Yalutorovsk

Yalutorovsk stands on the left bank of the Tobol in western Siberia. A Russian fortified settlement and agricultural sloboda were established here in 1659, at the site of the older Tatar settlement of Yavlu-Tur. A report from the governor of Tyumen described the establishment of the fort and new settlement; two farming peasants, Pyotr Ulyanov and Yelisey Gilyov, were sent to find a suitable site. The fort formed part of a line of settlements guarding the approaches to Tyumen and Tobolsk from the southeast. Farming grew around the settlement, and in 1782 Yalutorovsk became a district town in the Tobolsk governorship. Its eighteenth-century coat of arms bore a mill wheel, recalling the many flour mills of the surrounding district.