Buzuluk is a Russian town in the Orenburg Region. It stands on the Samara River (inflow of Volga), near the confluence of River Buzuluk, 246 km to the northwest of Orenburg in the Cis-Urals.

It has the Buzuluk railway station.

To the north of Buzuluk, in the basin of River Borovka, there is Buzuluk pine forest - the island massif of mostly pine wood (over 111 thousand hectares), one of the oldest centers of Russian forestry inhbited by up to 180 species of animals and birds. It was a nature reserve from 1932 to1951.

The town with the population of 84 671 (as of 2014) it takes the overall area 54 sq.km.

History of Buzuluk

It was founded by I.K. Kirillov as Buzuluk Fortress on the Samara River, near the mouth of River Buzuluk in 1736.

The hydronym comes from the Old Turkic word buzuluk meaning “icy” that characterizes small rivers, which are deep only during ice drift and thaw.

Later it was moved to its modern place at the mouth of River Domashka and Bannoye Lake.

From 1781 it was a district town of the Orenburg Province.

In 1851 it was badly damaged by fire, and its fortifications were not reconstructed. The same year it became part of the Samara Province.

In 1856 the district town Buzuluk of the Samara Province had 5 churches, 798 houses, and 57 shops.

The town had the Holy Mother Convent. Near Buzuluk there was the Spaso-Preobrazhensky (Transfiguration of the Saviour) Monastery founded in 1853 and famous for the church bells cast there.