Sosnovy Ostrov

Sosnovy Ostrov, the Pine Island, began as a Russian watch post on an island in the Volga in the sixteenth century. It developed into a fishing settlement belonging to Moscow's Chudov Monastery, whose lands and fisheries extended along the river. In 1606 the settlement moved to the mainland, where it became the village of Sosnovy Ostrov. Catherine II made it a district town in 1780; thereafter it was known as Khvalynsk. The river and its fisheries remained central to the life of this settlement beneath the hills of the Volga's right bank.