Why 2003 has become the year of 1250th anniversary of Old Ladoga?

The year 753 is the first date in the history of Ladoga. In 1984 the scholars having analyzed with a dendrochronological method a wooden flooring from a smith’ workshop, discovered in the excavations at Ground Town, determined that the logs were felled in 753, the year that separated from the present day by 1250 years.

Beside the flooring the archeologists discovered a set of tools which allows to make a guess that the smith was probably a general master; he worked with iron, base and plate metals, i.e. he could repair a bark, hammer the arms, create jewelry. Second conclusion was a guess that he was probably a Scandinavian. The closest analogues of his set of tools were found in Sweden and Norway but dated 2 centuries later. There’s also a supposition that the master from Ladoga could buy his tools from the merchants. Whoever he was, he lived 100 years earlier than Russia was first mentioned in Germanic Bertin annals of 839.