It is known that fortified settlements on the territory of medieval Russia have existed since the Bronze Age. In the second half of the first millennium BC, the number of fortified settlements increased significantly compared to the undefended.

It should be noted that, like the early ones, they sat on the tops of hills or high along the banks on the bend of the river (island or simple cape) and that their defense consisted of ditches and ramparts topped with primitive wooden walls (mostly palisades). Many of these pre-Slavic fortified settlements were subsequently used by the Slavs, who usually modernized them by increasing the height of the fortress walls and erecting new wooden walls on top of them.

The earliest authentic Slavic settlements date back to the 6th century AD. Most of the Slavic settlements of the 6th and 7th centuries were not fortified, however, the situation quickly changed in the 8th century. A large number of settlements were realized, protected not only by the relief, but also by artificial defensive structures (ditches, ramparts, palisades). On the outskirts of these fortresses one can often find several impregnable settlements, which means that they served as the residences of the tribal leaders.

The main threat to the southern Russian lands from the 10th to the 12th centuries was represented by nomadic warriors. From the first half of the 10th century to the first half of the 11th century, these were the Pechenegs, and from the middle of the 11th century, the Cumans. The Pechenegs crossed the Volga and invaded the lands north of the Black Sea at the end of the 10th century. They established themselves within the southern borders, making regular raids into her territory to capture booty and prisoners.

The first clash between the Russians and the Pechenegs took place in 915. For more than a century (until 1036), the Pechenegs continuously attacked Russia; in 968 they even besieged and almost captured Kiev, the capital of Old Russia.

The Polovtsians proved to be no less deadly enemy and first appeared on the southeastern borders of Russia in 1055. In the late 1060s, the Polovtsy staged a large-scale invasion of Russian lands, and in the last decade of the century not a single year passed without their attack.

The bulk of the nomadic armies consisted of irregular cavalry. They did not know how to properly besiege fortified places, and rarely did it; when they besieged, they seldom succeeded. Nomad warriors rarely raided enemy territory, fearing that the garrisons of any Russian fortress in the rear would attack them from behind or cut off their retreat. Along the main border rivers such as Sula, Stugna, Ros, Trubezh, Desna, lines of fortresses were built.

Another line of fortifications stretched on both sides of the Dnieper, from the Ros River to Kiev. These fortresses formed a second line of defense and were able to warn the capital in advance of the breakthrough of enemy hordes. Fortresses were also built along the routes of potential enemy movement. In addition to them, extensive fortification lines were also created - Serpentine ramparts, which we will discuss in the following articles.

» article Western fortress of the Slavs - Slavenburg (Slawenburg). Where we will tell about one of the most western fortresses of the Slavs, located on the territory of Germany. A bit of history, and, of course, photos.

The western fortress of the Slavs - Slavenburg (Slawenburg) is located in the ancient Slavic village of Raddusch, not on the banks of the Spree River, in the Serbian-Lusatian region of Germany - Dolna Lusatia - Niederlausitz - the federal state of Brandenburg. Now there is a museum of ancient Slavic architecture - "Slawenburg-Raddusch". It was opened in 2001 in the immediate vicinity of the village of Radush, on the site of an ancient Slavic round castle found during the development of brown coal in the late 80s of the 20th century.

Previously, it was the Slavic city-vara Dolna Luzhitsa (9th century AD). The fortress is one of about forty Slavic round defensive structures that originally existed in Lower Puddle. These fortresses were built by the Slavs - the ancestors of modern Lusatians - in the 9th-10th centuries. n. e. and served as shelters for the population living nearby.

The high concentration of these fortresses in Lower Puddle is associated with constant pressure from the Germans in this region. The fortress was built of wooden blocks, a moat filled with water was dug around it. The internal cavities of the wooden structure were filled with sand, earth and clay.

The museum is a reconstructed Slavic castle, which is a fortress 50 m in diameter, with a vast interior space (1,200 sq. m).

The round shaft-wall, 8 m high, is made of oak trunks linked to each other, laid in layers, the gaps between which are filled with sand and clay. Such round fortresses were characteristic buildings for the ancient Slavs who lived on the territory of present-day Germany.

The modern building is made using technology very close to the technology of the medieval original. Inside there is a museum with an exposition "Archaeology in the Lower Lusatia", a conference hall and a restaurant. The exposition presents a period over the last 12,000 years of the history of the region.

The ancient Slavs during the "Great Migration of Nations" came to the lands of modern Saxony in the VI century AD. Today it is not possible to restore the events of the process of settling these places. It is assumed that where the Slavs crossed the Elbe (Labu), they met with the Germanic tribes and established good neighborly relations with them. The Slavs at that time represented several ethnic groups.

According to modern history, from about the end of the 6th to the middle of the 13th century AD. the east, north and north-west of modern Germany was inhabited by a large group of West Slavic tribes of the Lusatians, Lyutichs, Bodrichs, Pomeranians and Ruyans, who are now called Polabian Slavs. These tribes, according to orthodox historians, in the second half of the 6th century replaced the "Germanic" tribes of the Lombards, Rugs, Lugii, Chizobrads, Varins, Velets and others who lived here in ancient times.

However, many researchers argue that there is “an amazing coincidence of the tribal names of the Polabian, Pomeranian and other Western Slavs with the oldest ethnic names known in this territory at the turn of the first centuries of our era,” mentioned in Roman sources. In total, about fifteen such paired, coinciding ancient and medieval Slavic names of the tribes that lived in the area are known. And this means that the Slavs lived on the territory of Germany, at least from these very first centuries.

Most of the West Slavic tribes suffered an unenviable fate. At the beginning of the 10th century, the German Drang nach Osten (campaign to the East) began, during which the Western Slavs were partly ousted from their lands, partly converted to Christianity and assimilated, and most of them were simply exterminated during the Crusades against the Western Slavs.

Raddush has long lost its defensive significance, but even at the beginning of the 20th century it was clearly recognizable as a ring-shaped wooden structure. During the existence of the German Democratic Republic, the remains of the fortress were supposed to be demolished in connection with the planned extraction of brown coal. In connection with the preparations for this, in 1984 and 1989/1990. archaeological excavations were carried out here, and an idol of about 1100 years old was discovered.

To the east of the Elbe (Laby) and Zaale (Zalava) lived the Slavs - encouraged, Lutici, Serbs and Lusatians. Serbs and Vilchans settled in the Anhalt region. The Slavs lived in tribal communities. The Slavs of that period had highly developed crafts, military and trade. The areas of residence were divided into fields and fields with a length of 10-20 kilometers along rivers, lakes and valleys. In the center, as a rule, a family fortress was erected, which was surrounded by several dozen residential and utility yards with land plots of various sizes.

Currently, hundreds of Slavic round fortresses are known in East Germany. About 40 Slavic fortresses are known in the areas of the Saale River, more than 100 fortresses are located in the area between the Elbe (Laba), Saale (Zalava) and Oder (Vodra) rivers. The building material of all these Slavic castles, as in the case of the Slawenburg-Raddusch settlement, are wooden logs and earth ...

The original castle in Raduš had a diameter of 58 meters and was surrounded by a moat 5.5 meters wide. It had two gates within seven meter walls. In the courtyard of the castle there was a wooden log well 14 meters deep and various residential and outbuildings. On the ramparts there is a wide battlefield fenced on the outside with a wattle fence of willow branches. From here you have a wide view of the Lusatian landscape.

“Past the island of Buyan”, which Pushkin colorfully described in his “Tale of Tsar Saltan”, floated not only the notorious barrel with the hero of the work of Alexander Sergeevich, but also an armada of Danish kings who wanted to conquer the lands of the free Baltic Slavs. It was this connection between the islands of Buyan and Ruyan that the historian Vilinbakhov made, proving the identity of the names of the legendary island.

Cult of Svyatovit

Ruyan with the capital Arkona was one of the last pagan fortresses of the ancient and autochthonous Slavic civilization, its western wing - the lands of the Polabian-Obodrite Slavs.

In modern Germany, many Slavic sanctuaries have been reconstructed, and this is not surprising, because all of its territory beyond the Oder (the Slavic name is Odra) and the Elbe (Laba) until the Middle Ages was inhabited by numerous Slavic tribes known as the Lutiches, Wilts, Bodrichs, Pomeranians, Serbs-Sorbs and many others. The Germans and other Germanic and Romanesque peoples called the Baltic Slavs Wends. Often the Wends-Vendi are mentioned as the progenitors of the Slavs.

Over time, almost all of these tribes were assimilated by the most powerful German-Catholic onslaught to the east. But until now, the Sorbs Slavs have retained their identity in Germany (their number is about 250,000 people). This relic ethnos remained to us in memory of the former Slavic hegemony in that region and the stubborn long-term resistance of the Polabian Slavs to German colonization. Assimilation was bloody in nature, there was a powerful outflow of the Slavic population of these lands to neighboring fraternal countries - Poland and the Czech Republic. But a particularly fierce struggle took place in the very north of the lands of the Polabian Slavs - on the island of Ruyan (Rügen), near Cape Arkona.

There was the cult center of the same name of the Slavs of the Baltic space. It was dedicated to the Slavic deity Sventovit. This god was responsible for fertility and was central in the pantheon of deities of the inhabitants of Ruyan.

The 14th-century Danish chronographer Saxo Grammatik in his work "The Acts of the Danes" gave a detailed description of the Arkona and the temple with the priest Svyatovita (Sventovita). The idol of Svyatovit had four faces facing the cardinal points, and held a horn of wine in his hand. According to the level of wine in it, the clergyman determined the degree of yield for the coming year.

The central holiday in the solar pagan cycle was the day of the autumn equinox - it was in September that the Slavic New Year began and festivities with feasts and round dances were organized right in the Sventovita sanctuary. The Ruyans were preparing a large honey cake as tall as a man. The priest stood behind him and asked the audience: “Can you see me?” If it was visible, then he wished that next year the cake completely eclipsed him.

On the territory of Arkona there was a warehouse of all wealth. The Ruyans gave the priest of Sventovit about a third of the funds obtained. In his barns and bins were jewelry and clothes, a lot of fabrics and other valuables. There were about 300 horses in the stable at the temple. The priest was the central figure in the state of the recalcitrant island. It was he who planned the routes and tactics of military campaigns, including using the widely used fortune-telling practice. Saxo Grammaticus described a ritual involving a white horse stepping over a symbolic gate made of three mines. If the horse stepped with his right foot, then the campaign will be successful, if with his left, then it is worth reconsidering the direction of movement of the troops. The horse was inviolable, only the priest himself could take care of him, and pulling out even a hair from his mane was considered a grave offense.

Onslaught to the East

The Ruyans were engaged not only in agriculture and cattle breeding, but were truly conquerors of the sea. They controlled the vast territory of the Baltic Sea, waging constant wars with the Vikings. Some Danish provinces even paid tribute to the Slavs of Ruyan.

Perhaps the expansionist policy of the Baltic Slavs was partly due to their response to the well-known German ideological paradigm Drang nach Osten - "Onslaught to the East" - after all, attempts to colonize the lands of the Ruyans and convert them to Christianity took place almost throughout the Slavic-German contacts, starting from Frankish times. There is an opinion that the Kiev prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich (Red Sun) erected a pagan pantheon in Kiev, on Podil, in 980 out of solidarity with the rebellious Slavic relatives of Arkona.

Being surrounded by aggressive neighbors, Arkona resisted for a long time, until in 1168 it was destroyed by the army of the Danish king Valdemar I, who defeated the Ruyansk prince Jaromir.

The stones of the Arkona sanctuary went to the construction of a Catholic church in Altenkirchen in 1185. One of them - with the image of the priest Sventovit - is still kept there.

The greatest figure of the Reformation, Philip Melanchthon, wrote that after the fall of Arkona and its complete plunder by the colonizers - Catholics - the majority of the Ruyan Slavs migrated to the east, to where the coast of the Gulf of Riga is now. He also etymologically connected the names of Riga and Ruyan. It is quite possible that the Ruyans found refuge with their kindred pagan Balts, the ancestors of modern Latvians. After all, it is known that the Baltic and Slavic tribes are the closest genetically, culturally and linguistically in comparison with other Indo-European peoples.

Arkona and Rurik

The anti-Normanist doctrine of Lomonosov is also associated with Arkona, in which the great Russian scientist postulated a version about the Ruyansk Slavic roots of Rurik and his entourage. Mikhail Vasilyevich believed that the Varangians, called up by the Novgorodians in 862, came from Ruyan or other lands of the Baltic Slavs and had nothing to do with the Germans.

The legend about the Novgorod elder Gostomysl mentions the clans of the Baltic Slavs, who are closely related to the clans of the Ilmen Slovenes. So, according to this legend, Gostomysl called on ambassadors from all the tribes neighboring the Slovenes to reign his grandson Rurik, born of Umila, the daughter of the legendary elder.

Thus, being at a higher level of social, religious organization, Arkona could also be a "forge of managerial personnel" for neighboring Slavic lands.

The Slavic citadel of the Baltic Arkona reminds us of the great era of the domination of the developed spiritual culture of our ancestors.

The first known Slavic settlements located on the territory of today's Ukraine date back to the 6th-7th centuries. these settlements were unfortified. In subsequent centuries, in connection with the threats of neighboring tribes, nomads in the south and Finnish and Lithuanian tribes in the northwest, fortified settlements - cities began to be created. Fortifications of the 8th-9th and even the 10th centuries. belonged, as a rule, to not crowded communities that did not have the opportunity to build powerful fortifications. The main task of the fortifications was to prevent the enemies from suddenly breaking into the settlement and to cover the defenders of the fortress, who could fire at the enemy from cover. Therefore, in the construction of fortifications, they tried to make the most of natural barriers, the landscape of the area: rivers, steep slopes, ravines, swamps. The most suitable for this purpose were islands in the middle of rivers or swamps. But such settlements were not very convenient in everyday life due to the complexity of communication with the surrounding space and did not have the possibility of territorial growth. And suitable islands are not always and not everywhere to be found. Therefore, the most common were settlements on high capes - "remnants". Such settlements, as a rule, were surrounded by rivers or steep slopes from three sides, from the floor side the settlement was protected by a moat and rampart. A wooden palisade or horizontal logs sandwiched between two pillars were arranged on top of the shaft - a “plot”.

Settlements Bereznyaki III-V centuries.

In the X-XI centuries. the military-political situation changed, the Pechenegs were increasingly active in the south, Poland in the west, and the Baltic tribes in the north-west. The birth and development of the feudal state at this time made it possible to build more powerful fortifications. At this time, feudal castles, princely fortresses and cities appeared, where the main role was played not by agriculture, but by craft and trade.
Castles served as strongholds and residences for feudal lords.

Castle of Vladimir Monomakh in Lyubech XI century. (Reconstruction by B.A. Rybakov.)

City fortifications most often consisted of two defensive lines: the central part - the citadel and the second line - the roundabout city.

Castle town on the Dnieper near the village. Chuchinka. (Reconstruction according to excavations by V.O. Dovzhenko)

Fortresses were built mainly in the border areas and populated with garrisons.

The management of the construction of fortifications lay with military engineering specialists small towns or city ​​dwellers. They not only supervised the construction of fortifications, but also monitored their condition and timely repairs. Urban affairs, as one of the most difficult types of feudal duties, lay on the shoulders of the dependent population; hired labor was often used in the Novgorod and Pskov lands.

The construction of fortifications required large material and human resources. So, about a thousand people had to continuously work on the construction of the “city of Yaroslav” in Kiev for five years. Approximately 180 people were to work on the construction of the small fortress Mstislavl during one construction season.

The main tactics of capturing fortifications in the X-XI centuries. there was a sudden capture - “departure” or “exile”, if it did not work out, then they proceeded to a systematic siege - “encirclement”. The siege led to success in the event that the water supplies and provisions of the besieged ended, a direct assault was decided only in case of weakness of the fortifications or the garrison.

11th century fortifications located on a high place or on a low one, in any case, the fortress had to have a wide view so that the enemy could not approach it unnoticed. Frontal firing from the walls along the entire perimeter prevented the assault on the fortifications. The system of fortifications included a moat, a rampart and powerful walls.

In the XII century. round fortresses became widespread, they were located on a flat surface with large open spaces around the perimeter. In such fortresses, it was possible to freely make wells, which was very important in case of a long siege, and to conduct frontal shelling of enemies in all directions, since the terrain could not create defense areas that could not be shot through.

Mstislavl. (Reconstruction by P.A. Rappoport, drawing by architect A.A. Chumachenko)

The defense of some fortresses consisted of a series of parallel, as a rule, oval rings of fortifications.

Ancient Novgorod. 10th century

The fortifications of many large cities consisted of a citadel built as a cape fortification, that is, limited on three sides by natural barriers and having one floor side. The roundabout city covered the settlement and was built already obeying the terrain and the area that had to be protected.

The basis of Russian fortresses XI - XII centuries. there were earthen parts of defensive structures, these are natural slopes, artificial ramparts and ditches. Shafts were of particular importance in the defense system. They were poured from the soil, the basis of which was usually the soil obtained by digging a ditch. The front slope of the rolls was from 30 to 45 degrees, the rear slope was 25-30 degrees. On the back side of the shaft, a terrace was sometimes made at half its height for the movement of the defenders of the fortress during the battle. To climb to the top of the shaft, wooden stairs were made, sometimes the stairs were cut out in the ground itself.

The height of the ramparts of medium-sized fortifications was no more than 4 m, the ramparts of large cities were much larger: Vladimir 8 m, Ryazan 10 m, the city of Yaroslav in Kiev 16 m. her. In ancient Russian fortresses, such a construction was oak log cabins clogged with earth.

The earliest structures inside the rampart belong to the fortresses of the 10th century. this is Belgorod, Pereyaslavl, a fortress on the river. Stugne (fortified settlement Zarechye). In these fortresses, oak log cabins stand close to each other at the base of the rampart, with logs about 50 cm wide. Under the front part of the rampart, in front of the log house, there is a trellis frame made of logs knocked together with iron crutches and filled with mud bricks on clay. The entire structure was covered with earth forming the slope of the shaft.

Shaft and fortress wall of Belgorod in the 10th century. (Reconstruction by M.V. Gorodtsov, B.A. Rybakov)

From the 11th century the design of the shaft, due to the laboriousness of manufacturing, began to be made simpler, the front part of the shaft was simply earthen, only a frame of log cabins stuffed with earth remained. Such ramparts were in Chertoryysk, in the settlement of Old Bezradichi, in the settlement near the Sungirevsky ravine near Vladimir, in Novgorod, etc. With a significant width of the rampart, a frame was placed with several transverse walls across the rampart (the rampart of ancient Mstislavl).

To eliminate the sliding of the shaft, log cabins of a small height were placed at its base. Part of the cages on the inner side of the rampart were not filled with earth, but were left for use as residential or utility premises. This technique was especially widely used in the fortresses of the XII century.

Moats in Russian fortresses of the XI-XII centuries. were usually symmetrical in profile, with an angle of inclination of 30-45 degrees. The depth of the ditch was usually equal to the height of the rampart. The shaft was poured at a distance of about one meter from the ditch.

Most of the fortresses in Russia in the 11th-12th centuries were made of wood, they were log cabins cut into a halo. The first simplest design of a log wall is a log house of three walls connected to the second log house of the same kind by a short piece of log.

Fortress wall of the XII century. (Reconstruction by P.A. Rappoport)

The second type, these are walls consisting of log cabins tightly set to each other 3-4 m long. Each such link, regardless of the design, was called Grodny. If the defensive ramparts had wooden log cabins inside, then the walls were directly connected with them, grew out of them. The disadvantage of such walls was the difference in the height of the walls due to the uneven shrinkage of the log cabins, which made the combat platform uneven and the rapid decay of the adjacent walls of the log cabins due to poor ventilation.
The height of the walls was 3-5 m. In the upper part of the wall, a battle course was arranged, covered with a log parapet. Such devices were called visors. Most likely, already in the 12th century, the visor was made with a ledge in front, which made it possible to conduct not only frontal shelling of the enemy, but also hit the enemy with arrows or boiling water at the bottom at the foot of the walls.

Double took. According to V. Laskovsky

If the front wall of the visor was taller than human height, then for the convenience of the defenders they made special benches called beds.

I took it with the bed. According to V. Laskovsky

From above, the visor was covered with a roof, most often a gable roof.

In most fortresses, passage inside was carried out through the gate located in the travel tower. The level of the gate was located at the base of the rampart, above the gate, especially in large cities, gate churches were arranged. If there was a ditch in front of the gate, a narrow bridge was made across it, which, in case of danger, was destroyed by the defenders of the fortress. Drawbridges in Russia in the XI-XII centuries were used very rarely. In addition to the main gates, secret manholes were arranged in the fortresses, in earthen ramparts, which were used for sorties during the siege. Fortresses of the 11th-12th centuries were built most often without towers, except for gates and watchtowers designed to survey the area.

From the beginning of the 13th century, an assault on the fortress became more and more often used in place of a passive siege. The ditches were thrown with bundles of brushwood - "will take", they climbed onto the walls with the help of ladders. Stone-throwing machines began to be used. With the advent of the Mongols in Russia, a new tactic of taking the fortress was fully formed. The main weapons for fighting the fortresses were stone throwers (vices), which were installed at a distance of 100-150 m from the wall. The entire city was fenced around the perimeter with a palisade to protect itself from the attacks of the besieged. Stone-throwers methodically fired at a certain section of the wall, and after its complete or partial destruction and massive shelling from bows, they went on the attack. The besieged defenders could no longer fire back at the destroyed section of the walls, and the attackers broke through into the inside of the fortress. Thus, almost all cities were taken by storm and destroyed, especially in the region of the Middle Dnieper.

The emergence of new assault tactics led to a change in the construction of fortresses. The first in this were the lands of Galicia-Volyn, Vladimir-Suzdal and Novgorod lands, as the most remote from the influence of the Mongols.
They try to build new fortresses on hills, so that it would not be possible to roll up stone-throwing machines at a sufficiently close distance to them. In the Volyn principality, high stone towers are being built - donjons (20-29 m) from which attackers can be fired. They were usually built near the most dangerous areas of defense.

Chertoryysk XIII century. (Reconstruction by P.A. Rappoport)

Several defensive ramparts and walls appear on the floor side of the fortress. As a result, the third main fortification wall to be destroyed is located at a considerable distance from the first wall. In Galich, this distance is 84 m. Therefore, to shell the third wall, it is necessary to roll a stone thrower 50-60 m to the first defensive line, while the defenders of the fortress constantly fire at close range those who serve the stone throwers.
In the XIV century. in North-Eastern Russia, its own new defense system has developed. Most of the perimeter of the fortress was covered by natural barriers: rivers, ravines, steep slopes. The floor side was protected by powerful ditches, ramparts and walls. They began to put towers with the removal of the wall, so that it was possible to conduct flanking shelling of the enemy. They tried to make sections of the walls between the towers straight for a more successful defeat of the enemy. Among the fortresses made according to this principle, one can name: Staritsa (Tver land), Romanov, Vyshgorod, Ples, Galich-Mersky, etc.
Fortresses of this type, with one powerful fortified side and less fortified others, closed by natural barriers, required lower costs for their construction and corresponded to the maximum to the ability to repel the enemy's assault.
Starting from the XV century. in connection with the increasing improvement of stone throwers and the appearance of artillery, the walls began to be made thicker, from two rows of logs, walls appeared from two and three sectional log cabins, the interior of which was filled with earth. For the construction of loopholes of the lower battlefield, some of the cages were covered with earth, others were left empty to accommodate guns and shooters. The walls, covered with earth, withstood cannon attacks no worse than stone walls.
By the middle of the 15th century, with the growth of the power of artillery, it became possible to shell the fortress from any direction, natural barriers no longer protected from enemy shelling and assault as before. Since that time, the towers have been placed along the entire perimeter of the defense, and the walls between the towers have been straightened to allow flanking shelling. The creation of regular - rectangular in terms of fortresses, with towers in the corners begins. In addition to the rectangle, the plan of the fortress was made in the form of a pentagon, triangle, trapezoid. If the terrain did not allow making a geometrically regular shape of the fortress, then the towers were evenly distributed along the perimeter, and the sections between the towers were straightened as much as possible.

Fortress wall structures

The simplest fortification of the first fortresses was a moat with a shaft on which a low tyn was erected from logs dug vertically into the ground with pointed ends.

The simplest tyn fortification is a wall of various heights, the defense of which was carried out over the tyn or through special loopholes. A more complex type is a tyn with a double fight; it consists of: an “upper fight”, the platform of which was located on transverse chopped walls and a lower “plantar fight”.

Tynovaya fence with upper and sole battle according to V. Laskovsky

According to the location of the fence, a “standing” prison was distinguished, this is when the fence is located perpendicular to the ground and an “oblique” prison with a slope of the fence towards the enclosed space.

A - oblique prison, B - backfill fence, C - transitional type from fences to walls. According to V. Laskovsky

There were tynovye walls with "needles", these are inclined support logs, the sharp ends of which were directed outward.

A more serious protection was provided by a backfill fence, when the space between the backyard and the rear pillars was covered with earth. Another type of backfill prison is transitional to chopped walls. Here, a low tynovy fence, which plays the role of a parapet, is placed on log cabins standing close to each other filled with earth. Chopped walls are stronger and more durable. The ancient type of chopped walls are "grodny" log cabins placed close to each other.

The walls are chopped with grottoes. Mangazeya. 17th century Reconstruction

The disadvantage of this design was the rapid decay of the side walls adjacent to each other and the uneven settlement of the log cabins, which led to large differences in the height of the upper battlefield.

These shortcomings were eliminated in the construction of walls by "taras". Such walls were widely used in the XV century. The outer and inner walls were made solid and connected to each other by transverse walls at a distance of 3-4 fathoms, inside they were covered with earth or stones.

Axonometric section of the wall, chopped with "taras", Olonets (1649), reconstruction

To give greater stability, the base of the walls was broadened with slopes.

Section of a wall with a broadened base. According to V. Laskovsky

Another type of wall "tarasami" was more complex. The transverse walls were located on the outer surface at a distance of a sazhen from each other, and at the inner surface they converged to form triangular cages. Moreover, the location of the logs of the transverse walls alternated every two crowns of the longitudinal ones. This design gave greater stability and made it difficult for the besiegers to make a partial collapse in it.

Walls of the city of Korotoyaka (1648)

The height of the chopped walls, according to written sources, was 2.5-3 fathoms, the width of the walls was from 1.5 to 2 fathoms. The tynovye walls had a height of 1.5 to 2 sazhens.

With the spread of firearms in the 16th century, when fire fighting began to be used in defense, the lower tier of defense appeared in the construction of the walls - sole fight. For this, niches were made in taras with loopholes in the front wall.

Plan and sections of the walls of Tarasami with a lower battle. According to V. Laskovsky

For the shooters of the upper battle, a log floor (“bridge”) was laid over the taras, covered with a log parapet with loopholes and covered with a gable roof on top. The upper battle hung over the wall, forming a "bummer" for shooting from the top, dropping stones and pouring pitch on the enemy storming the wall.

Walls of the city of Olonets (1649). According to V. Laskovsky

Wooden chopped walls had a gable roof, the truss structure of which rested on the outer wall and on the inner pillars of the overcut walls resting on the releases of the upper logs. The roof was usually covered in two boards, less often in one, but then a flashing was used or shingles were placed under the boards.

Towers until the 13th century. had limited use, they had different names: “vezha”, “strelnitsa”, “bonfire”, “pillar”. The term tower appeared in the 16th century. The towers were made quadrangular, six and octagonal in plan. Polygonal towers made it possible to increase the field of fire, they fit especially well into fortresses with a complex plan configuration.

Corner tower of the Olonets fortress. 17th century Reconstruction

Quadrangular towers were often placed in fortresses with a geometrically correct configuration. The upper part of the tower, especially of a later period, had a log cabin that was wider than the base, such an overhang of the log cabins on the console logs created a “bull”. Through the resulting gap, it was possible to hit the enemies accumulated at the base of the towers. Loopholes were made in the walls of the towers in the size of the weapons used. The loopholes for the squeakers were 8-10 cm and were expanded from the outside, from the side and from the bottom to increase the space being fired, for guns the size of the loophole was 30x40 cm.

Tower of the Bratsk Ostrog. 1654 Reconstruction according to V. Laskovsky

The towers, as a rule, were multi-tiered, the floors were connected by internal stairs, in some cases an external staircase led to the upper tier, especially when the lower floor was used for housing (the Bratsk prison tower). The tower was usually crowned with a hipped roof, with or without policemen. An observation tower was sometimes arranged on top of the tent.

Tower of the city of Krasnoyarsk. According to V. Laskovsky

The roof frame could be made of logs or have a truss structure on top, the frame was sewn up with a board. The ends of the clefts were sometimes decorated with truncated peaks.

The first fortresses of the Slavs were quite primitive, which nevertheless fully corresponded to the level of military art of that time. The Arab geographer Al-Bakri, who lived in the 10th century, saw how the Slavs were building their fortifications. "And in this way the Slavs build most of their fortresses: they go to the meadows, abundant waters and reeds, and designate a place there round or square, depending on the shape that they want to give the fortress, and according to its size they dig a moat around it, and dump the dug out earth into the shaft, strengthening it with boards and piles like beaten earth, until the wall reaches the desired height. And then the door is measured from which side they want, and they approach it along a wooden bridge. "

A wooden fence was erected along the crest of the shaft - a palisade or zapolot (a wall of logs dug vertically at some distance from each other, interconnected by horizontally laid logs or planks). A similar fence was later replaced by a more reliable fortress wall of log cabins.

Wooden fortifications in Russia were preferred mainly due to the abundance of material, rich carpentry traditions and the speed of construction. The first stone, or rather stone-wooden, fortress, dating back to the 8th century, was discovered by archaeologists near Staraya Ladoga on the Lyubshan settlement. Among the oldest Russian stone fortifications are also the fortresses on the Truvor settlement near Izborsk (IX century) and in Staraya Ladoga (end of the IX century).

In the 11th-13th centuries, among the many wooden fortresses that covered the Russian land with a dense network, stone fortifications began to appear. As a rule, these are separate towers and spindly walls (the space between the towers). In Kiev, for example, the Sophia Gate and the Golden Gate with the Annunciation Gate Church were built. In Pereyaslavl, one should remember the Bishop's Gate with the Church of St. Theodore Stratilat and adjacent segments of the walls, in Vladimir - the Golden and Silver Gates.

By the beginning of the Mongol-Tatar invasion, there were still too few stone fortifications in Russia. The feudal fragmentation of Russia and the excellent siege technique of the Mongols led to the fact that the Russian wooden fortresses, after a desperate and mostly short-term resistance, were swept away by the Mongols. The capitals of the principalities of Ryazan and Vladimir, which had first-class fortifications at that time, fell respectively on the sixth and fifth days of the siege. And the phenomenal seven-week defense of small Kozelsk can be explained not only by the strength of the fortifications and the courage of the defenders (other cities defended no less fiercely), but also by its exceptionally advantageous position in the river loop. The invasion of the conquerors interrupted the natural development of domestic stone fortification architecture for a hundred and fifty years. Traditions were preserved and developed only in the Novgorod and Pskov lands, not affected by the Mongol invasion.

Stone strongholds that protected the most important cities and roads became the backbone of the defense of the Muscovite state, and its flesh can be considered wooden fortresses that covered Russia from the Far East to Sweden in a dense network. There were especially many wooden fortresses in the south, where they served as cells of numerous fortified lines and security lines that blocked the way for the Crimean Tatars to the central districts of Russia. In the annals of national history, many cases have been preserved when the enemy, armed with the most modern wall guns of those times, trampled around the charred walls of this or that wooden town in impotent fury for weeks and eventually retired in disgrace.

Wooden fortresses can be built very quickly, and this is one of their main advantages. Even a small stone fortress needs to be built for several years, while the construction of a large wooden fortress in one season, or even less, was common.

In theaters of war and in areas where construction was unsafe due to a possible attack by the enemy, the prefabricated construction method was widely used. The papal envoy described the military technique that struck him as follows: “After the engineers have previously examined the places to be strengthened, somewhere in a rather distant forest they cut a large number of logs suitable for such structures; then, after fitting and distributing them according to size and order, with badges that allow them to be taken apart and distributed in the building, they are lowered down the river, and when they reach the place that is planned to be fortified, they are pulled to the ground, from hand to hand; they take apart the signs on each log, connect them together and in an instant they build fortifications, which are immediately covered with earth, and at that time their garrisons appear.

In a similar way, during a campaign against Kazan in the spring of 1551, the city of Sviyazhsk was built. Fortification walls with a length of about 2.5 kilometers, many houses, warehouses and churches were erected in just a month. And during the years of the Livonian War, several Russian fortresses were built near Polotsk "with unheard of speed": Turovlya, Susha, Krasna, Kozyan, Sokol, Sitna, Ulu, Kopiye.