Bolkhuny

Bolkhuny lies on the left bank of the Akhtuba, the great branch that runs beside the lower Volga. The village took shape in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, its name associated with a Kalmyk word for bare sandy hills. Among its early settlers were salt carriers who transported salt from Lake Baskunchak to river landings. Farming and livestock keeping sustained the community along the river, while open steppe and salt lakes extended eastward beyond the floodplain.