Gorodovikovsk

The steppe around Gorodovikovsk lies north of the Manych depression, where shallow lakes and dry grasslands extend between the Don and the Caspian country. Before the town was founded, this was a landscape of seasonal pastures used by Kalmyk communities. The Torghuts and other Oirat groups established a khanate on the lower Volga in the seventeenth century, and their herds ranged over the surrounding steppe. After the great eastward migration of 1771, the khanate was abolished, though Kalmyks remained west of the Volga.