Ufa

Ufa stands in the Bashkir lands at the confluence of the Ufa and Belaya rivers. Medieval maps marked a town called Pascherti in the vicinity, and later writers connected the name with the Bashkirs. In 1574, by order of Ivan IV, a Russian fortress was built on the hill called Tura-Tau. The settlement received town status in 1586. Its position made it a center of Russian administration in the lands between the middle Volga and the southern Urals.

The town and the wider Bashkir country were long subject to the governors of Orenburg. In 1781 Ufa became the seat of a separate governorate; the administrative reforms of 1796 reunited it with Orenburg. In 1802 Ufa became the center of the enlarged Orenburg Governorate, which stretched across much of the southern Ural country. Its changing status reflected the incorporation of Bashkir lands into the provincial institutions of the Russian Empire.