[7] Kotovsk was founded before World War I under the initiative of Tsar Nicholas II as a settlement for workers who were engaged in the construction of the gunpowder factory (commissioned in 1912).

[citation needed] The settlement was initially called Porokhovoy Zavod (Порохово́й Заво́д, lit.

[citation needed] It was later renamed Krasny Boyevik (Кра́сный Боеви́к, lit.

red fighter),[citation needed] because it was used by the Bolsheviks as a lodgement for the establishment of the Soviet government in the region.

[8] In 1940, it was granted town status and renamed Kotovsk[citation needed] after Grigory Kotovsky (1881–1925), who had suppressed an anti-Soviet peasant rebellion in Tambov Governorate in 1921.