Dzerzhinskoye

On the Usolka north of Kansk, Dzerzhinskoye grew from a homestead established by the Cossack leader Aleksey Samoylov in the 1730s. A wooden church dedicated to the Nativity of Christ was begun there in 1739, and the settlement became known as Khristorozhdestvenskoye, later shortened to Rozhdestvenskoye. The river belongs to the Angara basin, connecting the village with the forested country of the middle Yenisei.