Taskala

Taskala lies on the Derkul, a tributary in the Ural basin, amid the steppe hills west of Oral. In 1769 the naturalist Peter Simon Pallas travelled through this country and described winter shelters where Yaik Cossacks had cut hay and gathered for the cold season. His account also observed that Kalmyks had not migrated through this area that year. The river valley and surrounding heights lay within a frontier landscape shared and contested by pastoral peoples and Cossack communities.