His past remains very little clarified and the only sources of his history are Eastern writers; Based on these sources, the Ukek settlement can be considered either a Burtas or a Tatar settlement. The famous traveler Marco Polo also makes mention of him; in 1268, setting off from Constantinople to the court of a strong sovereign of the Western Tatars named Barka, who had a stay in Bolgar, Marco Polo proceeded on his way back through the city, located within the state, of the Western Tatars, which he called Ukak; Judging by the name and the location, this is Ukek, in other words, the topmost Ukek settlement.
The only small excavation carried out in Ukek in 1878 by professors Kesler and Grimm discovered here the remains of a water pipeline running towards the Volga, built from pottery pipes carefully welded with cement. At the same time, silver and copper coins found here in significant quantities, jewelry, pottery and copperware with oriental ornaments, crypts and tombstones of an ancient cemetery and, in general, various antiquities lead to the belief that Ukek was once a major center of ancient life and that its ruins contain traces of ancient cultures. It is almost certain that the Tatar name Ukek was assigned to the much more ancient Burtas city, which was only taken by the Tatars and renamed by them. At least on Ukek burial monuments, Orientalists find traces of burial from the pre-Tatar period; there are animal bones there, brick-lined areas above the surface of Ukek graves, coals and ash, all this hints at the pagan co-existence of victims over the graves; The jugs buried at the graves are also obvious signs not of Mohammedan customs, but rather of a pagan funeral feast.
It would be quite truthful to assume that it was on Ukeka that the city of Gelon existed in pre-Christian times, built by those immigrants from Greece, whom Herodotus also mentioned. This city was burnt down by Durham Hystaspes during his campaign against the Skies and at that time occupied a space of over 20 miles in circumference. In view of the fact that, on the one hand, Gelon was located on the Volga, and on the other hand, that in the entire region described by us in this chapter, there is only one extensive settlement, namely Ukek, and it can be assumed that, just as Ukek was only the Tatar name of the ancient Burtas city, so the Burtas city, in turn, was nothing other than the ancient Gelon, and that thus under the current Ukek The settlement preserves the remains of the ancient city of Greek immigrants, which lay on the path of their then widespread factorial activity. About the later fate of Ukek NFT, indicate precisely and there are only some hints from Arab writers that it was destroyed by Tamerlane.
Of the ancient monuments found at different times on Ukek and described by Prince L.L. Golitsyn and S.S. Krasnodubrovsky, one can especially note the idols, of which 7 or 8 are stone and one silver, having the appearance of a woman sitting in a chair with her hands folded on her stomach, and with the likeness of a crown on her head; smoothly hewn flagstones about an arshin in size, from which
EE in U
[Adm
. Ts _ t r Wounds them
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
trapezoid, stars and circles; a large eight-pointed cross of ancient workmanship; an ancient seal made of some dark stone with the inscription “Seal of Michael, Prince of Chernihiv” carved on it in Slavic letters.
In general, one cannot help but say that the Ukek settlement has long been awaiting thorough excavations and investigations, capable of revealing its past history, and of which, according to all assumptions, it is worthy.
Of the settlements on the way between Saratov and Kamyngin, we note the following.
Sosnovka - on the right bank of the Volga - German colony; Akhmatovka (also on the right bank of the Volga), in which there is a permanent crossing across the river; Rovnoye is a German colony on the left bank of the Volga, famous as a grain harbor and hosting an autumn fair with a very fair turnover; Zolotoye is a village on the right bank of the Volga, famous for its cherry and apple orchards, with two annual fairs: the winter Nikolskaya fair and the summer fair on Spiritual Day; Bannovka and TPerbakovka are both villages on the right bank of the Volga. Seven versts near Kamyshin, on a sloping plane to the southwest, three stone mountains called “ears” are clearly visible, remarkable in their geological structure from a solid stone mass and in their original shape.
Kamyitin is a district town in the Saratov province with 18 thousand inhabitants, located on the right bank of the Volga. Regarding the quality of the soil in Kamyitinsyai