Bokovskaya

Bokovskaya lies in the open steppe of the Upper Don, in the country between the Khopyor and Chir rivers, far upstream of the Don's mouth near Rostov. The land is level grassland cut by broad river valleys and floodplain meadows. This was Don Cossack country. A settlement called Veesky already stood at nearby Vyoshenskaya on a map of southern Russia printed in 1638, and local tradition dates that stanitsa to 1672. Here the Cossack settlements strung along the Don looked out over a steppe that stayed thinly peopled, with the river serving as both road and frontier.