Как широкая река берет свое начало от
бурного ручья высоко в горах.
Как могучее дерево начинается с молодого ростка в укромной ложбине.
Как день с луча солнца, а ночь - с первой звезды.
Родина. Она появилась со слова.
Одного только слова.
И слово то было xолмтарда.
Здесь, на берегах реки Волхов у озера Ильмень есть начало земли Русской.
Не по форме, но по сути своей!
Like a wide river takes its start with an impetuous stream. Like a mighty tree starts with a new shoot in a secluded place.
Like a day begins with sunlight and a night begins with a first star.
Homeland. It appeared with a word.
And that word was Holmgardr.
Here on the banks of the river Volkhov near
the lake of Ilmen is the beginning
of the Russian land. Not in shape but in its meaning!
Holmgardr, (also Holmgard, Holmgarðr, Hólmgarður, Holmgaard, Holmegård) situated on the ancient trade route between Central Asia and northern Europe, was Russia's first capital in the 9th century, near the site where the Volkhov river takes its waters from Lake Ilmen. Throughout many centuries, Holmgardr was a political center of vast territories stretching up from Baltic lands and Finland in the West to northern Urals in the East. It was also one of the greatest international trade centers on the Baltic-Volga commercial route that tied northern Europe with Asia as early as in the mid 8th century.
Starting from a region sparsely populated by Finns, Balts, Fresians and Slavs through the Seventh and Eighth centuries, the Varangian Rus of Holmgardr and beyond gradually emerged as one of the most powerful principalities of Eastern Europe.
The Varangian it might be said, came to Holmgardr with a sword in the right hand and the merchants' scales in the left. Their incursions began in the early ninth century; The Slavs called them Vaerings; in Russian Варягъ in Greek Βάραγγοι. By contrast, the Old East Slavic word varęg is derived from Proto-Norse 'wāring', from which Old Norse væringr also stems. The root is the same as Old Norse vár which means "pledge." The meaning would have been "a sworn person," i.e. someone who is either promised protection or who has promised to protect.
According to the 'Primary Chronicle,' the Slavs of Holmgardr were forced to pay tribute to raiding 'Varyagi' or Vikings throughout the early 800s AD, and eventually rose up in arms and drove these Varyagi "beyond the seas." Local tribal feuds however, prevented the Slavs from forming an effective confederation. Around the middle of the ninth century, several Slavic tribes agreed to invite 'Rurik' (Rörek, Hrörekr - ca 830 - ca 879), a Viking warriors of Rus to rule them. Rurik settled at Holmgardr, then a small trading post. In establishing his own sovereignty, Rurik united the local tribes and towns, making Holmgardr a thriving and prosperous center of trade until his death in 879 AD and starting the dynasty that ruled the Kievan Rus lands and it's people until the 1200s.
The Holmgardr area remains a thickly wooded and marshy lake land; a massive territory reaching to the Arctic Ocean in the north and to the Ural mountains in the east. This territory, though not suitable for cultivation was nonetheless teeming with life. The local population, Finno-Ugrian tribes engaged in fishing and hunting amongst the immense reed marshes, overgrown with forests of thin birch and elm. The lake occupies the center of the Ilmen Plain, a glacial lowland drained by close to fifty rivers. The slow moving Volkhov river moves from Lake Ilmen, it's many tributaries washing over numerous islands, completely concealed by tall grasses.
Originally, 'Holmgardr' referred only to the Viking stronghold some two kilometres southeast of the present-day city. Archeological data suggests that the 'Holmgardr' (wooden hill fort) settlement of 'Rurikovos gorodische,' (the adandoned city) the official residence of the 'knyaz' (prince), dates from the middle of 9th century, whereas the town itself dates from the mid 8th century and was known as 'the new city' ie: Novgorod. Holmgardr is the most ancient Slavic city recorded in Russia. The Primary Russian Chronicle first mentions it in 859 when it was already a major station on the trade route from the Baltics to Byzantium. The city location was extremely favourable for developing foreign trade, which was Holmgardrians’ main concern and the source of great city wealth.
From the end of the 9th cent.' the city gradually came to be divided into five parts known as the 'ends.' The Slavensky (Slavic end), the Plotnitsky (Carpenters end), the Lyudin (People's end) which was also known as Goncharsky (Potters' end), the Nerevsky end, populated by a local Finno-Ugric tribe and Zagorodsky end (out-of-towners) and with the Detinets (the fortress) in the centre situated on the west back of the river. The city design was loosely based on a grid system with the majority of streets raidiating from the many gate towers of the fortress. Other streets, called 'proboynaya' (the cutting through), stretched parallel to the river. Within this grid all areas acted as self-managed communities, with the 'ends' having their own guilds, community leaders and councils answering to the Detinet.
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