Tsaritsin guard line, Military fortification ridge in Volgograd Oblast, Russia.

The Tsaritsin guard line is a 54-kilometre earthwork running across the steppe between the Don and Volga, from the Panшин area to Tsaritsyn. It consisted of a dry ditch up to 8 m wide and a rampart 2.6 to 4.6 m high, with a firing banquette, plus five fortresses and 23 earth redans.

The Senate decree of 31 December 1717 chose Tsaritsyn over Dmitrievsk as the line's eastern end and named it the Tsaritsyn line; work began in spring 1718 under Brigadier Kropotov. Some 15,000 soldiers and civilian labourers built the earthwork and the Don fortress by autumn 1719, and the remaining forts were finished in the summer of 1720. The line was used from 1720 until 1776.

This structure represented the Russian Empire's military engineering thinking of its time, showing how the state organized border defense. Walking along the remains today, you can sense how it divided the landscape between protected and unprotected territories.

The site is accessible along designated paths that run through both districts. Information markers are placed at several locations to help you navigate and understand what you are seeing.

The rampart's surface was covered with turf cut elsewhere and laid on the earthworks so grass would take root and stop the wind from eroding the bank. The ravine crossings were blocked with palisades of sharpened logs and oak cages filled with earth.