Kamyshin

Kamyshin stands where the Kamyshinka meets the Volga, near the overland crossing toward the Ilovlya and the Don basin. The town's official history dates its foundation to 1668. That first settlement was destroyed in June 1670 by a detachment acting for Stepan Razin, and the renewed settlement emerged as Dmitrievsk by 1697. Soldiers transferred from the Kazan country helped establish this new foothold on the river.

Its location drew the attention of Peter I's government to the possibility of joining the Volga and Don systems. Work on the Petrovsky canal in 1697–1701 attempted to turn the short land crossing into a navigable connection, but the project was not completed. The town nevertheless continued as a river settlement whose fortunes depended on transport and the southern frontier. In 1780 it received the name Kamyshin and became a district town in the Saratov administration. These changes joined military settlement, an ambitious canal project and provincial government in one place, while the Volga supplied the route along which people, provisions and merchandise reached its landing places.