Mechetnaya

Mechetnaya stood on the Great Irgiz, a tributary of the Volga, in a country that became an important refuge for Old Believers. Founded in 1764 by settlers returning from abroad, the sloboda grew beside a neighbouring group of hermitages and monasteries whose communities kept the traditional old rites of Russian Orthodox worship.

In 1772 the fugitive Don Cossack Yemelyan Pugachev visited the Irgiz. There he learned of unrest among the Yaik Cossacks before launching the rebellion in which he claimed to be the dead emperor Peter III. The Old Believer settlements attracted official scrutiny after his visit, though their religious life continued. In 1835 Mechetnaya was made a new district town and renamed Nikolayevsk, reflecting the steadily growing population of the Irgiz country.