Dovmont's (Daumantas') Town (Pskov) | open air museum, interesting place, historic district

 open air museum, interesting place, invisible, historic district

The front wall decorated with a memorial composition of a shield with the city emblem and a sword is known as Persi - the "Chest Wall" in front of which there used to be a fortification ditch. The multifaceted tower on the left is known as Dovmontova (Daumantas') Tower; it was built in the XIX century on the place of the medieval Smerdya (Peasant, Plebeian) Tower which used to also be one of the gate towers of the town. In front of the Persi there's the Dovmont's (Daumantas') Town, founded by Lithuanian Prince Daumantas (Dovmont in Russian; also known as Tymophey by his Christian name) who was invited as a military leader and ruling prince in mid-XIII century. Before 1886 the place was but a scrap-heap of construction leftovers; but when the Trinity Cathedral was restored in 1885, the Dovmont's Town was cleared, and the Great Gate reconstructed and decorated with modeling. Nowadays, visitors can see foundation of a number of churches and evaluate the dencity of buildings here in the XV AD. Until XII, the place was a "posad" - one of the city districts without the citadel walls - and in XII C., Prinse Daumantas built here his court, and a place for legal proceedings and for ordeals (Dei indicium). Daumantas-Dovmont-Tymophey also established here a nunnery with a stone church of the Birth of Our Lady. It is indeed hard to understand how all this (and a number - actually 19 - of other churches, and administrative buildings, and a big number of houses; and a graveyard, to top all that!) could fit into the place; even though the Dovmont's Town used to be considerably bigger, with its southern wall being where the Vlasyevskaya tower is - that is, at the modern Olga's Bridge; and its SE corner was approximately ehere today Lenin's monument stands...