Kastornoye

Kastornoye lies on the Olym River, a tributary of the Sosna in the Don basin. The river bends through a landscape of uplands and ravines on the old southern frontier of the Russian state. Local tradition recalls a wooden fort and watch post on the steep right bank, established to guard against steppe raids. By the eighteenth century Kastornoye was a village in a district where rivers and their valleys shaped settlement.