplands with the plain.

In 1792 Catherine II rewarded the Black Sea Cossack Host, formed in 1787 from former Zaporozhian Cossacks, with the Kuban land. The host settled north of the Kuban in 1792–1794 and guarded the Caucasus Fortified Defence Line from the Kuban's mouth to the Laba's.