Veliky Novgorod

Veliky Novgorod (Вели́кий Но́вгород, lit. '"Greater Newtown") is one of Russia's most historic cities and the administrative center of Novgorod Oblast. It is situated on the M10 federal highway connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg. The city lies along the Volkhov River just below its outflow from Lake Ilmen. Population:

Early developments
Novgorod is among the oldest cities of Russia, founded in the 9th or 10th century. The Sofia First Chronicle first mentions it in 859; the Novgorod First Chronicle mentions it first under the year 862 when it was allegedly already a major station on the trade route from the Baltics to Byzantium.

Archaeological excavations in the middle to late 20th century, however, have found cultural layers dating back only to the late 10th century, the time of the Christianization of Rus and a century after it was allegedly founded, suggesting that the chronicle entries mentioning Novgorod in the 850s or 860s are later interpolations.

The Varangian name of the city Holmgård (Holmgarðr or Holmgarðir) is mentioned in Norse Sagas as existing at a yet earlier stage, but historical facts cannot here be disentangled from legend. Originally, Holmgård referred only to the stronghold southeast of the present-day city, Riurikovo Gorodishche (named in comparatively modern time after Varangian chieftain Rurik, who supposedly made it his "capital" around 860). Archeological data suggests that the Gorodishche, the residence of the Knyaz (prince), dates from the middle of 9th century, whereas the town itself dates only from the end of the 10th century, hence the name Novgorod, "new city", from Proto-Slavic Новъ and Градъ (Nov and Grad), although German and Scandinavian historiography suggests the Old Norse term Nýgarðr, or the Old High German term Naugard.

Princely state within Kievan Rus'
In 882, Rurik's successor, Oleg of Novgorod, captured Kiev and founded the state of Kievan Rus'. Novgorod's size as well as its political, economic, and cultural influence made it the second city in Kievan Rus'. According to a custom, the elder son and heir of the ruling Kievan monarch was sent to rule Novgorod even as a minor. When the ruling monarch had no such son, Novgorod was governed by posadniks, such as legendary Gostomysl, Dobrynya, Konstantin, and Ostromir.

In Norse sagas the city is mentioned as the capital of Gardariki. Four Viking kings — Olaf I of Norway, Olaf II of Norway, Magnus I of Norway, and Harald Hardrada — sought refuge in Novgorod from enemies at home. No more than a few decades after the death and subsequent canonization of Olaf II of Norway, in 1028, the city's community had erected a church in his memory, Saint Olaf's Church in Novgorod.

Of all their princes, Novgorodians cherished most the memory of Yaroslav the Wise, who had sat as prince while his father, Vladimir the Great, was prince in Kiev. Yaroslav promulgated the first written code of laws (later incorporated into Russkaya Pravda) among the Eastern Slavs and is said to have granted the city a number of freedoms or privileges, which they often referred to in later centuries as precedents in their relations with other princes. His son, Vladimir, sponsored construction of the great St. Sophia Cathedral, more accurately translated as The Cathedral of Holy Wisdom, which stands to this day.

Novgorod Republic
In 1136, the Novgorodians dismissed their prince Vsevolod Mstislavich. This date is seen as the traditional beginning of the Novgorod Republic. The city was able to invite and dismiss a number of princes over the next two centuries, but the princely office was never abolished and powerful princes, such as Alexander Nevsky, could assert their will in the city irrespective of the Novgorodians' wishes. The city state controlled most of Europe's North-East, from lands east of today's Estonia to the Ural Mountains, making it one of the largest states in medieval Europe, although much of the territory north and east of Lakes Ladoga and Onega were sparsely populated and never organized politically.

One of the most important local figures in Novgorod was the Posadnik or mayor, an official elected by the public assembly (called the Veche) from among the city's boyarstvo or aristocracy. The tysyatsky, or "thousandman," originally the head of the town militia but later a commercial and judicial official, was also elected by the veche. The Archbishop of Novgorod was also an important local official and shared power with the boyars. They were elected by the veche or by the drawing of lots; after their election, they were sent to the metropolitan for consecration.

While a basic outline of the various officials and the veche can be drawn up, the city-state's exact political constitution remains unknown. The boyars and the archbishop ruled the city together, although where one official's power ended and another's began is uncertain. The prince, although his power was reduced beginning in about the mid-twelfth century, was represented by his namestnik or lieutenant, and still played important roles as a military commander, legislator, and jurist. The exact composition of the veche, too, is uncertain, with some scholars such as Vasily Kliuchevsky claiming it was democratic in nature, while later scholars, such as Valentin Ianin and Aleksandr Khoroshev, see it as a "sham democracy" controlled by the ruling elite.

In the 13th century, Novgorod, while not a member of the Hanseatic League, was the easternmost kontor, or entrepot, of the league, being the source of enormous quantities of luxury (sable, ermine, fox, marmot) and non-luxury furs (squirrel-pelts).

Throughout the Middle Ages, the city thrived culturally. A large number of birch bark letters have been unearthed in excavations, perhaps suggesting widespread literacy, although this is uncertain (some scholars suggest that a clerical or scribal elite wrote them on behalf of a largely illiterate populace). It was in Novgorod that the oldest Slavic book written north of Macedonia and the oldest inscription in a Finnic language were unearthed. Some of the most ancient Russian chronicles were written in the archbishops' scriptorium and the archbishops also promoted iconography and patronized church construction. The Novgorod merchant Sadko became a popular hero of Russian folklore.

Novgorod was never conquered by the Mongols during the Mongol invasion of Rus. The Mongol army turned back about 100 km from the city, not because of the city's strength, but probably because the Mongol commanders did not want to get bogged down in the marshlands surrounding the city. However, the grand princes of Moscow, who acted as the tax-collectors for the khans of the Golden Horde, did collect tribute (dan) in Novgorod, most notably Yury Danilovich and his brother, Ivan Kalita.

United Russian state
The city's downfall was a result of its inability to feed its large population, making it dependent on the Vladimir-Suzdal region for grain. The main cities in this area, Moscow and Tver, used this dependence to gain control over Novgorod. Eventually Ivan III annexed the city to Grand Duchy of Moscow in 1478. Novgorod remained the third largest Russian city (with 5300 homesteads and 25-30 thousand inhabitants in 1550s ), however, until the famine of 1560s and Ivan the Terrible sacking the city and slaughtering thousands of its inhabitants in 1570. The city's merchant elite and nobility were deported to Moscow, Yaroslavl, and elsewhere.

During the Time of Troubles, Novgorodians eagerly submitted to Swedish troops led by Jacob De la Gardie in summer of 1611. The city was restituted to Russia only six years later, by the Treaty of Stolbovo and regained a measure of its former prosperity by the end of the century, when such ambitious buildings as the Cathedral of the Sign and the Vyazhischi Monastery were constructed. The most famous of Russian patriarchs, Nikon, occupied the metropolitan see of Novgorod between 1648 and 1652.

In 1727, Novgorod was made an administrative centre of the Novgorod Governorate of the Russian Empire, which was detached from Saint Petersburg Governorate (see Administrative divisions of Russia in 1727-1728). This administrative division existed until 1927. Between 1927 and 1944 the city was a part of Leningrad Oblast, and then became an administrative center of the newly formed Novgorod Oblast.

During World War II, on August 15, 1941, the city was occupied by the German Army. Its historic monuments were systematically annihilated. When the Red Army liberated the city on January 19, 1944, out of 2,536 stone buildings, fewer than forty were still standing. After the war, the downtown was gradually restored according to a plan worked out by Alexey Shchusev. In 1992, its chief monuments have been declared the World Heritage Site. In 1999, the city was officially renamed Veliky Novgorod (literally, Great Novgorod), thus partly reverting to its medieval title "Lord Novgorod the Great".

Sights


No other Russian or Ukrainian city can compete with Novgorod in the variety and age of its medieval monuments. The foremost among these is the St Sophia Cathedral, built between 1045 and 1050 under the patronage of Vladimir Yaroslavich, the son of Yaroslav the Wise (Vladimir is buried in the cathedral along with his mother, Anna.) It is the best preserved of 11th century churches, probably the oldest structure still in use in Russia and the first one to represent original features of Russian architecture (austere stone walls, five helmet-like cupolas). Its frescoes were painted in the 12th century originally on the orders of Bishop Nikita (died 1108) (the "porches" or side chapels were painted in 1144 under Archbishop Nifont) and renovated several times over the centuries, most recently in the nineteenth century. The cathedral features famous bronze gates, which now hang in the west entrance, allegedly made in Magdeburg in 1156 (other sources see them originating in Plock in Poland) and reportedly snatched by Novgorodians from the Swedish town of Sigtuna in 1187. More recent scholarship has determined that the gates probably were purchased in the mid-fifteenth century, apparently at the behest of Archbishop Evfimii II (1429–1458), a lover of Western art and architectural styles.

The Novgorod Kremlin, traditionally known as the Detinets, also contains the oldest palace in Russia (the so-called Chamber of the Facets, 1433), which served as the main meeting hall of the archbishops; the oldest Russian bell tower (mid-15th cent.), and the oldest Russian clock tower (1673). The Palace of Facets, the bell tower, and the clock tower were originally built on the orders of Archbishop Evfimii II, although the clock tower collapsed in the seventeenth century and had to be rebuilt and much of the palace of Evfimii II is no longer extant. Among later structures, the most remarkable are a royal palace (1771) and a bronze monument to the Millennium of Russia, representing the most important figures from the country's history (unveiled in 1862).

Outside the kremlin walls, there are three large churches constructed during the reign of Mstislav the Great. St Nicholas Cathedral (1113–23), containing frescoes of Mstislav's family, graces Yaroslav's Court (formerly the chief square of Novgorod). The Yuriev Monastery (one of the oldest in Russia, 1030) contains a tall, three-domed cathedral from 1119 (built by Mstislav's son, Vsevolod. and Kyurik, the head of the monastery. A similar three-domed cathedral (1117), probably designed by the same masters, stands in the Antoniev Monastery, built on the orders of Antony, the founder of that monastery.

There are now some fifty still-extant medieval and early modern churches scattered throughout the city and its environs. Some of them were blown up by the Nazis and subsequently restored. The most ancient pattern is represented by those dedicated to Sts Peter and Pavel (on the Swallow's Hill, 1185–92), to Annunciation (in Myachino, 1179), to Assumption (on Volotovo Field, 1180s) and to St Paraskeva-Piatnitsa (at Yaroslav's Court, 1207). The greatest masterpiece of early Novgorod architecture is the Savior church at Nereditsa (1198).

In the 13th century, tiny churches of the three-paddled design were in vogue. These are represented by a small chapel at the Peryn Monastery (1230s) and St Nicholas' on the Lipnya Islet (1292, also notable for its 14th-century frescoes). The next century saw development of two original church designs, one of them culminating in St Theodor's church (1360–61, fine frescoes from 1380s), and another one leading to the Saviour church on Ilyina street (1374, painted in 1378 by Feofan Grek). The Saviour' church in Kovalevo (1345) was originally frescoed by Serbian masters, but the church was destroyed during the war. While the church has since been rebuilt, the frescoes have not been restored.

During the last century of republican government, some new churches were consecrated to Sts. Peter and Paul (on Slavna, 1367; in Kozhevniki, 1406), to Christ's Nativity (at the Cemetery, 1387), to St John the Apostle's (1384), to the Twelve Apostles (1455), to St Demetrius (1467), to St Simeon (1462), and other saints. Generally, they are not thought so innovative as the churches from the previous epoch. Several 12th-century shrines (i.e., in Opoki) were demolished brick by brick and then reconstructed exactly as they used to be, several of them in the mid fifteenth century, again under Archbishop Yevfimy II, perhaps one of the greatest patrons of architecture in medieval Novgorod.

Novgorod's conquest by Ivan III in 1478 decisively changed the character of local architecture. Large commissions were thenceforth executed by Muscovite masters and patterned after cathedrals of Moscow Kremlin: e.g., the Saviour Cathedral of Khutyn Monastery (1515), the Cathedral of the Mother of God of the Sign (1688), the St. Nicholas Cathedral of Vyaschizhy Monastery (1685). Nevertheless, the styles of some parochial churches were still in keeping with local traditions: e.g., the churches of Myrrh-bearing Women(1510) and of Sts Boris and Gleb (1586).

In Vitoslavlitsy, along the Volkhov River and the Myachino Lake, close to the Yuriev Monastery, a picturesque museum of wooden architecture was established in 1964. Over 20 wooden buildings (churches, houses and mills) dating from the 14th to the 19th century were transported there from all around the Novgorod region.

Intercity transport
Novgorod has connections to Moscow (531 km) and St. Petersburg (189 km) by the federal highway M10. There are public buses to Saint Petersburg and other destinations.

The city has direct railway passenger connections with Moscow (Leningradsky Rail Terminal, by night trains), St. Petersburg (Moscow Rail Terminal and Vitebsk Rail Terminal, by suburban trains), Minsk (Belarus) (Minsk Passazhirsky railway station, by night trains) and major cities of northwestern Russia such as Pskov and Murmansk.

The city's airports Yurievo and Krechevitsy do not serve any regular flights since the middle 1990s. The nearest international airport is St. Petersburg's Pulkovo, some 180 km north of the city.

Local transport
The local transport consists of a network of buses and trolleybuses. The trolleybus network, which currently consists of five routes, started operation in 1995 and is the first trolley system opened in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Twin towns/sister cities/partner towns
Veliky Novgorod is twinned with:

Honors
A minor planet, 3799 Novgorod, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1979, is named after the city.

Russian

 * Veliky Novgorod's architecture and buildings history
 * The Millennium of Russia memorial site
 * Veliky Novgorod city administration site
 * Veliky Novgorod news
 * VelikiyNovgorod.ru news agency
 * Novgorod State University