Korkina Sloboda

Korkina Sloboda stood on a bend of the Ishim River, where high ground offered a site for a fortified settlement. It grew into a centre of the surrounding farming district and a stopping place on routes across southern Siberia. In 1782 it became the town of Ishim, taking its name from the river beside it.

Established in the late seventeenth century, the sloboda served as a military outpost on the Ishim defensive line and encouraged cultivation in the district. By 1708 it and its dependent villages contained hundreds of households. The settlement became an administrative centre in the eighteenth century and developed regular fairs. Merchants and craftspeople exchanged the products of local farming and livestock husbandry, while the river and roads linked the community with Tobolsk and places farther east.