Kozmodemyansk

Kozmodemyansk stands on the right bank of the Volga in the country of the Hill Mari. It was founded as a Russian fortified town in 1583, during the consolidation of power after the conquest of Kazan. The often-repeated story that Ivan the Terrible personally chose the site on his return from Kazan belongs to local legend. The documented foundation instead places the town within the later chain of forts built to secure the middle Volga.

By the early seventeenth century, merchants and craftsmen formed an important part of urban life. Records preserved from its administrative office include transactions in land and houses, loans, labour hiring and contracts, reflecting the dealings of a growing town. In the eighteenth century it belonged to the Kazan administrative system, and by 1785 was recorded as a district town. Stone houses and churches appeared toward the century's end. Its riverside position joined military and administrative authority to trade, well before the much larger timber business of the nineteenth century.