A window to the past Ardatov (on the question of the foundation and localization of the city in the Simbirsk Volga region)

The article is written in the local history context and contains a number of little-studied facts of the emergence and localization of the city of Ardatov in the Simbirsk province, which make it possible to comprehend the historical and cultural panorama of the genesis and existence of the processes that took place in remote corners of Russia at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries. The study is based on the documents from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA), the former State Archive of the Epoch of Feudalism and Serfdom (GAFKE), a list of urban settlements of the Russian Empire in 1860-1865, a topographic description of the Simbirsk governorship, a boyar list, information on the genealogy of Russian noble families, the history of the Simbirsk nobility, newspaper publications per 1866, as well as the censuses of the Alatyr Mordovians. The authors compared the data that are introduced to the scientific world for the first time and were not used in compiling the general list of cities in Russia.