SLAVIC COLONIZATION OF THE TERRITORY OF VERKHOVSKY HISTORICAL-GEOGRAPHICAL PROVINCE
Settlement of the territory of Ancient Russia was implemented by the various Eastern Slavic tribes, which retained their own specific features of historical development for a long time caused by underlying problems of ethnogenesis, and specificity of military and strategic position of their territories, by opportunities of the development of transit trade. Vyatiches had differences from their neighbours longer than others, who had settled in the Upper Oka basin called Verkhovsky historical geographical province. In the VIIIth – XIIth centuries that region was characterized by the presence of a common set of political, economical, social and geographical features that were the reasons of prolonged existence of the autonomous tribal vyatich’s ethno-political union. The appearance of specific features of that territory was due to the forms and methods of its Slavic colonization, during which the rapid assimilation of the local original population took place.