What is the oldest city in Russia? There is no exact answer to this question, there are versions. The most common of them, based on the first mentions in the annals, say that the oldest city in Russia is Derbent. There is a lot of controversy, but did Kievan Rus itself exist at a time when the first settlements of Derbent had already been built?
The Great Silk Road passed through Derbent. There were a lot of fierce battles for the possession of this important strategic object. Enemies stormed and destroyed the Narrow Gate. Periods of prosperity alternated with periods of decline. The city survived, and its well-preserved stone structures can be seen in the State Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve.
The oldest city in Russia. This is also called Veliky Novgorod. He is 1147 years old. In 862 it became the first capital of the Russian state. This city did not suffer from the Tatar-Mongol invasion. It was a center for the development of culture and painting,architecture and applied arts. Now the sights of Veliky Novgorod are part of the UNESCO world cultural heritage.
The oldest city in Russia, unfortunately, has not kept a record of its existence in the historical annals. One can only guess what he was like. There are many cities and settlements that are more than 1000 years old in Russia. This is Staraya Ladoga, she is 1252, and Pskov - 1101, and Izborsk-1147. The figures are rather arbitrary, no one will now say the exact date of foundation. In those immemorial times, they still did not know how to write, literacy began to spread much later than these settlements were created.
A lot of trials fell to the share of ancient Russian cities. Many of them were destroyed and wiped off the face of the earth as a result of sieges and wars. Some cities were restored, starting from scratch, and some of them disappeared into oblivion. There are no more cities Vshchizh, Verzhavsk, Zhizhets, Usvyat. After them, only mentions in the annals and the remains of fortifications remained. Each of these cities, and another hundred destroyed, can claim this title - the oldest city in Russia.
There are cities with a long history that have managed to survive. They showed their strong resilience, passed the test of centuries, however, as a result of repeated destructive wars, they could not preserve the monuments of the ancient Russian past.
Such cities include Medyn, Kaluga region (1386) and Dorogobuzh, Smolensk region(1238) Here the specific princes were at enmity with each other, the soldiers of Batu created arbitrariness, Polish-Lithuanian detachments, soldiers of the great Napoleonic army passed, Hitler's troops passed through them twice. It is not surprising that with such a military biography, there are almost no historical traces in the cities left.
The oldest cities in Russia were built on the high banks of rivers. Each acquired his own, inherent only to him, appearance. But for all their uniqueness and diversity, cities have a similar architectural silhouette, formed by churches with domes and bell towers.
And in the Middle Ages, all ancient Russian cities had defensive fortifications. Research is ongoing, perhaps historians will still give an answer to the question: "What is the oldest city in Russia?"
In ancient Russia there was a high art of urban planning. The ancient monuments that have survived to our times testify to this.
