About

Fama shopping center in Narva

Fama is one of the bastions in Narva.

Bastion Fama (1690) was a commercial yard with internal spaces, that housed shops, a blacksmith, stables, barns and prison facilities which were demolished for the construction of a trade route to Europe. This is the only bastion today that no longer exists. Instead, at its foot grew a modern shopping complex. „Revival of history on the trade route" – that’s how the project initiators’ slogan sounds.

The history of Fama

In European history, Narva is known as a traditional center of international trade. The waterway along the Narva River was built already in the Viking era (V-XI centuries), and it was mentioned in famous old Russian chronicle "From Varangian to the Greeks" as a branch of river waterway between the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Later (XIII century) land route to Tallinn and Novgorod through Narva was actively used. In XIII century on this road, at the river crossing a trade settlement arose. In 1345, Danish King Valdemar IV Atterdag granted city rights to the settlement. Thus arose the city of Narva.

The medieval Narva played an important role in the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Order working under the aegis of the Baltic trade system. In the end of the XV century (after the Republic of Novgorod connecting with Moscow), Narva slowly took over the historic role, that was previously played by Novgorod - the role of mediator of russian-european trade relations. In the second half of the XVI century, during the Livonian War, Ivan IV the Terrible seized Narva and Narva became for about 20 years Russia's main sea trade port in the Baltics. In the XVII, century new and most important prosperity arrived at Narva, when Narva belonged to the Kingdom of Sweden. It was the "golden age" of trade in Narva. At that time routs that linked the Baltics not only with Russia but also with the Orient - Persia and Trans Caucasus went through Narva.