Polotsk

Polotsk on the Zapadnaya Dvina river was a city of the Slavic tribe of the Krivichi emerged on the most important trade route connecting the Baltic Sea (the Western Dvina flows into the Gulf of Riga) with the Dnieper basin, from Smolensk to Kiev. In fact, Polotsk is the main point between the Baltic world and Ancient Russia.

The first mention of Polotzk in the Russian chronicles was in 865. Belarusian archaeologist D. V Duk said, that the settlement was founded almost a century earlier, about 780. The formation of a large fortified city dates back to the 10th—11th centuries.

What can we see from the «places of memory» of ancient Russian Polotsk? First of all, this is the place of the original Polotsk, the very first settlement. It was located in the bend of the Polota River on its right bank; today there is a memorial sign behind the bridge over the Polota. This place is associated with a chronicle story about the famous Varangian prince Rogvolod and his proud daughter Rogneda, taken by force as a wife by the Kiev prince Vladimir in 978 (or, according to another dating, in 980).

Ancient Polotsk was burnt at the same time, and then rebuilt in another place — on a hill above the mouth of the Polota at the place of its confluence with the Western Dvina. On this mountain a new stronghold was built, the center of which was the Polotsk Cathedral of St. Sofia (1044–1066). It still stands on a hill above the Dvina and Polota, but in a heavily rebuilt form. In the 18th century it was rebuilt from the medieval cathedral to the baroque basilica.

The most famous figure of Polotsk medieval history is Efrosinya (Eupraxia) Polotskaya, daughter of the Vitebsk prince Svyatoslav Vseslavich, granddaughter of the famous Polotsk prince Vseslav Bryachislavich. Efrosinya in 1125 founded the Spassky Women’s Monastery north of Polotsk. It has preserved the Transfiguration Church (second quarter of the 12th century), in a renewed form (in the 19th century, rebuilt in the style of classicism).

From the artifacts of Old Russian time in Polotsk, you can see the Borisov stone — a large, about 3 m in diameter, feldspar boulder with an embossed inscription: «Lord, help your servant Boris.» The stone was originally found in the Western Dvina River, 5 km from Polotsk, near the village of Podkosteltsy. Attribution of the «Borisov stone» is difficult, scientists associate it with the name of the Polotsk prince Boris Vseslavich (d. 1128). There are six such stones found in the river in Dvina. In 1981, this stone was taken out of the water and installed as a monument of ancient Russian time at the Polotsk Sophia Cathedral.

Photos

A. I. Filyushkin

Tags: castles and fortresses, before 13 century, 13 century, 14 century, 15 century, 16 century, The struggle for the Baltic until the 13th century