Lysye Gory

Lysye Gory was founded in 1740 as a small guard settlement by Cossacks who brought its name from a fort near Tambov. Cossacks had inhabited the surrounding country earlier: documents of the late sixteenth century record a Cossack yurt on the Balanda River. In 1745 a church dedicated to Saint Demetrius of Thessalonica was built through the efforts of Grigory Orlov. The settlement was also known as Dmitriyevskoye after its church.