Staraya Ladoga

Just recently, last week, I went with friends to Lake Ladoga. At the water and fortress to take a look.

First, we stopped in the village named after Morozov, look at the famous fortress Oreshek

The lake was partially covered with ice and the ferry was still closed.

Fortress Oath
_> We, the soldiers of the fortress Oreshek, swear to protect it to the last.

None of us will leave her in any circumstances.
Dismissed from the island: for a while-the sick and wounded, forever-the dead.
We will stand here until the end._

Then we went to the village of Old Ladoga. There the Staroladozhsky fortress was waiting for us. The old woman, set at the turn of the IX-X centuries, even under the Prophetic Oleg.

In 862, at the confluence of the Ladozhka River in the Volkhov, Rurik, who was called to reign, rebuilt a wooden fortress, where he was stationed along with his retinue, before going further south and settling on the Rurikov_horodishche near Veliky Novgorod. This date with reservations about a certain conditionality of the chronicle dating is recognized according to archaeological data. Thus, the first wooden fortification on the site of the Staraya Ladoga fortress was erected by Rurik in the beginning (but not earlier) of the 60s of the 9th century. The fortification of that time protected only a small part of the settlement, since it was originally built only for the prince and his retinue. In the years of the Prophetic Oleg, at the turn of the 9th-10th centuries, instead of wooden fortifications, a stone fortress was built, similar to the Western European fortifications of the time.

Entrance to the fortress:

From the gap under the gate came to us kitty, a local gentle resident

To look at the fortress from the inside at that time we never succeeded, it was a pre-holiday short day. But in the near future I am aiming to visit each of them with a specific purpose - to feel the spirit and atmosphere of the medieval military era.