User:Анна анна1986/sandbox

The history of Rostov-on-Don Rostov has a specific southern beauty and its own very rich and interesting history, customs and a specific architectural character. The green city lies on the high bank of the river Don and is set amidst a typically southern Russian landscape. On both sides of the Don vast plains stretch- steppe lands and fields with rich crops of golden wheat, green maize and patches of sunflowers. Here the Don cossacks-former serfs who had fled to the Don and the Northern Donets to escape the oppression of their owners-valiantly defended the southern frontiers of Russia. And it was in this area that the cossack atamans Stepan Razin, Kondraty Bulavin and Yemelyan Pugachov started the popular uprisings which shook feudal Russia in the 17-th and 18-th centuries The foundation of the city itself is considered to date back to the middle of the 18- th century when the Temernik frontier custom- house was opened on the hing western bank of the Don. On 15 December 1749 the Russian empress Elizaveta Petrovna issued a decree according to which the Temernik custom- house was set up to control the foreign trade at the place of intersection of important routes. Soon building work began on the fortress of Dimitry Rostovsky. It was an important strategic point. The fortress was founded in 1761 near the place « Bogaty Kolodez» ( rich spring). They say this name to it was given by Peter the Great. The fortress got the name of the saint Dimitry Rostovsky who was a metropolitan of Rostov Veliky. In the 18- th century Rostov fortress with its redoubts, bastions and cannons was the best and the largest in the south of Russia. Thanks to its favourable geographical location (Rostov is 46 kilometres from the place where the river Don flows into the Sea of Azov) the city grew rapidly. The fortress of Dimitry Rostovsky and the town which quickly grew up around its walls were called « Rostov which lies on the Don» or Rostov- on- Don to distinguish it from the ancient northern Russian city of Rostov the Great which is Russian Federation. In 1835 the fortress lost its military importance and was dismissed.