Chertanla

Chertanla stood where the stream of that name joins the Bolshoy Uzen, in the dry steppe east of the Volga. Old Believers returning from Poland established the village in 1760. Its exposed position lay amid the lands of Kazakh and Kalmyk pastoralists, and the settlers faced repeated attacks. In 1787 the Russian government began building the nearby Uzen fortress to protect the district. Chertanla became the town of Novy Uzen in 1835, taking its later name from the river.