Koksharov

Kotelnich stands on the Vyatka, where a later tradition placed the Mari town of Koksharov before the arrival of Novgorodian settlers. Archaeological evidence instead identifies an early Russian settlement nearby, and in the fourteenth century the town was moved downriver and fortified. It first appears in a Russian chronicle in 1459, when a Muscovite army took it; another campaign in 1489 brought the Vyatka towns under Moscow.

The Alexeyevskaya fair, established in 1647, became important to trade between regions. Stone churches followed, beginning with the Trinity Cathedral in 1705. A fire destroyed the town and its churches in 1686, and further fires struck in later years. In 1780 Kotelnich became an uyezd town, and its coat of arms displayed a gold cauldron on green ground. A regular town plan was adopted in 1784.