The same thing happened: the grandson of the Kalmyk Khan Ayuki received holy baptism under the name of Prince Peter Taiping. Offended by his relatives during the distribution of inheritance, Pyotr Taishin arrived in St. Petersburg in 1786 and began to work there to return the ulus that had been taken from him by his relatives and, by the way, to be given all the farms of the baptized Kalmyks and allowed to build a city for them in a suitable manner. This request came at the request of Rumyantsev, who immediately recognized from St. Petersburg that the most convenient place for installing Kalmyks in city life would be on the Ik River, a tributary of the Sakmara, somewhat east of Orenburg. The execution of this duty was entrusted to the stalsk sovftnik Virilov, also a Netherburg official. Afterwards, before I could settle the Kalmyks in the rfk Ik, “it was decided” that they should be settled not there, but along the rfk Tok, which is what “0s0boe me” submitted. The college of foreign affairs agreed with Kirillov's opinion and allowed him to carry out the settlement of the Kalmyks along the RK Tok. Then the matter moved from the realm of clerical speculation to the realm of reality, and the new head of the Orenburg region, Tatishchev, found for his part that it was necessary to settle the Kalmyks not on the Ik River and not along the Tok River, but directly in the steppe, between the Volga, Cheremshan and Sok, and a city should be built for them on the Volga channel, called Kunya Until that time, gangs of thieves huddled around Volozhka. If the reader looks at the map, he will see how enormous the distances are between the three points assigned for the settlement of the same Kalmyks by three different administrators and how great the difference in the conditions of these three locations is.
Be that as it may, the construction of the Kalmyk city took place in 1738 on the site chosen by Tatishchev. Since one of the goals of its founding was the spread of Christianity among the Kalmyks, the city was given the name “Stavropol,” i.e. “city of the holy cross.” Tatishchev even suggested calling it “Prosvysheshe”—not a bad name for the provincial town that Stavropol was destined to turn into.
They tried to make the newly built city the Kalmyk capital; For the sake of this qi, several offices were established, many different positions were established, and the Kalmyk army was established; Probably for the same reason, huge tracts of state-owned lands and forests of 100 versts around Stavropol were divided between the noble Kalmyks and, by the way, between the government officials; Further, the treasury allocated significant sums for buildings. In a word, everything was done that, at that time, the officials of Petersburg considered necessary in this case. As a result, after exactly 100 years, which had passed in various expensive financial activities, Emperor Nicholas T. became convinced that all these international activities were just a useless expense; The commandant's and Kalmyk offices were closed, and the Kalmyk army was transferred to the Orenburg border line. The city, created completely artificially, as was to be expected, turned into insignificance. Of course, at present there is no mention of Kalmyks in Stavropol NFT. The only memory of them is a large sandy island, separated from Stavropol from the Volga and called Kalmyk. The commercial significance of Stavropol lies only in the fact that this seedy town sells grain in small quantities. Steamboats approach during high water along Volozhk to the city itself. Among others, there are people who go where they go for treatment. one could perhaps call Stavropol; there, too, in some way there is a “resort”, one way or another visited by the public, thirsty for refreshment with kumis. Needless to say, during the winter all life in the city completely disappears, and Stavropol turns into a completely dead kingdom. A little higher than Stavropol, not far from the village of Usolya, where the Volga turns to the left, beginning to form the so-called Samara Luka, on the right bank rises a hillock, known as Karaulny Hill; It is from here that the mountains famous throughout the Volga and well-known far beyond its borders, UKeguli, begin, in hostels simply called “UKeguli”. Regarding this name, there are two opinions: some take it, as stated above, in the form of “Keguli”, while others call the mountains “Viguli”. We will adhere to the first spelling, since we find that the origin of the name IYaegul is most likely in that form, it is the city of Monastyrey and partly the city of D
to anger myanov. The point is that in those blissful times in which the fatal penalty arose:
The Volga River is seething, they say, Near Samara, robbers are playing pranks...
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
Mount Leishkva, near Samara.