This page was created by Christopher Matthew Jarmas.
Founding of Ufa: 1574
It was not by historical accident that Ivan the Terrible decreed that the city would become a defensive position in Russia's eastward expansion - the city's location is strategically valuable, located below the confluence of the Belaya and Ufa rivers. A trade route had developed between Kazan and Tyumen, which one can imagine was a harrowing journey at the very periphery of the tsar's authority. Ufa was granted town status in 1586. Historian Chester Dunning places the city's founding in the context of Russia's continued pressuring of the remnants of the Golden Horde: "The founding of Ufa…directly threatened the Nogai Tatars, who repeatedly but unsuccessfully protested against growing pressure from the Russians" (Dunning, p. 84). Ufa would remain particularly prone to Muslim-minority strife up until the time of the Pugachev rebellion.