Itatsky

Itatsky began in 1773 as the village and post station of Itat on the Itatka River, where the Moscow-Siberian road, the great highway across Siberia, crossed the wooded country east of the Chulym. Peasant settlers from Belarus were among its first inhabitants, and the station gave travellers on the long road a place to change horses and rest. The Moscow road was the main land link between European Russia and eastern Siberia, and settlements such as Itat grew up along it at intervals of a day's travel. Carters, couriers and convoys of convicts and merchants passed through, while the villagers farmed small clearings in the surrounding forest and supplied the station.