Staraya Ladoga

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Template:Short description Template:Infobox Russian inhabited locality Staraya Ladoga (Template:Lang-rus), known as Ladoga until 1704, is a rural locality (a selo) in Volkhovsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the Volkhov River near Lake Ladoga, Template:Convert north of the town of Volkhov, the administrative center of the district.

It used to be a prosperous trading outpost in the 8th and 9th centuries. During this period, it was known to the Norse as Aldeigjuborg.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It was dominated by Varangians who became known as the Rus'. For that reason, Staraya Ladoga is sometimes called the first capital of Russia;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> it is also regarded as one of the original centers from which the name RusTemplate:' spread to other territories inhabited by the East Slavs.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref>

Etymology

The settlement takes its name from a tributary of the Volkhov River, which itself is taken from the Finnish name Alodejoki ("low-lying river"), from alode ("low place") and joki ("river").<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It was known to the Varangians as Aldegjuborg.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

History

Origin

File:Крепость Старая Ладога Вид.jpg
The fortress of Ladoga was built in the 12th century and rebuilt 400 years later. It is now mostly reconstructed since being heavily damaged during World War II.

Dendrochronology suggests that Ladoga was founded in 753.<ref name="Chernykh">Template:Cite journal</ref> Until 950, it was one of the most important trading ports of Eastern Europe. Merchant vessels sailed from the Baltic Sea through Ladoga to Novgorod and then to Constantinople or the Caspian Sea. This route is known as the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. An alternative way led down the Volga River along the Volga trade route to the Khazar capital of Atil, and then to the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, all the way to Baghdad. Tellingly, the oldest Arabian medieval coin in Europe was unearthed in Ladoga.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Ladoga under Rurik and the Rurikids

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File:VolkhovRiverMounds.jpg
8th- to 10th-century Viking burial mounds along the Volkhov River near Staraya Ladoga

According to the Hypatian Codex that was created at the end of the 13th century, the legendary Varangian leader Rurik arrived at Ladoga in 862 and made it his capital. Rurik later moved to Novgorod and subsequently his successors moved from there to Kiev where foundations for the powerful state of Kievan Rus' were laid. There are several huge tumuli, or royal funerary barrows, at the outskirts of Ladoga. One of them is said to be Rurik's grave, and another one—that of his successor Oleg. The Heimskringla and other Norse sources mention that in the late 990s Eric Haakonsson of Norway raided the coast and set the town ablaze. Ladoga was the most important trading center in Eastern Europe from about 800 to 900 CE, and it is estimated that between 90% and 95% of all Arab dirhams found in Sweden passed through Ladoga.

Ladoga's next mention in chronicles is dated 1019, when Ingigerd of Sweden married Yaroslav of Novgorod. Under the terms of their marriage settlement, Yaroslav ceded Ladoga to his wife, who appointed her father's cousin, the Swedish earl Ragnvald Ulfsson, to rule the town. This information is confirmed by sagas and archaeological evidence, which suggests that Ladoga gradually evolved into a primarily Varangian settlement. At least two Swedish kings spent their youth in Ladoga, Stenkil and Inge I, and possibly also King Anund Gårdske.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, Ladoga functioned as a trade outpost of the powerful Novgorod Republic. Later its trade significance declined and most of the population engaged in fishing in the 15th century.<ref name="bernadsky" /> After new fortresses such as Oreshek and Korela were constructed in the 14th century further to the west of Ladoga, the town's military significance also decreased. Ladoga belonged to Vodskaya Pyatina of the Republic and contained eighty-four homesteads in the 15th century; most of the land belonged to the church.<ref name="bernadsky">Template:Cite book</ref> The Novgorodians built there a citadel with five towers and several churches.

Later history

After the town of Novaya Ladoga (New Ladoga) was founded in 1704 by Peter the Great, Ladoga became known as Staraya Ladoga and its importance decreased.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Sights and landmarks

The heart of Staraya Ladoga is an old fortress where the Ladozhka flows into the Volkhov. In earlier times, it was a strategic site because it was the only possible harbor for sea-vessels that could not navigate through the Volkhov River. The fortress was rebuilt at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. In 1703, Peter the Great founded the town of Novaya Ladoga (New Ladoga) closer to the bank of Lake Ladoga. The ancient fortress thenceforth declined and came to be known as Staraya Ladoga (Old Ladoga), in order to distinguish it from the new town. The reconstruction of one of the towers of Staraya Ladoga's fortress was scheduled to be completed in 2010.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The mid-12th-century churches of St. George and of Mary's Assumption stand in all their original glory. Inside St. George's, some magnificent 12th-century frescoes are still visible. In addition, there is a mid-12th-century church of St. Climent, which stands in ruins.

There is also the Assumption Nunnery/Monastery, and a monastery, dedicated to St. Nicholas which was constructed mainly in the 17th century.

Culture and art

Staraya Ladoga's barrows, architectural monuments, and romantic views of the Volkhov River have always been drawing attention of Russian painters. There were the artists Ivan Aivazovsky, Orest Kiprensky, Aleksander Orłowski, Ivan Ivanov, Alexey Venetsianov and many others in the 19th century.<ref>Н. В. Мурашова, Л. П. Мыслина. Дворянские усадьбы Санкт-Петербургской губернии. Южное Приладожье. Кировский и Волховский районы. — СПб, Алаборг, 2009. C. 207—224.</ref> A future member of the Imperial Academy of Arts and the Peredvizhniki group Vassily Maximov was born and laid to rest there. He portrayed scenes from an everyday life of peasants.

Nicholas Roerich painted his studies there during the summer of 1899. He named this landscape the best of the Russian one.<ref name="ReferenceA">Д. П. Бучкин. О доме творчества «Старая Ладога» // Д. П. Бучкин. Гравюры и рассказы. — СПб, Бибилиотека «Невского альманаха», 2004. — С. 10.</ref> Valentin Serov, Konstantin Korovin, Boris Kustodiev also worked there. Alexander Samokhvalov was in Staraya Ladoga many times in 1924-1926. He took part in the restoration of the St. George's Church.<ref>А. Н. Самохвалов. Ладога, и не только Ладога // А. Н. Самохвалов. Мой творческий путь. — Л: Художник РСФСР, 1977. — С. 102 —113.</ref> That experience gave a great deal to the artist, he wrote. It helped him to understand the effect of joining a monumental painting with the architectural forms.<ref>А. Н. Самохвалов. В поисках монументальной выразительности // А. Н. Самохвалов. В годы беспокойного солнца. — СПб: Всемирное слово, 1996. — С. 193 —194.</ref> In result of this dwelling in that place painter made his "Staraya Ladoga" (1924) and "Family of Fisherman"(1926, Russian Museum)<ref>Баршова И., Сазонова К. Александр Николаевич Самохвалов. — Л: Художник РСФСР, 1963. — С. 50.</ref>

In February 1945 the ex-estate of the prince Shakhovskoy was given to Leningrad artists as a base zone for rest and creative work.<ref>Стенографический отчёт заседания Правления ЛССХ совместно с Правлением Ленизо и Художественным фондом по обсуждению плана работ на 1945 год и о подготовке к выставке 1945 года // Центральный Государственный Архив литературы и искусства. СПб. Ф.78. Оп.1. Д.49, Л.8.</ref> The restoring works continued 15 years from 1946.<ref>Л. С. Конова. Санкт-Петербургский Союз художников. Краткая хроника 1932-2009 // Петербургские искусствоведческие тетради. Выпуск 20. — СПб, 2012. — С.176.</ref> But Leningrad artists began to arrive to Staraya Ladoga from 1940s. It became a source of inspiration for Sergei Osipov, Gleb Savinov, Nikolai Timkov, Arseny Semionov and many others for many years.<ref>А. Н. Семёнов, С. И. Осипов, К. А. Гущин. Выставка произведений. Каталог. Авт. вступ. статьи Г. Ф. Голенький. — Л: Художник РСФСР, 1977. — С. 4.</ref>

The House of Creativity «Staraya Ladoga began to operate permanently in the beginning of the 1960s after the finish of the restoration. It was an important center of the art life of Russia for 30 years.<ref>Дом творчества художников «Старая Ладога» в галерее «Голубая гостиная» Санкт-Петербургского Союза художников</ref> Such artists as Evsey Moiseenko, Alexander Samokhvalov, Vecheslav Zagonek, Dmitry Belyaev, Vladimir Ovchinnikov, Boris Ugarov, Boris Shamanov, Vsevolod Bazhenov, Piotr Buchkin, Zlata Bizova, Taisia Afonina, Marina Kozlovskaya, Dmitry Maevsky, Alexander Semionov, Arseny Semionov, Irina Dobrekova, Vladimir Sakson, Gleb Savinov, Elena Zhukova, Sergei Zakharov, Ivan Varichev, Veniamin Borisov, Valery Vatenin, Ivan Godlevsky, Vladimir Krantz, Lazar Yazgur, Irina Dobrekova, Piotr Fomin and many other Leningrad and other regions painters and graphic artists worked there.

In 1970-1980 as the House of Creativity was widening, new buildings were built. They used it a whole-year. A dwelling there for 1–2 months was without any payment for the artists. All commitments on housing, food and travel were taken on by the Art Foundation of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> The paintings created there were exposed in first-rate art exhibitions.<ref>Зональная выставка «Ленинград». — Л: Художник РСФСР, 1965. — С. 9, 13, 14, 15, 19, 21, 25, 31.</ref><ref>Изобразительное искусство Ленинграда. — Л: Художник РСФСР, 1976. — С. 15, 16, 17, 19, 32.</ref><ref>Выставка произведений петербургских художников «Старая Ладога». 14 марта – 6 апреля 2014 года</ref> It completed the collections of the main museums of Soviet Union and numerous private collections of Russia and abroad. Also it became a base of an extensive collection of painting, graphics and sculpture of the museum “Staraya Ladoga”.<ref>Фонд живописи, графики и скульптуры музея - заповедника «Старая Ладога»</ref>

Financing of the House of Creativity stopped at the beginning of the 1990s on the breakup of the USSR and after the liquidation of the Art Foundation. It stopped welcoming artists and was closed.

References

Notes

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Sources

  • Template:RussiaAdmMunRef
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  • А.Н. Самохвалов. Ладога, и не только Ладога // А. Н. Самохвалов. Мой творческий путь. — Л: Художник РСФСР, 1977.
  • А.Н. Самохвалов. В поисках монументальной выразительности // А. Н. Самохвалов. В годы беспокойного солнца. — СПб: Всемирное слово, 1996.
  • Д.П. Бучкин. О доме творчества «Старая Ладога» // Д. П. Бучкин. Гравюры и рассказы. — СПб, Бибилиотека «Невского альманаха», 2004.
  • Н. В. Мурашова, Л. П. Мыслина. Дворянские усадьбы Санкт-Петербургской губернии. Южное Приладожье. Кировский и Волховский районы. — СПб, Алаборг, 2009.
  • Л. С. Конова. Санкт-Петербургский Союз художников. Краткая хроника 1932-2009 // Петербургские искусствоведческие тетради. Выпуск 20. — СПб, 2012.

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