Ancient Cities of Russia, Their Status and Problems of Preservation of Architectural Heritage

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problems of determining the status of the ancient cities of Russia and the preservation of their architectural heritage. The author raises the question of what to call ancient cities, whether all of them are now protected by law as historical cities, etc. Most researchers believe those are the pre-Mongol towns, founded from the IX century till 1230, before the start of the Mongol invasions. Among them today there are sparsely populated settlements (some of them lost township status) consisting of architectural or archaeological monuments - Izborsk, Old Ryazan, Old Lgov, Rostislavl-Ryazansky, Pronsk, Chersonesus, Bulgar, etc., and developinglarge citieslike Yaroslavl, Ryazan, Bryansk, Novgorod, and Pskov, but most of them are small towns.

The question of the functional orientation of cities and occupations of their inhabitants in the historical aspect is considered. The author suggests ways of solving modern social and urban problems that will occupy the population of historical cities, and therefore not to lose the ability to preserve their architectural heritage.