PETROVSK, a town of European Russia, in the province of Saratoff, lies on both banks of the Medvyeditza, a tributary of the Don, 64 miles north-north-west of Saratoff on the Volga by the highway to Moscow. It was founded by Peter I. in 1698 to defend the district from the encroachments of the Kuban Tatars, and by the beginning of the 19th century it had become a place of 6921 inhabitants, with ten churches and a monastery (St Nicholas). In 1864 the population was 10,128, and it has since increased to upwards of 15,000.

This Petrovsk must not be confounded with (1 ) Petrovsk, a seaport town of from 4000 to 5000 inhabitants in northern Daghestan, which possesses one of the best roadsteads on the west coast of the Caspian; nor (2) with the crown iron-works of this name in Transbaikalia, deserving mention for its convict establishment, where the “Decembrists” were kept for several years.