On the Great Trade Route

     At the end of the XIII century at the lower riches of the Volhov along its both banks 3 cities were located: a town on the right bank above the riffles, ancient city Ladoga on the left at the influx of the river Ladozhka to the Volhov, and a Slavic fortress at the influx of the small river Lyubsha on the right bank on a hill in front of the marshes of the Volhov’s outfall.

     At the end of the IX century Ladoga became one of the most important centers of trade and crafts in Russia. The merchants from different countries moving along the big rivers of Eastern-European plain the Volga and The Dnepr to Arabian Caliphate and Byzantine and backward through Ladoga shipped arms, slaves, furs, jewelry, luxuries, utensil, spices and incenses. The archeologists discover in the occupation layer of Ladoga the Mediterranean beads, the Baltic amber, the Finnish utensil, the Arab coins, the glassware from Caucasus and Middle Asia, the Slavic head biliments and temporal rings.
Furs, wax, linen, male and female slaves were transported through Ladoga to East, a flow of jewelry and the purest silver lacked in Europe went to the North.

     The ancient Ladoga was connected with the Baltic sea by two ways: through Ladoga lake, the Neva and the Gulf of Finland and through Ladoga lake, Vuoksa and the Gulf of Finland. Treasure-troves containing the western European and Arab coins found on the territory of Ladoga testify that there used to be ways leading to the interior of Eastern Europe.

     One hundred years before Riurik was called, many smiths, potters, leather makers, jewellers had lived there. The goods were loaded to the numerous ships, the pilots from Ladoga conducted the ships through the riffles of the Volhov and the lake. The location of Ladoga on the way “from the Varagians to the Greeks” forwarded not only the trade but as it may be said today developed the infrastructure required to service the merchants from Old Ladoga and foreign ones.