Malykovka

Malykovka stood on the right bank of the Volga at the mouth of the little river that gave the settlement its name. First recorded in 1699, it was settled by peasants brought to the river lands by a Moscow monastery. Fishing and the processing of fish were their chief occupations, earning the place the informal name of the Fish Town. It also served as a military post guarding merchant vessels on the Volga.

Peter I granted Malykovka to Alexander Menshikov in 1710; in 1728 it passed to the treasury. In the later eighteenth century its inhabitants also cultivated grain, raised livestock and planted orchards. Catherine II raised the village to town status in 1780 under the name Volgsk, later Volsk. Its merchants prospered in the grain trade, and by 1797 streets running both along and across the river had formed a network of blocks and squares.