Scientists claim that the history of Ryazan keeps many secrets and mysteries, and the first of them is hidden in the name of the city. Historians have not yet come to a consensus about where such a toponym came from, where to look for its roots. True, the settlement received its modern name only in 1778, and before that it was known as Pereyaslavl-Ryazan.
The origin of the settlement
The renaming was carried out by the great Catherine II, the Russian empress, deciding in this way to remind everyone of the rich past of this region and the capital of the principality. Today, scientists are raising historical layers in the literal and figurative sense. From them it is known that people lived on the territory of the modern city in the Paleolithic era.
In the 6th century, Vyatichi, representatives of the Slavic tribes, settled on these lands, and after another 200 years there were already many small settlements. A single center was needed, and Pereyaslavl became it, erected on a high hill at the confluence of rivers. Scientists have proposed to consider the year 1095 as the foundation date based on the record in the Followed Psalter.
From the moment of its foundation, the city had to defend its territories and defend its rights more than once: in the XII century, to compete with Murom, which of the cities would become the center of the Murom-Ryazan principality; in the XIII - to resist the Tatar-Mongol yoke. A hundred years later, Pereyaslavl-Ryazan was formed as the capital of the principality, a Kremlin, a prison for protection from an external enemy, residential houses, and churches were built in it.
Ryazan in the Middle Ages
The next three hundred years passed under the sign of numerous peasant uprisings and unrest - this is how the history of Ryazan can be briefly described. This was facilitated by the landowners, who ruined the peasants, droughts and the famine that followed them, the rise in food prices, and epidemics. One of the biggest events was the armed uprising led by Ivan Bolotnikov.
In 1778, the Ryazan governorship was formed, in connection with which the city received a new name and a new status, and with it its own coat of arms, which depicts a warrior with a sword. The approved general plan of the city made it possible to redevelop streets and improve urban development.
Technical progress
The era of rapid development of Ryazan and its environs begins with the advent of the 19th century. Many industrial enterprises operate in the city, a printing house, a school, and a gymnasium appear. The fire of 1837 changed the architectural appearance of Ryazan, there were fewer wooden houses, mainly stone and brick structures were erected.
The beginning of the twentieth century was marked by the rapid development of the city, the commissioning of a power plant, a water supply system, and a telegraph communication. The events of the October Revolution in Petrograd could not but affect the inhabitants of Ryazan, a month later Soviet power was established in the city. And a new period in the history of the city began, with all the positive and negative moments that the whole country experienced as well.
