Sarata

Sarata lies in the steppe valley of the river whose name means salty water. The valley came under Ottoman control after the capture of Cetatea Albă and Chilia in 1484, and belonged to an endowment for Mecca and Medina. Ottoman registers mention the river in the sixteenth century; a settlement of the name is known by 1597. In the seventeenth century Evliya Çelebi described a village inhabited chiefly by Tatars and associated it with the tomb of a holy man called Sarı Ata.

After Bessarabia passed to Russia in 1812, German settlers led by Pastor Ignaz Lindl established a new colony at Sarata in 1822. Families from Bavaria and Württemberg built the village on allotted land. Lindl was expelled the following year, and the community's land was subsequently divided among the families.