Buy (town)

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Coordinates: 58°29′N 41°32′E / 58.483, 41.533

Buy (Russian: Буй) is a town in Kostroma Oblast, Russia, which stands on the Kostroma River. Population: 27,392 (2002 Census); 32,701 (1989 Census).

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.

According to Russian history Buy was found in 1536 as a fortified point at the confluence of the Kostroma River and the Vyoksa River. 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.

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

During the construction of the St. Petersburg - Viatka (Vyatka) Railway (completed in 1908) the population of Buy grow from mere than a thousand to 3.500 in 1913. The new Bui railway station was located 682 versts from St. Petersburg and 576 versts 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 Finland's Civil War in 1918 many Finnish Reds who escaped into Soviet Russia were relocated to the Bui camp as their first place to create Communist Society. There were from time to time even more than 5.000 Finns. Many of them decided to resettle in Bui, but they vanished during the Great Purge in 1936-1938. Most of them were shot, the remainders who were left, were deported, thus ending the presence of Finno Ugrian population in Bui area.

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