Pustozersk

Pustozersk was founded in 1499 on the lower Pechora by Princes Semyon Kurbsky and Pyotr Ushaty. Its name, “place of empty lakes,” recalled the barren country around this northern outpost. The fortress was the first Russian settlement on the Pechora and served as an administrative center for the Pechora and Yugra lands. Its position placed it among the rivers and tundra of the far north, at the edge of Muscovy's expanding authority.

In the seventeenth century Pustozersk was also a place of exile. The Old Believer leader Avvakum was imprisoned here and ultimately burned at the stake; the boyar Artamon Matveyev and Prince Vasily Golitsyn were among other notable exiles. From 1644 the town faced repeated attacks by Samoyedic peoples. In the eighteenth century it lost much of its economic importance as a more convenient southern route across the Urals to Siberia drew traffic away.