Buguruslan is a Russian town in the Orenburg Region. It is located on the southern slopes of Bugulma-Belebey Upland, on River Bolshoy Kinel (the basin of Volga), at the confluence of the River Mochegai, 343 km to the northwest of Orenburg.

The town with the population of 49 971 people (as of 2014) takes the area of 76 sq km.

History of Buguruslan

It was founded as a settlement on the right bank of River Bolshoy Kinel in 1748 by Russian peasants and handicraftsmen, who moved to Zavolzhye. It kept the name of the Bashkir village of Buguruslan. The name was derived from Turkic antroponyms: Arsalan meaning “lion”, and Buga literally “stud bull”, but was used in names as parents’ wish for power and might to their child.

It was a district town of the Orenburg Province from 1796, and of the Samara Province from 1851.

In the 19th century it was an important trading center for grain, wax, wool, and leather, with two fairs per year. The town had a soap factory and a wax refinery.

In 1847 the Pokrovsk Convent was founded in Buguruslan.

In 1856 the district town of Buguruslan in the Samara Province had 2 churches, 735 houses, and 33 shops.

Places of Interest

The town has N. V. Gogol Drama Theater founded in 1898, the Museum of Local Lore and M.B. Frunze Museum Apartment.

At the railway station of Buguruslan there is a stall of the printing house carriage of the Czech writer Yaroslav Gashek, who was the editor of the front newspaper of the First Army in 1919.

30 km away from Buguruslan, in Aksakovo Village, there is the writer S. T. Aksakov museum estate Novoaksakovo, where he spent his childhood and lived after his marriage (1816-20).