Staraya Ladoga is the first capital of Ancient Rus', an important point on the path “from the Varangians to the Greeks.” It was here that the Varangian prince Rurik was invited in 862, giving rise to the Rurik dynasty, which ruled Russia for the next eight centuries.

The Staraya Ladoga fortress stands at the confluence of the Ladozhka River and the Volkhov.

The first buildings of Staraya Ladoga - ship repair workshops - date back to the mid-8th century. That settlement consisted of only a few courtyards and was probably destroyed by the Slovenes in the 760s.

In 882, the Prophetic Oleg built the first stone-earth fortress, with the emergence of which Ladoga (that’s what the city was called until 1703) turned from a small craft settlement into a large trading city. This fortress was destroyed in 997 by the Norwegian Earl Eric.

The new stone fortress was founded by the Ladoga mayor Pavel in 1116, and played for a long time vital role on the sea route through Volkhov.

Ladoga remained a city until 1703, when Peter I founded Novaya Ladoga at the mouth of the Volkhov. Ladoga was renamed Staraya Ladoga and deprived of city status and the right to have its own coat of arms.

Some of the fortress walls were badly damaged in the past. Now they are slowly being reconstructed in a modern way. This is what the fortress looks like from the surrounding vegetable gardens of local residents.

View of the fortress courtyard through the bars of the Gate Tower.

Church of Demetrius of Thessalonica. The temple was first mentioned in 1646 as a “sovereign building.” Its rebuilt version from 1731 has miraculously survived to this day.

St. George's Church. Built around the 12th century. It is considered the oldest stone structure preserved in the Russian north.

View of the fortress courtyard from the Arrow Tower.

Once upon a time there was a gate with a descent to the river, where, most likely, there was a pier.

Gate tower. There is a local history museum inside.

Old fortress masonry.

The first tier of the Switch Tower.

Ruins of the Rolling Tower. The structure of the walls is clearly visible: inside there are boulders, outside there are hewn blocks of limestone.

Next to the stone fortress is the Zemlyanoye Settlement, another ancient fortification discovered during archaeological excavations. It is believed that this part of the fortress arose at the end of the 16th century.

The system of earthen ramparts has been preserved.

The settlement itself is densely overgrown with trees. Of interest are only the picturesque remains of several residential buildings.

View of the fortress from the Zemlyanoy settlement.

In addition to the fortress itself, there are several other interesting places in Staraya Ladoga.

According to legend, the founding of the monastery on this site was associated with the victory of Alexander Nevsky in the Battle of Neva in 1240, in which, among others, a detachment of Ladoga residents took part.

Everything inside the monastery is in a rather deplorable state.

Ivanovo Monastery

The Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist, located on Malysheva Gora, is the only building that remains from the monastery that was once located here.

Novaya Ladoga

About ten kilometers from Staraya Ladoga is Novaya Ladoga, a small city founded by Peter I at the confluence of the Volkhov River and Lake Ladoga.

I found two attractions here that deserve attention.

The first is the picturesquely overgrown Church of the Savior Not Made by Hands.

The second is an incomprehensibly neat building of a Soviet grocery store from the 1950s that has survived to this day.

The history of Ancient Rus' is not only fascinating, but also full of mysteries. The formation of a huge state, as Russia has always been and remains, cannot take place without wars, confusion with rulers, and unrest. This article talks about the capitals of our state, which bore this “title” long before Moscow and St. Petersburg.

A little history: who are the Slavs and what is Rus'

From the 4th century, the Slavs became participants in large-scale population migrations and gradually occupied the territories where they still live. Three branches stood out: southern Slavs (Serbs, Montenegrins), western (these are Czechs, Slovaks, Poles) and eastern (these are Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians). It is the history of the tribes that separated from the Eastern Slavs and began to unite into various unions, and then create the prototype of the state, that is usually called the “history of Ancient Rus'”.

It is believed that even before Rurik, a state called the Slavic Kaganate was formed on the land of the Slavic tribes. In 839, Western chronicles mention “ambassadors of Kagan Ros” who arrived from the northeast. In 860, the Russians even made a campaign against Constantinople.

Two theories of statehood

• "Norman". She claims that only with the help of newcomers (Rurik and his brothers) was order and political system established in Rus'. That because of their inability, the Slavs turned to the “Varangians” for help. It became widespread when the historians Bayer, and later Miller, Schlötzer and Karamzin, began to operate in Russia.
• "Anti-Norman". It points to the prerequisites for the emergence of the state before the appearance of Rurik. By the way, “Slavic Kaganate” comes in very handy here. The main ideologists are Tatishchev and Lomonosov.

Staraya Ladoga - the capital of Ancient Rus'

This settlement is located on the high bank of the Volkhov River, right on the great path “from the Varangians to the Greeks.” When archaeologists carried out excavations near Staraya Ladoga in 2015, they found sites of ancient people that can be dated back to the third millennium BC - and this is the Neolithic era. Probably, it was then that the first person settled in this territory.

The very first buildings that can be attributed to the settlement are ship repair workshops, and they date back to 753. Most likely, they were built by immigrants from Northern Europe. As archaeological data show, the first settlement was founded by the Scandinavians. One of the finds of archaeologists is a hair comb from the Merovingian era (the first French dynasty of kings). The find dates back approximately to the 7th century.

In the 8th century, or more precisely in the 760s, this settlement was destroyed by one of the tribes of the early Slavic culture from the south-west (most likely: from the Dniester region, the Danube region, from the upper reaches of the Dnieper or Western Dvina). By the 9th century, Staraya Ladoga was already a Slavic settlement with a small population (about a hundred people), where trade routes passed, crafts, agriculture and trade existed. Residents of Ladoga made beads - “eyes”, which played the role of the first money. Furs were bought for “eyes,” which were then sold to Arab merchants who made their long journeys along the routes “from the Varangians to the Greeks” and “from the Varangians to the Arabs.” As in many of the first cities of northwestern Rus', be it Izborsk, Pskov or Kamno, decoration was cast in Staraya Ladoga using limestone molds. Unfortunately, internecine wars did not bypass the settlement, and Staraya Ladoga was destroyed more than once in the 8th-9th centuries.

The first fortress was built in the 870s. The development of Staraya Ladoga as a small craft town, typical of the north of Ancient Rus' of that era, also dates back to this period.

The main historical source - the Tale of Bygone Years - says about Staraya Ladoga that it was the first capital of Ancient Rus'. It is believed that in 862, when the Varangian Rurik was called to rule in Rus', he initially “sat down to rule” in Staraya Ladoga. And only two years later he moved to Veliky Novgorod (then just Novgorod, but more on that below). It is also believed that it is in Ladoga that the grave of the Prophetic Oleg is located - “Oleg’s mound”, which is located near the Volkhov River.

Staraya Ladoga lost its city status in 1704, when by decree of Peter the Great the city of Novaya Ladoga was founded at the mouth of the Volkhov.

In 2003, the 1250th anniversary of Staraya Ladoga was celebrated on a grand scale. Vladimir Putin visited the city twice these days, and the event was also very actively covered by the press. Staraya Ladoga most likely received the title “ancient capital of Rus'” not only historically, but also in contrast to Kyiv - “the mother city of the Russians.” Actually, like the “mound of the Prophetic Oleg” - as a counterbalance to the version that Oleg’s burial is located in Kyiv on Mount Shchekovitsa. Unfortunately, politics can control history.

"Mr. Veliky Novgorod"

The city has always been divided into two parts - Torgovaya and Sofia, with the Volkhov River running between them. It is interesting that this is not just a geographical division; sometimes the tension between the residents of the two parts reached such intensity that everything resulted in clashes on the bridge over the Volkhov. The city itself appeared at the turn of the 9th-10th centuries, although the first sites take us far back to the Neolithic era, around the third millennium BC.

It is customary to take the year 859 as the date when Novgorod officially came into being. Although the debate continues even now. Many scientists insist that Novgorod as a city existed before. If only because in 859 Gostomysl, the famous Novgorod elder, died, which already shows the emergence of Novgorod as a city that also had an elder, even earlier than the named date.

Also, based on the data of archaeologists, already from the 5th century the so-called culture of the Novgorod hills was formed - under this name archaeological finds in the settlement of Gorodok-na-Mayate and others located in the Novgorod region are combined. All this shows that even before the middle of the 9th century life was in full swing in those parts.

Arab historians call Novgorod (under the name al-Slaviya) one of the three centers of Ancient Rus' of the 10th century. There are hypotheses that by this name they did not even mean Novgorod itself, but “Rurik’s settlement” and the first settlements on the site of the future city. Also, Novgorod at the end of the 10th century is mentioned in the writings of the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus. In the Scandinavian sagas, Novgorod is called “Holmgard - the capital of Gardariki”, which can be translated as “Novgorod - the capital of Rus'”. By the way, “Gardarika” means “country of cities,” which indicates that by that time there were cities in Rus' and there were many of them. There are also many versions in Russian chronicles. For example, in the Tale of Bygone Years the city already existed by the time of Rurik’s arrival, that is, by 862. Less known chronicles say that only Rurik “cut down a city on the Volkhov River”, founding the capital.

Rurik's successor was Oleg, who was later nicknamed "The Prophetic". It was he who moved the capital from Novogorod to Kyiv in 882. Veliky Novgorod, despite losing the title of capital, retained its authority for a very long time, was the only city of Ancient Rus' that had autonomy (the period of the Novgorod Republic), and was not always subordinate to Kyiv, and later to Moscow. And only in 1578 all residents of Veliky Novgorod took an oath of allegiance to Moscow Prince Ivan the Third. The autonomy of Novgorod was abolished, the “veche bell” was removed from the bell tower and taken to Moscow. But the city has retained a proud name, which is very often used when it comes to this city- "Mr. Veliky Novgorod."

"Mother of Russian Cities", or "Metropolis" Kyiv

To begin with: why “the mother of Russian cities”? There is such a phrase in the Tale of Bygone Years about the events of 882. And it says something like this: “Oleg, the prince, sat down in Kyiv, and Oleg said: “Let this be the mother of Russian cities.” That is, the designation of Kyiv was taken straight from the chronicle. Why not the father then? There is a more scientific explanation for this.

It turns out that if translated from Greek, the word “metropolis” is the mother of cities. And why exactly from Greek? Because the Greek language is the language of Byzantium, at that time a neighbor and, periodically, either a friend or an enemy of Rus'. In order to “equalize” the importance of cities, and therefore the importance of states, Kyiv, in the image of Constantinople (or Constantinople, remember the fairy tales?), began to be called the “metropolis”. And if in Russian - “mother of cities”. And now a little history.

Archaeological excavations show that the first sites on the site of Kyiv were already about fifteen to twenty thousand years ago. And the city itself, according to legend, was founded by the legendary brothers Kiy, Khoriv and Shchek and was named after their elder brother. It is believed that already in the 6th-7th centuries the settlement on the right bank of the Dnieper could be considered a city. It was on this basis that in 1982 the 1500th anniversary of Kyiv was celebrated. Although many historians argue that the formation of Kyiv as a city occurred later - in the 8th-10th centuries.

At the end of the 9th century, Askold and Dir, warriors of Rurik, ruled in Kyiv. As many know from legends, in 882, Prince Oleg, having shown little Igor to the Kyiv people crowded near the Dnieper, killed Askold and Dir as “not of the princely family,” declaring that Igor was of the princely family and would rule after him. It was from this year that Kyiv was the capital of Ancient Rus' (or Kievan Rus, as historians would later call this period).

During the period of feudal fragmentation, which began after the death of Vladimir Monomakh and his son, Mstislav the Great (in 1132), Kyiv retained power only formally, because each separated principality considered itself independent and had its own capital. In 1169, the Vladimir prince Andrei Boglyubsky plundered Kyiv, and a little later (in 1203) the capital was attacked by the Smolensk prince Rurik Rostislavovich. This greatly weakened Kyiv before the Mongol invasion, and in 1240 Kyiv was plundered by the “Horde”. The Kiev principality was later nominally called “Great Russian”, but it became entirely dependent on the Horde.

In 1243, the Vladimir prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich received the label for the great reign from the Horde, who chose to leave his “headquarters” in Vladimir. From this moment on, Kyiv, although historically significant, has no political significance. Later it would be conquered by Lithuania, then the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and only at the end of the 17th century would it return to Russia - already the Empire.

The capital of Ancient Rus' Vladimir, or the nominal capital

It was founded in 1108 by Vladimir Monomakh. Vladimir was the capital of our state for a little more than a century, starting in 1243, but it was not of great importance. The main reason is the dependence of the Russian princes on the will of the “Horde”. Of course, nominally Vladimir was the capital, and in 1299 the Metropolitan even moved his headquarters here Orthodox Church, and from the beginning of the 14th century, the princes of Vladimir began to bear the title of “Grand Dukes of All Rus'”. But gradually a trend arose: if a prince was appointed to the throne not from Vladimir, then he would only be crowned in Vladimir, as in the capital, and then return to his ancestral city. The last person to undergo coronation in this way was Vasily the First in 1389. The next one, Vasily the Second, was crowned in Moscow. Vladimir was still referred to as a “grand-ducal city” for a long time, but became simply a provincial center.

Since 1389, the title of “capital of Ancient Rus'”, or rather Moscow Rus', passes to Moscow. A completely different story begins.

Directory number one

As one of the most interesting sources on this topic, you can use the wonderful book by E. Nelidova. It was first published at the beginning of the 20th century under the title “Rus in its capitals.” Now the book has been published again and is called "Four Capitals of Ancient Rus'. Staraya Ladoga, Veliky Novgorod, Kyiv, Vladimir. Legends and Monuments." The book is written in a very lively popular science language and is equipped with many illustrations, some of which are from pre-revolutionary times.

• In 1862, a monument called “The Millennium of Russia” was unveiled in Novgorod (pictured below). Among the many domestic statesmen, writers, princes, historians, there is no such figure as Ivan the Terrible. It is believed that this is revenge for the pogrom that Grozny committed in Novgorod in 1569-70.

• In the vicinity of Staraya Ladoga, in addition to Oleg’s grave, there is also the burial place of Rurik. It is believed that the body lies in one of the many underground passages under the old part of the settlement.

An old chronicle says: once upon a time, tribes living in the north of Russia, in the territory of modern Karelia and Leningrad, paid tribute to the Varangians. But then the Varangians were kicked out. “They drove the Varangians overseas, and did not give them tribute, and began to control themselves, and there was no truth among them, and generation after generation arose, and they had strife, and began to fight with each other. And they said to themselves: “Let’s look for someone who would own us and judge us by right.” And they went overseas to the Varangians, to Rus'. Those Varangians were called Rus, just as others are called Swedes, and some Normans and Angles, and still others Gotlanders, just like these. The Chud, the Slovenians, the Krivichi and all said to the Russians: “The land is great and abundant, but there is no order in it. Come reign and rule over us." And three brothers were chosen with their clans, and all of Rus' with them, and the eldest, Rurik, sat down in Novgorod, and the other, Sineus, in Beloozero, and the third, Truvor, in . from those Varangians the Russian land was nicknamed.”

If we admit that Rurik ruled in Ladoga, then he was not a foreigner there, since Ladoga was not a Slavic city.

According to the ancient Scandinavian sagas preserved in Iceland, a long time ago a people lived in the city of Asgard and their leader was Odin. (The famous Norwegian traveler and explorer.

Odin was predicted that his offspring would inhabit the northern outskirts, and he set off on his journey. First he came to Gardariki (according to many authors, Gardariki is Karelia). Then he went to the Saxon Country, then to the island of Funen and Sweden. And in all places along the route he followed, he left his descendants to rule. Apparently this legend describes the origin of the northern Germanic tribes and their appearance on the map of Europe. http://norse.ulver.com

Having settled in Gardarik (Karelia), the descendants of Odin founded a new people - the Rus. L.N. Gumilyov wrote: “For the Slavs, it was a disaster to be in the neighborhood of the ancient Rus, who made raids on their neighbors their trade... The Rus robbed their neighbors, killed their men, and sold the captured children and women to slave traders... The Slavs settled in small groups in villages; It was difficult for them to defend themselves against the Russians, who turned out to be terrible robbers. Anything of value became booty. And furs, honey, wax and children were valuable then. The unequal struggle lasted a long time and ended in favor of the Russians when Rurik came to power.” http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/R2R/r2r01.htm#r2r01chapter1

Arab sources report that the Rus lived on the island and attacked the Slavs. According to one version, detailed in the book by Alexander Sharymov “Prehistory of St. Petersburg. 1703 Book of Research” - the island was located on the Karelian Isthmus. At that time it was an island washed by Ladoga, Vuoksa, and the Gulf of Finland. Since the island of the Rus was on the route “from the Varangians to the Greeks,” the Rus played a decisive role in trade.

So modern territory Leningrad region can be considered the ancestral land of the Rus tribe, who in the 10th century defeated the Eastern Slavs.

As for Ladoga, it accounted for the first attack of “foreign” Varangians on Rus' recorded in history. After the calling of Rurik, until the end of the 10th century, the Scandinavians did not attack the northern regions, preferring trade relations. However, in 997 this tradition was broken.

In Staraya Ladoga there are traces of fortresses from the beginning of the 9th century. These are the oldest stone structures in Russian history. One of the fortresses was destroyed. Then Ladoga was attacked by the Varangian Erik Haakonsson, the future Norwegian king.

After this, Ladoga more than once found itself at the center of military conflicts. Thus, the Swedish army besieged the city in 1164. The Ladoga residents burned the settlement and locked themselves in the stone Kremlin, after which they sent to Novgorod for help. The Swedes tried to take the Kremlin by storm, but were repelled with heavy losses. The Novgorodians who came to the rescue lifted the siege and drove out the Swedes.

The raids on Ladoga did not stop there; it was captured and retaken several times. However, Ladoga has already lost its significance as the political and economic center of the region. This role passed to Veliky Novgorod. And further struggle for possession of the Ladoga lands took place between the Novgorod Republic and the Kingdom of Sweden.

The history of Ladoga, which arose long before the formation of the state, begins around the middle of the 8th century. Located in a cozy place on the banks of the fast rivers Ladozhka and Zaklyuka, it attracted artisans and merchants. The multilingual population was united by common concerns about the development of a new trade and craft center. Blacksmiths and jewelers, tailors and tanners, potters and glassblowers, masters of bone and wood carving came here. They built large residential buildings, workshops, houses for recreation and entertainment, and places of worship. In 862, the residents of Ladoga invited Prince Rurik, under whose leadership a wood-earth fortress was erected for protection from warring tribes. Later, at the turn of the 9th-10th centuries, a stone fortress was built, which is now also part of the museum-reserve. It is she who is the “heart” of Staraya Ladoga.

Once Ladoga was one of the 10 largest Russian cities. Now it is a small village in a protected area. In 1984, Staraya Ladoga received the status of a historical, architectural and archaeological museum-reserve of federal significance. It is surrounded by the same villages and ancient architectural monuments. The most significant attraction of the reserve is the Temple of St. George, built in the 12th century. This is one of the oldest stone buildings preserved in the north of Rus'. The temple is also interesting because inside it, for 800 years, the fresco “The Miracle of George on the Dragon” has been preserved, which survived the invasion of the Mongol-Tatars, several wars and the October Revolution.

Unique burial mounds have survived to this day. One of the mounds is named “The Grave of Prophetic Oleg”. Karst caves are unique. Museum workers saved 10 architectural monuments from complete destruction. Among the objects of the reserve is the Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist, the first mention of which dates back to 1276. The building that has survived to this day was built in 1695. St. John's Cathedral was and remains the main cathedral of Staraya Ladoga. To the southeast of the Church of John the Baptist on the lower slope of Malysheva Mountain there is an entrance to the Staraya Ladoga Caves, which are a labyrinth.

The attractions of the Staraya Ladoga Reserve include the Holy Dormition Monastery, the main temple of which was built in the 12th century, the Staroladoga Nikolsky Monastery, founded by Alexander Nevsky after the victorious battle with the Swedes in the Battle of Neva, the Transfiguration Church, the Church of Dmitry of Thessalonica, the Church of St. John Chrysostom. The ensemble of the Trinity Monastery, founded in 1565-1570, has been preserved.

The list of attractions of the Staraya Ladoga Museum-Reserve goes on and on. The important thing is that here visitors can not only admire the beauty of unique architectural monuments, but also receive a lot of interesting information about the way of life of the peasants of the former “northern capital of Rus'”.

The village and museum-reserve Staraya Ladoga are located on the high left bank of the Volkhov River, flowing from the lake and flowing into. The village is located near Lake Ladoga, about 15 km from where the Volkhov flows into it. It stretches along the river bank for 1.5-2 km. Down the river, 9 km, at the mouth is Novaya Ladoga.

Staraya Ladoga is one of the oldest cities in Russia. It was first mentioned in the “Tale of Bygone Years” of the Ipatiev List under 862 in the section telling about the calling of three Varangian brothers to reign in Rus': “And he chose three brothers from his clans and came to the glorious first and cut down the city of Ladoga and the oldest in Ladoz, Rurik.”.

Story

Based on the record, historians conclude that it, along with Novgorod and Kiev, is one of the capitals Old Russian state and was the capital city of Rurik until 864, when “Elder Rurik sat in Novgorod”.

Ladoga is one of the transit points on the trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks.” Thanks to this circumstance, it developed quickly. Fairs were often held here. Dynasties of pilots lived here, guiding foreign ships up the Volkhov to Lake Ilmen, where Veliky Novgorod stood - the center of Novgorod Rus, then the Novgorod land, and subsequently the Novgorod Republic.

To protect merchant ships from “dashing people,” a military garrison was stationed in the fortress.

The city grew richer, the wooden fortifications no longer seemed reliable protection, and in 1144, by order of the Grand Duke of Kyiv Vladimir Monomakh (1053-1125), the construction of a stone Kremlin began. A wall rose above the river cliff, and the cliff itself was covered with stone.

Such measures did not seem excessive: starting from the 12th century. the city was repeatedly besieged by Karelians and Swedes (in 1164, 1313 and 1338), but without much success.

In the XI-XV centuries. Old Ladoga (in those centuries it was simply called Ladoga) was both a fortress and a trade and craft center of the Novgorod Republic.

In the middle of the 15th century. Tsar Ivan III Vasilyevich the Great (1440-1505) defeated the Novgorod Republic in the Moscow-Novgorod War of 1477-1478. during the unification of Russian lands around Moscow. The city became the northern outpost of the united Russian state and needed stronger fortifications.

The Staraya Ladoga fortress became pentagonal in plan and rebuilt taking into account the use firearms. Powerful fortress walls and multi-tiered towers with walls up to 7 m thick were made of limestone, which was taken from neighboring quarries, and filled with boulders. The cladding was done with hewn stone. To get into the fortress, you had to walk along the wall to the only gate closed by bars in the quadrangular Gate Tower. Once in the tower, you had to turn half-turn to face the passage. The other towers each had their own purpose: for example, Tainichnaya covered the passage to the river, which made it possible to collect water in the event of a siege.

IN Time of Troubles, in 1610, the Swedes, who brought 55 ships, managed to capture the fortress, which was returned to Russia in 1617. according to the Stolbovo Peace Treaty. The fortress withstood the last assault in its history in 1701.

After victories over the Swedes at the beginning of the Northern War, the fortress lost its significance, and Tsar Peter I (1672-1725) ordered the transfer of offices and a significant part of the inhabitants to Novaya Ladoga.

Construction railways in the second half of the 19th century. reduced the importance of Staraya Ladoga to a minimum, and it became a simple village on the river.

Old Ladoga appeared where there was the most convenient place for setting up a trading city on the way “from the Varangians to the Greeks”, for intermediary trade between the northern and southern countries. The location of the fortress is such that it is possible to successfully repel an attack from the river, since it took a long time to get here by land.

The tallest buildings are the stone towers of the Staraya Ladoga fortress and monastery churches, symbols of the establishment of power in these places Russian state and the Orthodox faith.

Part of the rampart, churches and an earthen fortification have also been preserved from the old city. The remains of wooden buildings from the 8th-12th centuries have been discovered on its territory. and the ruins of the stone church of Clement from the mid-12th century.

The pentagonal layout of the 15th century has been preserved from the Staraya Ladoga fortress, but the walls are in ruins, not even having clear outlines. A small section of the wall with two towers - Klementovskaya and Vorotnaya - has been restored.

The first wall, erected back in the 12th century, in many places turned out to be embedded in a later wall. It offers a picturesque view of the northern part of the village with the Assumption Cathedral and the southern part with Nikolsky.

There are no traces of the oldest buildings in the fortress.

Inside the fortress there is a wooden church of Dmitry Solunsky, with a museum exhibition in it.

Another church in the fortress is St. George from the beginning of the 12th century, built under Vladimir Monomakh - one of the most ancient stone buildings in the north of Rus'. The church is single-domed, four-pillared, three-apsed, rebuilt several times. It preserves fragments of frescoes from the Novgorod school, in particular the fresco “The Miracle of George on the Serpent,” as well as ancient tombstone inscriptions of the 12th-13th centuries.

On a hill called Malysheva Mountain, where there was once another monastery, there is the Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist.

To the south of the fortress is the Staraya Ladoga Monastery of St. Nicholas. Legends tie the time of its construction to the years of the reign of Alexander Nevsky (1221/1222-1263) when he was Prince of Novgorod, but there is no documentary evidence of this. The modern ensemble of the monastery took shape in the 17th century, when St. Nicholas Cathedral was built on the site of a 12th century church. Adjacent to it is the Church of St. John Chrysostom - an example of religious buildings from the mid-19th century.

To the north of the fortress, on the banks of the Volkhov, stands the Staraya Ladoga Holy Dormition Convent. Its main temple is the Assumption Cathedral - in a place called the Bogoroditsky end. Nearby are monastery buildings for domestic purposes.

In the vicinity of the village there are burial mounds from Varangian times. According to legend, he was buried in one of them Prophetic Oleg- Prince of Novgorod and Kiev Oleg (? - 912), who died in Staraya Ladoga: the hill in the northern part of the village is called Oleg’s grave. Excavations do not confirm the legend.

On the opposite bank of the Volkhov in the Plakun tract there are the remains of a Varangian cemetery.

Systematic excavations of the Ladoga fortress and burial mounds on the opposite bank have been carried out intermittently since the 1880s. In 1909, research into the settlement began. The lower horizons of the cultural layer, the later strata starting from the 12th century, have been preserved better than others. - much worse.

In the 1960s restoration work has been carried out in the fortress. The excavation materials are stored in the Hermitage of St. Petersburg.

According to archaeological data, the population of ancient Staraya Ladoga was multi-ethnic, consisting of Slavs, Normans and representatives of local Finnish-speaking ethnic groups.

Traces of blacksmithing, bone carving, jewelry and pottery production, various items, coins and items of Eastern and Western European origin were found in the settlement.

The territory of the fortress has been declared the Staraya Ladoga Historical, Architectural and Archaeological Museum-Reserve.

general information

Location : north-west of the European part of Russia.
Administrative affiliation : Staroladoga rural settlement, Volkhov municipal district, Leningrad region.
Based: up to 753
First mention : 862
Village: since 1703
Language: Russian.
Ethnic composition : Russians.
Religion: Orthodoxy.
Currency unit : Russian ruble.

Numbers

Staraya Ladoga Historical, Architectural and Archaeological Museum : area - 1.6 km 2, total number of historical and architectural monuments - more than 150.
Population (village Staraya Ladoga) : 2012 people (2010).
Fortress walls : thickness - up to 5 m, height - 7-12 m.
Fortress towers : diameter - up to 24 m at the base, height - up to 19 m, tiers - 3.
The height of Oleg's grave : 10 m.

Climate and weather

Moderately continental.
Cold snowy winter, moderately warm summer.
Average January temperature : -10°C.
Average temperature in July : +17.5°C.
Average annual precipitation : 550 mm.
Relative humidity : 70-80%.

Economy

Services sector: tourism, transport, trade.

Attractions

Staraya Ladoga Historical, Architectural and Archaeological Museum-Reserve (1984)

Zemlyanoye Gorodische (Zemlyanoy Gorod, until the 12th century)

Fortress "Old Ladoga" (restored walls and towers of Klementovskaya and Vorotnaya, ruins of walls and Raskatnaya, Strelochnaya and Taichnaya towers, founded in the 12th century, rebuilt in the 15th-16th centuries; Church of St. George 1114; wooden church of Dmitry Thessalonica , 1731).

Cult

Staraya Ladoga Holy Dormition Convent (Assumption Cathedral of the 12th century, rebuilt in the 17th-19th centuries)

Staraya Ladoga Nikolsky Monastery (XIII-XIV centuries, Nikolsky Cathedral, bell tower and other buildings of the 17th century, Church of St. John Chrysostom 1860-1873)

Transfiguration Church (wooden - 1684, brick - 1871)

Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist, 1695, chapel of St. Peter and Fevronia.

Historical

Neolithic site (3 thousand years BC)

Sopki tract (grave hills, VIII-X centuries)

Pobedishche (VII-X centuries) and Plakun (IX-X centuries)

Remains of the Varangian cemetery (late 9th - early 10th century)

Houses of merchant Kalyagin (19th century) and Schwartz (1816)

Varyazhskaya street and monument to Rurik and Oleg (2015)

Curious facts

The Scandinavians called ancient Ladoga Aldeigjuborg, less commonly Aldeigya. The earliest reliable news about Ladoga-Aldeigyuborg dates back to the end of the 10th century. and is contained in the collection of sagas “The Circle of the Earth”. An attack on Aldeigjuborg was reported during a military campaign against Gardariki by the Norwegian Earl Eirik.
“When he sailed into the possessions of King Valdmar, he began to fight and kill people, and burn houses wherever he passed, and devastated the country. He sailed to Aldeigjuborg and besieged it until he captured it. There he killed many people and destroyed and burned the entire city.” Historians date this event to 997 and consider it as evidence that there was a fortress or fortified settlement in Ladoga even then.

One of the reasons for Rurik’s move from Ladoga to Novgorod the Great is that Ladoga, located on the outskirts of the settlement territory of the East Slavic tribes, turned out to be inconvenient for them to manage.

In 2003, a big celebration took place in the village on the occasion of the 1250th anniversary of one of the first Russian capitals. To emphasize the Scandinavian presence in those ancient times on this land, the authorities of the county (province) of Nordland and participants in the show “Steigenberg Sagaspil” - a musical and historical reconstruction of the life of the ancient Vikings - were invited from Norway.

The economic importance of Staraya Ladoga began to decline in the 1580s, when Arkhangelsk became the northern port of the Moscow state.

The name Staraya Ladoga is of Baltic-Finnish origin, coming from the Ladoga River, now called Ladozhka, a left tributary of the Volkhov, which flows into it next to the fortress.

Tsarina Evdokia Fedorovna, née Lopukhina (1669-1731), the first wife of Tsar Peter I, by his will in 1698, was initially exiled to the traditional place of imprisonment for queens - the Suzdal-Pokrovsky Monastery, where she stayed until 1718. During the trial Tsarevich Alexei revealed her participation in the conspiracy, as well as the fact that she had not lived a monastic life for a long time. She was transferred first to the Alexander Assumption Monastery, and then to the Ladoga Assumption Monastery. A military guard was placed in the monastery, parishioners were prohibited from entering, and the tonsure of new novices was suspended. Evdokia Fedorovna lived here for seven years under strict supervision until the death of her ex-husband in 1725.

The design of the Church of St. John Chrysostom of the St. Nicholas Monastery was created by the architect Alexei Gornostaev (1808-1862), who stood at the origins of the eclectic trend in Russian architecture of the 19th - early 20th centuries. - “Russian style” (also called “pseudo-Russian”), Appearance The building of the Church of St. John Chrysostom reflects the main components of the style: the traditions of ancient Russian architecture and folk art, combined with elements of Byzantine architecture.

The Staraya Ladoga expedition of the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences discovered that already by the 12th century, when the fortress was being built, local craftsmen knew how to smelt copper from local raw materials. Traces of copper smelting were found; its composition differed from the usual alloys for these places from imported raw materials delivered from the Urals or from England. Experimental smelting was carried out using ancient technologies and pure metal was obtained.

Malysheva Mountain is riddled with underground passages. In the 19th century peasants extracted quartz sand from it and sold it in St. Petersburg to make light bulbs. The resulting voids threatened the safety of the monument, and restorers introduced large amounts of concrete into them to prevent destruction.