Posad

The Posad ( German Vorwerk, suburban ) formed the Kremlin upstream industrial suburb in medieval Russia. It is located outside the protective walls of the Kremlin. The Posad was under an imperial governor, and had a self-government, which was with the village community, the obshchina, similar, but not quite as pronounced.

Construction

The Posad lying outside the walls could, in turn, water or Pfahlgraben be surrounded with a Holzumfriedung or earthen wall, with outer. In Posad mostly settled on the merchants and artisans who sell their goods on the market, the Torg there. In addition to the function of a marketplace, the marketplace was proven to be the meeting place of the veche, the People's Assembly, as a political forum used. The market marked the center of the Posad, about which sheared the homes of artisans and merchants. These were divided according to certain craft professions and ethnic groups and created their own little suburbs ( Sloboda ), usually with a church or a Gewerbhof as the center.

Was characteristic to the end of the 17th century a non-uniform and dense development. The houses and farms were rarely on the road line. Was built without Tarpaulin, next -dominated simple wooden houses, the Russian isba, besides representative stone houses (eg monasteries, manor houses of the royal henchmen, boyars and merchants ) the cityscape. Due to the dense construction of wooden houses, the ancient Russian cities were often plagued by fires that could destroy the entire city completely. When a fire broke out, they sought to save the princely and the data stored in the churches treasures above all. The reconstruction was made ​​relatively quickly in attack in such cases.

Characteristic of the manors were a large spatial extent, sturdy construction, secondary and confusion of the numerous economic and outbuildings as well as the apartments of the courtiers, the servants ( up to 700 people ) and the courts of the dependent craftsmen. The whole complex of the court with all the buildings and industry facilities is usually referred to in the sources than the house. Each such court presented a self-contained whole, and was surrounded by a fixed bulwark. These large feudal residential and commercial complexes stood out conspicuously from the ordinary buildings of the city dwellers.

Even more, the monasteries and large churches took off with the associated land. A monastery with a wooden, rare stone rampart, its stone church, the monks' cells and farm buildings often formed a city within the city walls.

But the courtyards of urban craftsmen and traders were a residential and economic unit for each. Excavations have found next to the home of a city dweller also usually its stockyard. This is followed by a smaller castle, encompassed by a fence piece of land. Even this court of the city dweller is self-contained and separated from the outside world.

Between the suburbs, there were always large, unpopulated areas.

Occurrence

Some Russian city names still contain the word Posad:

  • Gavrilov Posad
  • Mariinsky Posad
  • Pavlovsky Posad
  • Sergiev Posad
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