The Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Kotovsk has preserved the dedication of the first wooden prayer house, which was established in 1914 at the site of the current Labor Avenue. This prayer house was created for workers and their families during the construction of a workers' settlement near the Tambov Powder Factory. A full wooden church was planned to be built, but due to wartime difficulties and lack of funds, the project was never realized before the revolution. Subsequently, the prayer house was closed and dismantled, and the residents of the settlement, which later became the city of Kotovsk, became parishioners of the churches in Tambov and the village of Tsarevka for many years. In 1990, with the blessing of the diocesan leadership, fundraising began for the construction of the first city church. The first service took place on November 4 in a residential building purchased with parish funds on Narodnaya Street in the southern part of Kotovsk. Over the course of three years, this building was dismantled, and a new brick church was built in its place, consecrated in the summer of 1994 in honor of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As of 2018, this remains the only functioning Orthodox church in the city, as the construction of the Church of the Nativity of Christ, which began in 2001, has only been completed to the level of the first floor.