News of the marriage of Rostislav's eldest son and grandson came back to Russia, and a grand celebration was held in Kiev. Yuri was the future heir to the throne of Kiev, so it was fitting to hold such a celebration.
However, many people are not just cheering because of the free meals. On the contrary, they are cheering sincerely. Under the rule of Rostislav, all parts of Russia can be said to be prosperous and heading higher. People naturally feel towards the ruler.
There is also a feeling of gratitude.
Today's Kiev has unknowingly turned into a city with a population of 80,000. The economic growth in the past decade has also led to the concentration of the population, and the fields around Kiev have also been more developed.
Looking from the red brick city wall of Kiev, you can see fields that are either planted or fallow - this is also a scene found all over Russia.
Yes, the red brick city walls. Over the years, Kiev's city walls have been replaced by red bricks unknowingly. In fact, not only in Kiev, but also in towns with a population of more than 10,000 throughout Russia, they have been replaced by red bricks.
The city walls were replaced with red brick walls, while the smaller towns were uneven.
There are many more brick buildings in the city than in Kiev in the past. Whenever Rostislav looked at the city he ruled from the high tower of Vladimir Palace, he saw those brick buildings that represented civilization. Rostislav
Slav felt relieved for a while.
And this kind of scene has also appeared in other big cities in Russia. This is a goal he has wanted to achieve a long time ago, and now it has finally been reflected. How can this not satisfy Rostislav?
As for Kiev itself, the city has doubled in size compared to Yaroslav’s time. Rostislav completed this expansion mainly when rebuilding the city walls. In the new city area, the Grand Duke of Kiev built many buildings with new functions.
Two wonder buildings were also built.
The first one is the All-Russian Cultural Center. This building is made of white marble shipped from Western Europe. Its appearance imitates the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev. It was built by craftsmen from all over Russia and the imperial capital. Rostislav spent a lot of money on this.
payment.
Its existence is mainly to exhibit various special products of the land of Russia, as well as local scenes, and most importantly, to introduce the development of various places to visitors from all over Russia to the Christian world.
The landscape paintings here are all by Rostislav himself. Over the years, he has been practicing painting in addition to writing. Now he is considered to be the founder of his own painting school, and he still has many students.
At the same time, this cultural center also functions as a library. In the side hall of the cultural center, there are books collected by Rostislav from all over the world in Kiev, and they are placed in categories.
The literati of Rus like to come to the side hall of the Cultural Center to study. The style here is elegant and there are also pleasing paintings of the Grand Duke. There is no place better than this for reading, writing and discussion.
The All-Russian Cultural Center is an existence that can be regarded as a wonder even if it is placed in the entire Christian world, and the reason why Rostislav built it is very simple. It is to tell the whole of Russia what Rus is and what Rus is.
After seeing this miraculous building, elites from all over the world will naturally have a yearning for and a sense of belonging to Kiev. This is exactly what Rostislav wants.
The second wonder is the All-Russian Theater, which is completely based on the theater Rostislav saw in Greece, but it is smaller in scale than the Cultural Center because Kiev does not yet need a theater that can accommodate tens of thousands of people.
, so the limit capacity here is seven thousand.
But this is enough to be regarded as a spectacle. There has been no such theater building in Christendom for many years, and the completion of this theater directly brings the development of drama in Russia to a climax. This is exactly what Rostislav wants.
As he has always known, this seemingly inconspicuous drama actually has an extremely powerful ability to educate the public.
After completing these two buildings, the gold and silver that Rostislav had squeezed from Alexius were gone, and the treasury was at its bottom. But at least there was no debt, and the government's financial operations were still positive. This
It has been an unprecedented success.
Rostislav was very proud of his achievements. He completed the road network throughout Russia. The road from Kiev to Moscow was finally completed after more than ten years of deforestation. Solving it also meant the improvement of the road network across Russia.
After improvement, the flow of resources across Rus will be faster.
He built the culture of Russia. As batches of students from Vladimir College traveled to various parts of Russia, dramas were staged in various places in Russia. More and more people recognized the word Russia, and the power of Kiev also increased.
As the country became increasingly powerful, there were more and more local feudal lords, and the vast land was increasingly controlled by the government.
Rostislav's long-term promotion of feudalization resulted in a product that even he had not expected, that is, the dependence of the feudal lords scattered throughout Russia on Kiev. They used Kiev's resources to develop the wilderness and produced
The resources are also sold through Kiev channels, and these people have very strong support for Kiev.
They recognize Kiev more than the local towns.
The Grand Duke of Kiev realized that if it could maintain such a relationship with feudal lords all over Russia, then Kiev would also have a good starting point to curb the tendency of local separatism, and the original ideals of the three-capital system would be more likely to be realized, even in the future.
The descendants of Ke are scattered all over the country. As long as this level of relationship still exists, Kiev can have actual influence and control over various places.
If the descendants of Rurik can be used to control the towns and the feudal lords can be used to maintain unity, then many problems related to the survival of Rus and even the Rurik family can be solved in the future.
However, this requires a lot of money, but in order to maintain Kiev's dominance, this money is definitely worth spending. Any Kiev ruler will spend this money. In other words, Rostislav can completely hand over this matter.
Leaving Rick for his son - and that's exactly what he did.
The current internal and external environment faced by Russia is unprecedentedly good. It maintains an alliance with the Eastern Empire as a trading partner, the sales problem of handicraft products has also been solved, and the surrounding environment is extremely stable - even Poland has recently returned to calm.
A pair of Polish princes and brothers divided up the Polish territory and maintained peace and stability. There were no longer as many melees as before.
What Rostislav discovered now was that he actually had nothing to do. Rurik could complete all his usual work, and he could no longer pursue his hobbies. Some time ago, he bought the book "Nothing" about writing stories about desperate gamblers.
After completing the story "The Return of Words", he felt that his inspiration had been drained out and planned to stop writing for a while.
It is now the year 1100, and Rostislav is now 62 years old, but his health is still as good as usual. There was a time when Rostislav was a little slow in thinking. At that time, he thought that his health was starting to decline.
However, after a period of good rest, Rostislav's condition recovered.
If Rostislav has anything to worry about, it is the Monomakh Empire. Rostislav has great ideas about that. He knows very well that if the Monomakh Empire loses Monomakh, it will be destroyed in an instant.
Will fall into huge chaos, he wants to seize this opportunity, but unfortunately, God knows when Monomach will die.
However, although we don’t know when Monomakh will die, there are some things that can be planned in advance and promoted through efforts. Rostislav also knows a thing or two about this...
Because he was still worried about this matter, Rostislav killed his original idea of completely giving up the throne and replaced it with the next best thing, that is, he handed over the regency of the entire Russia to his son.
Rick, announced that this kid will take over everything in Kiev and even Russia from now on.
As for Rostislav himself, he still holds the title of Grand Duke of Kiev and still maintains power, but he will not be in Kiev. Instead, he plans to visit the whole of Russia, travel around, see the scenery of this land, and understand Russia.
The customs and customs of various places have enriched my own inspiration, and recently I have summarized them all into books.
It was only because his eldest son was Rurik that he dared to do this. Over the years, Rostislav knew the situation of his eldest son very clearly. He was the kind of person who would never rebel. His father gave him
Whatever task he has, he will complete it without complaint.
What's more, Rostislav gave away all his powers except his title, leaving only the power to command the military. This was only used when there was a problem with the Monomakh Empire. Rurik was already the de facto Grand Duke.
Already.
Rurik's character is neither good nor bad. The good thing is that for his boss, the bad thing is that if he is allowed to make his own decision, it will be difficult for him to make it.
Although Rostislav left his son an implementation plan for major domestic policies, it is hard to say whether the boy will be able to respond in time if there is an emergency.
In the end, Rostislav's solution was to keep Zoe. After all these years, Zoe has become a 61-year-old old woman, and her health is obviously not as good as Rostislav, so she doesn't want to travel with Rostislav.
, just enjoy your retirement in Kiev.
To be honest, Zoe's decision-making ability is much stronger than that of his son. Even in his absence, Rostislav believes that Zoe can give his son correct guidance.
Therefore, after explaining all these things, Rostislav left Kiev with a hundred of his own people. He planned to wander around Kiev first to see the cave monastery, and then go to other places in Russia.
As for Kievan Rus, many people do not realize that a new era has actually begun, and the transfer of power in Rus has been completed unknowingly.