Abstract
During the Orenburg expedition, on the initiative of the authorities, Russian fortresses appeared along the route of wagons with provisions to the construction site of Orenburg. To optimize the territorial and administrative management, the Iset Province is being created, occupying the eastern part of the South Ural region. The first settlers of the fortresses are the peasants, whom the state, experiencing a deficit of human potential in expanding the borders of the Russian Empire, has identified among the irregular, Cossack formations. The period from 1737 (the year of the formation of the Iset province) to the end of the 1740s accounted for the process of formation of the Cossack class of the subregion, for which the name of the Iset Cossacks is assigned. These irregular formations were part of the OKV (Orenburg Cossack Army). As a subsystem, the Iset Cossack Army ceased to exist in 1803.