English (United Kingdom) 
Russian (Russia) 
In the 9th—12th centuries the lands from the Baltic coast to Lake Onega and from Karelia to Lake Ilmen and the Upper Dnieper could take various ways. The people of those lands had many opportunities. Local chieftains rose everywhere, relying on military force — their retinues. They protected their people, went on raids, tested how far their power could reach. As a result, some lands united, rose, became stronger, while others, on the contrary, fell into dependence on neighbours. We can see ethnic and cultural mixing and interaction: in the 12th century, Koknese and Jersika fortresses on the Latvian lands were connected with Old Rus’ Polotzk and ruled by Slavic princes; on the western coast of Lake Peipsi, on the Aesti lands, Yaroslav the Wise founded the town of Yuryev (1030).
The remains of the ramparts of the Yuriev settlement
Castle mound Jersike
Those towns, like other border towns (e.g., Tiversk), had mixed Slavic-Finnic population. Archaeologists point out that Novgorod arose in the 10th century as a union (’federation’, according to the researcher of Novgorodian antiquities Valentin Yanin) of the Slovenes, Krivichi, Merya and Chud’s communities, with the ethnonym ’Merya’ being apparently reflected in the name of one of the districts (‘ends’) of the ancient city — the Nerevsky end. The name of Chudintseva street in Novgorod was derived from Chud — the name of another Finnic tribe.
Tiversk ruins
In the lands populated by pagan Finno-Ugric and Baltic tribes (Karelia and Baltics), archaeologists found many rural settlements and hill-forts. Hill-forts may have had permanent population, or they may have been only temporary fortresses, fortifications ‘just in case’, behind the walls of which people would hide when the enemy appeared. Such are the Karelian fortified towns on rocks or islands in Ladoga skerries, where archaeologists sometimes cannot find any significant cultural layer — it is almost absent. Only the name may indicate that they could be used as a shelter (e.g. Linnamäki — ’a fortified hill’).
Hill-fort Linnavuori
From those times numerous towns and fortified settlements survive. As a rule, they are earthen hills located in places convenient for defence (on capes at the confluence of rivers, on hills dominating the neighbourhood, etc.) Almost nothing has survived from those ancient centuries on the earth surface. At best there are the remains of ramparts, sometimes with a stone bedding or coating. The appearance of those fortresses can be reconstructed thanks to archaeological research, which identifies the traces of wooden and stone walls and towers, civil and religious buildings.
Very few structures dated before the 12th century have survived. They are mainly cathedrals and churches rebuilt later. They include two main churches of the region — two Saint Sophias — in Novgorod (1045–1050) and Polotzk (1030–1060) that together with the third Saint Sophia in Kiev (1037—1040s) used to form the ‘triad of Sophias’ symbolising the transfer of the Orthodox faith into Rus’ from Tsargrad (Constantinople) — the city where the main Sophia of the Christian world was located. The churches of the 12th century have survived in Staraya Ladoga (St George’s Church and Dormition Cathedral), Pskov (Transfiguration Cathedral in Mirozhsky Monastery), Novgorod (Sts Peter and Paul’s Church on Sinichya Gora, Annunciation Church in Arkazhi, St Nicholas’ Cathedral, the Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos in Antoniev Monastery, St George’s Cathedral in Yuriev Monastery and Nereditsa Church). Those are the monuments to the Christianisation of Northwest Rus’.
Novgorod, Yaroslavovo dvorische
It was due to Christianization that Rus’ north-western lands developed faster and more intensively. Christianization contributed to the spread of monasteries and town settlements, which became strongholds of the Orthodox Church. In the 13th century, the pagan settlements of the Baltic and Karelia were small towns with log-and-earth fortifications, which had changed little compared to 8th—10th centuries (in English they are called hill-forts, i.e. fortified hills). They were not united in medieval states, and the alliances of their chieftains were temporary and short-lived.
In the Orthodox Rus’ lands, on the contrary, we see large towns (Novgorod, Pskov, Ladoga, Polotzk) with stone structures — both churches and fortifications. Trades- and craftspeople settled around the town; monasteries were located nearby. Recognised in Europe princely dynasties ruled there; Rus’ princes married princesses from European kingdoms. Social relations, communities and self-government developed. Besides, major trade routes passed from the north (from the Baltic) to the south (towards Kiev and Smolensk) along the Western Dvina and the Dnieper and along the Neva — Ladoga — Volkhov — Lovat — Dnieper. There was a state — Old Rus’, which in the 12th century became several states — individual Old Rus’ principalities that gained independence from Kiev.
That dynamic world in the 13th century suffered a catastrophe that came from two sides — the east and the west. The Tatar invasion destroyed Old Rus’ from the East. It did not affect Northwest Rus’ directly, but the Mongols became a long-lived factor influencing the Russian history. Both Novgorod and Pskov, whether they liked it or not, became involved in the system of new relations. From the West, the crusaders came to the Baltic in the 13th century — the Germans, the Danes and the Swedes. The Finnish and Baltic tribes lost the chance to build their states for 700 years. They got it back only in the 20th century.
In the 13th century, the world changed forever. Let us see, what it was like before the ‘century of catastrophes’.
A. I. Filyushkin
Tags: routes, before 13 century, The struggle for the Baltic until the 13th century