A History of Urban Development in the U.S.S.R.

It need hardly be emphasized that a nation the size of the Soviet Union consolidation under a central government was not a simple task, but the culmination of an ongoing historical process. In order to consider the present stage of development, it should be viewed in its historical context. This will aid in understanding the reasons for the communist revolution and the central planning scheme which resulted. EARLY RUSSIAN HISTORY Early Russian history began in approximately 400 AD. when eastern Slavonic tribes (Russians) called Antae migrated to what became Russian territory from the vicinity of the Prepit marshes and neighboring regions north of the Carpathian mountains. During the ninth century, Scandinavian merchants established rule over an area in the Ukraine which was to become the first Russian state. Saint Vladimir, Prince of Kiev was a scion of this Viking dynasty; it is due to his conversion to Byzantine Christianity in 988 AD. that the Russian Orthodox Church was consolidated. Between 1237-1500 AD., Tatar oppression and occupation prevented Russia from progressing on the same lines as its neighbors in western Europe. Visitors to Russia in the seventeenth century found the Russians oldfashioned, exotic in the extreme, and amusingly grotesque.