Editing Samara (section)

===Early history===
[[File:So0417 1904-08.jpg|thumb|Sobornaya Street and horse tram in 1905]]

Samara, together with its northern neighbour [[Kazan]], is at the centre of the [[Idel-Ural]] historical region. [[Ahmad ibn Fadlan]] visited the area that is now Samara around 921 while on his journey to the [[Volga Bulgars]] who then controlled the region from their capital [[Bolghar]].<ref name="DK2010">{{cite book |author=Macleod |first1=Alasdair |url=https://archive.org/details/explorerstalesof0000na/page/32/mode/2up?view=theater |title=Explorers: Tales of Endurance and Exploration |last2=Parker |first2=Philip |last3=Rae |first3=Eugene |last4=Fiennes |first4=Ranulph |author-link4=Ranulph Fiennes |publisher=DK Publishing |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-7566-9238-4 |edition=revised |page=33 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

Legend has it that [[Alexius, Metropolitan of Kiev]], later [[patron saint]] of Samara, visited the site of the city in 1357 and predicted that a great town would be erected there, and that the town would never be ravaged.{{Citation needed|date=November 2024}} The [[Volga River|Volga]] port of Samara appears on [[Italian language|Italian]] maps of the 14th century. Before 1586, the [[Samara Bend]] was a pirate nest. Lookouts would spot an oncoming boat and quickly cross to the other side of the peninsula so that the pirates could organize an attack. Officially, Samara started with a fortress built in 1586 at the [[confluence]] of the Volga and [[Samara (Volga)|Samara River]]s.<ref name="O'Neal2015"/> This fortress was a frontier post protecting the then easternmost boundaries of Russia from forays of [[nomads]]. A local customs office was established in 1600.

As more and more ships pulled into Samara's port, the town turned into a centre for diplomatic and economic links between Russia and the East. Samara also opened its gates to peasant war rebels headed by [[Stepan Razin]] and [[Yemelyan Pugachyov]], welcoming them with traditional [[bread and salt]]. The town was visited by [[Peter the Great]] and later [[Tsar]]s.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Borsukov |first=Andrey |date=2013-07-09 |title=Юрий Смирнов: "Императоры всероссийские не обходили стороной Самарскую губернию" |trans-title=Yuri Smirnov: "The All-Russian Emperors Did Not Bypass the Samara Province" |url=https://volga.news/article/262990.html |access-date=2024-07-19 |website=Volga News}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-04-22 |title=Романовы в Самаре: история императорских визитов в город |trans-title=The Romanovs in Samara: The History of Imperial Visits to the City |url=https://progorodsamara.ru/news/view/romanovy-v-samare-istoria-imperatorskih-vizitov-v-gorod |access-date=2024-07-19 |website=Pro Gorod Samara |language=ru}}</ref>

In 1780, Samara was turned into an [[Uyezd|uyezd town]] of [[Simbirsk Governorate]] overseen by the local Governor-General, and Uyezd and Zemstvo Courts of Justice and a Board of Treasury were established. On January&nbsp;1, 1851, Samara became the centre of [[Samara Governorate]] with an estimated population of 20,000. This gave a stimulus to the development of the economic, political and cultural life of the community. Samara was outside of the [[Pale of Settlement]] and as such did not have any significant Jewish population until the late 19th century.<ref name="bh.org.il">{{cite web |title=The Jewish Community of Samara, Russia |url=https://www.bh.org.il/jewish-community-samara-russia/ |access-date=27 June 2018 |website=[[Museum of the Jewish People]]}}</ref> In 1877, during the [[Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878)|Russian-Turkish War]], a mission from the Samara City [[Duma]] led by [[Petr Alabin]], as a symbol of spiritual solidarity, brought a banner tailored in Samara pierced with bullets and saturated with the blood of both Russians and Bulgarians, to Bulgaria, which has become a symbol of Russian-Bulgarian friendship.<ref>{{Cite web |title=В Самаре воссоздали одну из ключевых битв русско-турецкой войны 1877-1878 годов - ТАСС |trans-title=One of the key battles of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 was recreated in Samara |url=https://tass.ru/obschestvo/6445407 |access-date=2024-07-19 |website=TASS |language=ru}}</ref>{{Unreliable source?|date=November 2024}}