Most Russian archaeologists have considered Plakun to be the cemetery for the
Scandinavian fraction of the Ladoga population (Bulkin et al. 1978 : 88 ; Nazarenko
1985 : 165 ; Mikhailov 2002 : 66 ; 2003 : 158 ). This conclusion doesn’t seem convincing.
A stray find of the above-mentioned oval brooch in the area of the cemetery at Pobedish-
che doesn’t exclude the possibility of finding graves with more Scandinavian artefacts in
the same area. The very special topography of the Plakun cemetery, its location on the
opposite side of the Volkhov River, the large number of women’s graves, such high-
status traits as the Tating-ware jug, two chamber graves and a large barrow underline a
very special position for the buried people, who were in close connection with southern
Scandinavia during the eighth–tenth centuries.
From the barrows of twenty-three sites in the area south-east of Lake Ladoga came
about eighty Scandinavian objects (Pushkina 1997 : 88 ). Most of them were found in
barrows with cremation and inhumation graves together with elements of local Finnish
culture (Pushkina 1997 : 88 ). Types of female brooches belonging to the middle Viking
Age and some peculiarities in their manufacture and use show that they were made by
local craftsmen ( Jansson 1992 : 62 fig. 2 , 71 fig. 5 ). The context of the weapon finds
suggests that we are dealing with representatives of powerful rural families. Two dif-
ferent interpretations have been proposed concerning the character of the Scandinavians’
activity in this area. One of them – by Ture J. Arne and Holger Arbman – claims that
the Ladoga area was subjected to Swedish agrarian colonisation ( Jansson 1997 : 775 with
references; Duczko 2004 : 99 ). Another point of view considers the activity in this area to
be connected with the fur trade and the Volga trade route (Raudonikas 1930 : 134 ;
Boguslavskij 1993 : 135 ; 2003 : 162 ).
Rjurikovo GorodishcheThe remains of an early urban centre have been revealed on a hillock now called
Rjurikovo Gorodishche about 2 km south of Novgorod (Nosov 1990 , 1992 , 2000 ;
Jansson 1997 : 31 – 5 ). The settlement covers an area between 4 and 7 ha and is inter-
preted as the original Novgorod mentioned in the Russian Primary Chronicle. In contrast
to Ladoga, Rjurikovo Gorodishche was already fortified from the very beginning, which
gives the place a clear eastern European character ( Jansson 1997 : 35 ). Here we don’t find
any large houses of Scandinavian type as in Ladoga. However, Scandinavian material
from the ninth–tenth centuries from the cultural layer of Rjurikovo Gorodishche is very
abundant (Nosov 1990 , 2000 ; Jansson 1997 : 35 ; 1999 ; Duczko 2004 : 103 ). These finds
consist of male and female dress accessories and ornaments, tools, weaponry and objects
related to cult and magic, which originated from central Sweden ( Jansson 1999 : 48 ;
Mikhailov and Nosov 2002 ; Duczko 2004 : 103 ). One oval brooch from the early Viking
Age probably comes from a destroyed burial on the northern slope of the hill ( Jansson
1999 : 55 ). Careful analysis of these finds has shown that most probably the population
of this site included both local inhabitants and Scandinavian immigrants, who however
quite quickly melted into one society ( Jansson 1999 : 56 ).
Other towns in north-western RussiaScandinavian male and female objects are also known in the Old Russian towns of Pskov,
Novgorod and Beloozero. Old Pskov emerged at the confluence of the rivers Pskovka
–– Fjodor Androshchuk––