Buy is a town in Kostroma Oblast

Kostroma Oblast

Kostroma Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Kostroma.Major historic towns include Kostroma, Sharya, Nerekhta, Galich, Soligalich, and Makaryev. Textile industries have been developed there since the early 18th century...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, which stands on the Kostroma River

Kostroma River

The Kostroma is a river in the European part of Russia. It flows through the Kostroma and Yaroslavl Oblasts, and is a left tributary of the Volga, which it enters at the Gorky Reservoir, at the city of Kostroma, at ....

. Population:

Overview

Buy was originally a trading post and protected by a hill fortress of Finno Ugrian Meri (Russian Merja) people c. 400-500 AD. Its original Meri name is not known, but in Finnish language it was called either Vuoksensuu or Vieksansuu (Mouth of Vuoksi / Vieksa). It was inhabited by the Finno-Ugrian peoples of the area at least up to the Mongol invasion to Russia in 1237-1238. During the Mongol threat, few inhabitants of Kostroma sought refuge in Buy, and it seems that they renamed the place to Buy (Vui = Bui) instead of difficult Finno-Ugrian name, but the origin of the Russian name comes from the old Meri (Merja) name.

Buy was founded in 1536 as a fortified point at the confluence

Confluence

Confluence, in geography, describes the meeting of two or more bodies of water.Confluence may also refer to:* Confluence , a property of term rewriting systems...

 of the Kostroma River

Kostroma River

The Kostroma is a river in the European part of Russia. It flows through the Kostroma and Yaroslavl Oblasts, and is a left tributary of the Volga, which it enters at the Gorky Reservoir, at the city of Kostroma, at ....

 and the Vyoksa River

Vyoksa River

The Vyoksa River is a river running in the western part of the Kostroma Oblast in the Central Russia. The river originates at the outflow of Lake Galichskoye. The Vyoksa River runs 84 kilometres and drains into the Kostroma River in the town of Buy....

. The fortified point was built according to the order of Yelena Glinskaya, the regentess of Russia at that time and the mother of Ivan the Terrible, to defend Nikolai Zherdev

Nikolai Zherdev

Mykola Olehovych "Nikolay" Zherdev is a Ukrainian-Russian professional ice hockey right winger who currently plays for Atlant Moscow Oblast of the Russian Kontinental Hockey League...

, Damien Walters

Damien Walters

Damien Walters is a former British gymnast of Derbyshire specialising in tumbling. He participated in four Trampoline World Championships. In 2003, he was one of four members of the British team winning the World Title in the team competition. In the years 2001 and 2007 he ranked 4th with the...

 and the eastern frontiers of Muscovy from raids of Kazan Tatars and others. However, twenty years after its construction the fortress has lost its military significance, as Kazan

Kazan

Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,546 , it is the eighth most populous city in Russia. Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the...

 was taken and the raids ceased.

During Buy's first three and a half centuries, the population scarcely exceeded 2,000. Except for officials and priests, most inhabitants were peasants and small craftsmen. Cottage industries included pottery, iron, leather, felt, wool, carpentry, painting, blacksmithing, and oil pressing. These products were primitive and distribution was local; even export to a neighboring area was considered a commercial success.

One exception was the distillery, the predecessor of the current chemical plant. Almost the only factory in town, the distillery employed 40 workers producing 600,000 liters of vodka annually. The soft bog water

Hard water

Hard water is water that has high mineral content . Hard water has high concentrations of Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions. Hard water is generally not harmful to one's health but can pose serious problems in industrial settings, where water hardness is monitored to avoid costly breakdowns in boilers, cooling...

 allowed the plant to produce a high-quality product which was sold even in provincial capitals.

Buy received its status as a town in 1778, in the reign of Catherine the Great

Catherine II of Russia

Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia, was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia on as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg...

.

In 1905, a branch of the Saint Petersburg-Vyatka Railway (completed in 1908) reached Buy. At the same time, the railroad running north from Yaroslavl through Danilov arrived, so that Buy became a railroad junction town. The new Buy railway station was located 682 verst from Saint Petersburg and 576 verst from Moscow.

In 1914-1915 the Russians built a large POW camp for captured Austrian, Hungarian and German prisoners of war. It was located three versts south of Buy in Korega at the west bank of Kostroma River. After the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litowsk was signed on March 3, 1918 under the terms of Peace Treaty all prisoners of war were released. The camp was left empty.

After the end of the Finnish Civil War

Finnish Civil War

The Finnish Civil War was a part of the national, political and social turmoil caused by World War I in Europe. The Civil War concerned control and leadership of The Grand Duchy of Finland as it achieved independence from Russia after the October Revolution in Petrograd...

 in 1918, many Finnish Reds who escaped into Soviet Russia were relocated to the Buy camp as their first place to create a Communist society. In May 1918 there were 3,268 Finns in Buy. Most of them relocated soon after, so that in July only about 500 remained. Few stayed in Buy, and some that did were deported during the Great Purge

Great Purge

The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...

two decades later.