Adrian Selin.
Ivangorod road: western length.
One of the most important roads of late and post medieval Russia — so called «Ivangorod road» connected Novgorod (and whole Moscovia) with the Ivangorod fortress on Narova. It was the consisting part in the system of communications that had entangled the north-west of Russia in the XVI century.
For the first time the road appeared in written sources in the XIV century. But it became a state road only in the XVI century. The years 1500—1570 — the last years of Ivan III governing, the whole government of Bassilly III and the first half of Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) reign (before the destroying of Novgorod while the «oprichnina» terror regime). Just on this first stage the process of arranging the road.
After the destroying of Novgorod and all the Russian north-west by the «oprichniki» of Ivan the Terrible in 1570 the situation on the road was sharply changed. After that events the Ivangorod road appears devastated. Many records of that time mentioned the road as a cause of the dying of the villages.
During the Russian-Swedish war of 1590—1593 the Ivangorod road found its arterial importance again. During the government of Boris Godunov the functioning of Ivangorod road was sharply activized. The years of 1611—1617 appear as a very intensive stage in the Ivangorod history. It began to function, mainly as a war communication, that supported the connection of Novgorod — general Delagardi’s residence — with the Baltic Sea and the parent state.
After the signing the Russian-Sweden treaty in Stolbovi, 1617, there was held a new bordering between two states. In our article we consider only the part of the road that stayed in Swedish power.
Kaur Alttoa
NARVA AND NEYSHLOT (SYRENSK) CASTLES — BORDERLINE FORTIFICATIONS OF THE LIVONIAN ORDER ON THE NAROVA
In the medieval period there have been two border fortresses by the Narva river belonging to the Livonian order.
The first castle in Narva was founded by the Danes. The first castle, erected in the end of the XIII century or at the beginning of the XIV century was in fact a simple rectangular defensive wall. In 1346 the whole region went into the hands of the Livonian order. After that the castle was consolidated and rebuilt step by step and it obtained its final convent-house shape as late as in the first half of the XVI century.
In 1349 the Livonian order made an attempt to erect another castle in the upper course of the river Narva but the castle was destroyed in 1427. A three-storeyed tower-like main building was erected. Later a rectangular wall of outer bailey was built and about 1500 two gun towers were added.
Juri Kivimae
PETER FRJAZIN OR PETER HANNIBAL? AN ITALIAN ARCHITECT IN LATE MEDIEVAL RUSSIA AND LIVONIA
It has been known for more than a hundred years that Peter Frjazin, a construction master of Italian origin unsuccessfully tried to run away from Russia to Livonia in 1538. The author found letters of Johann Bey, the Bishop of Dorpat about «the case of Frjazin» in Swedish archives. In those letters the man is called «Peter, the architect Hannibal syn Szone». Most probably he arrived in Moscow in 1528 with the Russian Embassy of Trussov and Lodygin and became the last Italian master among numerous masters invited to Rus’ during sixty years.
Peter Frjazin and Petrock Maly Frjazin are mentioned in Russian chronicles. It must be one and the same person. He, presumably, completed the work on the kremlin construction in Kolomna, built a hipped roof of Vozneseniya (Ascension) church and the stone wall around the Kitai-gorod in Moscow. In summer of 1538 Peter Frjazin was sent to Pskov to build there a wall through the mouth of the Pskova. In 1534—1535 he built the Sebezh fortress at the Russian-Lithuanian border. According to the words of the Bishop of Dorpat Hannibal might plot trying to subordinate Russia to the Catholic Church. The coming danger made him leave Petsery (Pechory) for the Vastseliina castle (Nienslot, Neuschloss). He begged not to take him back but allow him to go to his motherland. The Russians demanded that Peter Hannibal should be given over to them. Unfortunately, there is no answer to the question in what way the case of Peter Frjazin — Hannibal was solved.