Pskov, trading city outside trading routes: Historical realities vs. historiographical tradition

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34680/Caurus-2025-4(1)-15-26

Keywords:

Pskov, Pskov land, transit trade, trade routes, Novy Torg of Pskov

Abstract

In historiographic tradition, Pskov is originally regarded as an early and important trading Russian North-West center of the “Hanseatic period” – even though the information from narrative sources is extremely scarce. In 2011–2013 during archaeological excavations a significant area of Novy Torg in Pskov was explored, which in the first half of the 16th century emerged as the main western trading platform of the Moscow state. The study of this huge trading area, the features of its formation and functioning, unexpectedly made us re-evaluate the trading significance of Pskov in the earlier (independence age) period of time. We suppose that the geographic location of Pskov outside the main continental trade routes may be one of the ways to explain the late emergence of regular trade relations. It is quite possible that the abundance of foreign artifacts in the archaeological excavations is explained by direct, often extra-economic, trading ties between Pskov and the Baltic cities. It was only the global shift in trade routes, caused by the change in the political map of Eastern Europe, that led to the increase in the significance of Pskov as an important center of transit trade, that gave impetus to the growth of trading space, an increase in the influx of goods and funds into the city.

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Author Biographies

S. A. Salmin , Archaeological Centre of Pskov region, Pskov, Russia

Research Fellow
e-mail: solvarg@yandex.ru

E. V. Salmina , Archaeological Centre of Pskov region, Pskov, Russia

Cand. Sci. in History, Head of the Department
e-mail: muntrik102@yandex.ru 

 

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Published

2025-03-28

How to Cite

Salmin , S. A., & Salmina , E. V. (2025). Pskov, trading city outside trading routes: Historical realities vs. historiographical tradition. Caurus, 4(1), 15–26. https://doi.org/10.34680/Caurus-2025-4(1)-15-26

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2025): Caurus

Section

Articles