There is mention in a cadaster about Sarapul in 1579 as the place which many countrymen chose to escape from Perm region.
Inventory revision books were formed with the purpose of the country wealth learning at the end of the Time of Troubles at the beginning of XVII century in Russia. The books describe “Voznesenskoye village on Sarapul”. Obviously, the mention is about local river Sarapulka, the name origin is probably connected with Chuvash language name of the valuable fish starlet: сарапуль [(chuv.) sarapul’] ‘yellow fish’.
Within the other version, Sarapul may mean ‘a settlement close to water’, because сардиз [(komi) sardiz] in Komi language and зарезь [(udm.) zarez’] in Udmurt language means ‘sea; water’, and павыл [pavyl] ‘village’. Also, it is needed to be considered that the word сара [sara] was used to name money in some districts of Siberia, and пул [pul] is a little copper coin.
The third version of the name origin is connected with Mansi language word саранпауль [saranpaul’] ‘Komi village’.
Russian people start to come to the Kama region of Udmurtia – Sarapul-Karakulino-Votkinsk location from the end of XVI century. Bashkir people lived there before, and the Udmurts lived in this location before the Bashkirs. Those Udmurts are named as “Chud’ people” in Russian legends. A lot of archeological memorials left by the Udmurts of Ananyinskaya, Pianoborskaya, Mazuninsko-Bakhmutinskaya cultures evidence it.
Names of Russian settlements are often connected with the local churches. The village Sarapul, which became town later, was named by the name of the church, consecrated in honor of the Ascension of the Lord. Voznesenskoye village played the role of the key location in the part of the Kama reference line of the Russian state, where roads followed to “Siberian lands”, in the XVII century. Sarapul became the center of the province by the Senate Decree in 1780 and it changed the status from village to town.
The town got its national emblem in a year. The fortress on the emblem presented the power of Russian defenders. Then Empress Catherine II approves the plan for the development of Sarapul as part of the Vyatka governorship. The architect Johann Lem begins to implement the plan. But the other change came and the former governorship was transformed into the Vyatka province, and Sarapul became its district center in 1796.
Sarapul was a typical merchant town, 155 merchants were listed there. The majority of them sold bread, and there were manufacturers of leather goods, soap, and others.
The Udmurt Commissariat of the People’s Commissariat of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic headed by I.A. Nagovitsyn worked in Sarapul after the revolution. Today there are several large well-known industrial establishments in Sarapul: JSC “Sarapul Radio Plant”, JSC “Elecond”.