Tonshayevo

Tonshayevo lies among the forests of the upper Vetluga country, where Mari communities long lived before Russian settlers arrived in greater numbers. A 1685 register of Mari forest beekeeping lands names Tonshaykovo among the villages of the district. In the late eighteenth century settlers came from the Vyatka lands, and the surrounding locality came to be called Tonshayevo. A church was built in 1811, giving the village a new place of worship amid a countryside of older Mari settlements.