Zainsk

The Zainsk stockade was founded on the Stepnoy Zay by order of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich in 1652 and completed four years later. It belonged to the Trans-Kama fortified line, which ran from the Volga toward the mouth of the Ik. In 1656 a detachment of eighty-one men of the Yellow Banner was stationed here among the servicemen sent to the new line. In January 1774 Pugachev's insurgents took the fortress, bringing the uprising to this old frontier post.