The village of Bolshoy Krasny Yar, also known as Selitba, was founded in 1735 on the banks of the Malyy Irgiz by settlers from Belarus. In 1839, the locals built a wooden Orthodox prayer house in the settlement, next to which they erected a watchman's hut and a bell tower on pillars. The clergy, approved in 1836, included a priest, a deacon, and a sexton, with the first two having their own wooden houses. At that time, the land and peasants belonged to Count Vorontsov-Dashkov. In 1852, Bolshoy Krasny Yar had 112 Orthodox households with 362 men and 416 women, as well as 5 households of schismatics (Old Believers) with 20 men and 16 women. At the time of the abolition of serfdom, the village had 126 households, with 387 men and 420 women.

In 1905, a Uniate church was built in the village thanks to the efforts of the priest from the neighboring village of Zlobinka, V. I. Peresypkinsky, and other donors. It was wooden, on a stone foundation, warm, with a bell tower and an iron roof. The only altar was consecrated in the name of Archangel Michael. In 1907, a mixed church-parochial school opened in the village, and in 1908 and 1910, under the guidance of Samara architect A. A. Shcherbachev, a wooden prayer house for the Old Believers was built.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Bolshoy Krasny Yar found itself in the flooding zone of the Saratov Reservoir. The residents moved to the neighboring Sofyinka, where the brotherly grave of the Civil War was also relocated. By the mid-1960s, the deserted village was submerged.