Malaya Serdoba

Malaya Serdoba was established in 1697 by Cossack guards from the districts of Penza, Simbirsk and Saransk as an outlying settlement of Petrovsk. Its stockade occupied a promontory between two ravines on the right bank of the Serdoba River. The first settlers kept watch to protect the building of Petrovsk, linking their village to the fortification of Russia's southeastern frontier. In 1705 they built their first church, dedicated to the Archangel Michael, regarded as the heavenly patron of the Russian army.