Ust-Chatyun

Ust-Chatyun occupies the Kuban country around the mouth of the Laba, where a tributary descending from the Caucasus joins the larger river. In the late eighteenth century the junction became a position on Russia's fortified frontier. Alexander Suvorov established an Alexandrovskoye fortification here in 1778, and it was enlarged under General Gudovich in the 1790s. The Ust-Labinsk fortress and a neighbouring Cossack settlement formed part of the line facing the Circassian lands south of the Kuban.