Orel-Gorodok

(also Kergedan), an old Russian fortified settlement on the left bank of the Kama River, established in 1564 by the Stroganovs, a wealthy merchant family, near their salt mines. Orel-Gorodok was protected by a wooden palisade and armed with cannons and harquebus-type muskets. Outside the palisade were the households of the votchinniki (owners of patrimonial estates), churches, and a posad (merchants’ and artisans’ quarter). The local Komi-Permiak population also lived in the settlement. Orel-Gorodok served as the base from which Ermak, in 1579 or 1581, set out on a campaign that led to the opening up of Western Siberia.

V. A. Oborin’s archaeological excavations in Orel-Gorodok in 1952 uncovered the household of an artisan who carved on bone, a trench, and remains of wooden fortifications and churches. Among the finds were many tiles in a style strongly influenced by Muscovite craftsmanship. Because of a shift in the riverbed, the settlement was moved to the right bank of the Kama in 1706–07. Orel-Gorodok is now the urban-type settlement of Orel, situated on the Kama Reservoir in Usol’e Raion, Perm’ Oblast.