Mordovo

Mordovo grew on the right bank of the Bityug, in a district whose earlier woodland was associated with the Mordvin people. By 1724 the village was shown with a church on a map of Voronezh province. Its inhabitants included service people and #italic odnodvortsy#!, smallholding peasants descended from frontier servicemen. A 1782 record described Mordovo as a local administrative centre with around four thousand inhabitants. The river valley thus supported a substantial village in the lands south of Tambov.