Gnyozdovo and Smolensk
Scholars are not in agreement as to how Gnyozdovo is related to Smolensk (Norse: Smaleskja), situated at the confluence of the Dnieper and the Smolnya Rivers.
According to one point of view, Gnyozdovo was the functional and economic predecessor of modern Smolensk. Soviet archaeologists established that the earliest settlement on the site of Smolensk goes back to the early 11th century. In other words, the emergence of Smolensk coincides with the decline of Gnyozdovo. The regional centre could have been moved from Gnyozdovo to Smolensk at some point following the Christianisation of Rus by Vladimir the Great.
Another school of thought is represented by Petrukhin and Pushkina who maintain that Smolensk and Gnyozdovo peacefully coexisted throughout the 10th century. According to this version, Gnyozdovo was a pogost of the ruling Kievan monarch which he used to levy tribute from the Krivichs. Since the knyaz's druzhina was composed primarily of the Norsemen, a substantial Varangian presence at Gnyozdovo seems to be well motivated. Concurrently, Smolensk was an urban centre of the Slavic (Krivich) population, where the regional veche was held. After Vladimir the Great established a local principality for his son, the administrative centre of the region and the seat of princely power was moved from Gnyozdovo to Smyadyn Castle near Smolensk.
The dichotomy of a Slavic veche centre and a Varangian druzhina station has parallels in other areas of Rus: compare Novgorod and Holmsgard, Chernigov and Shestovitsa, Rostov and Sarskoye Gorodishche, Yaroslavl and Timeryovo. In later centuries, the ruling princes from the House of Rurik preferred to settle in a fortified castle at a distance from their capital: in Vyshgorod rather than Kiev, in Smyadyn rather than Smolensk, in Kideksha rather than Suzdal, in Bogolyubovo rather than Vladimir.
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