V. F. Gening and Russian archaeological sites in the Vyatka river region

The article is devoted to V. F. Gening's contribution to the study of Russian archaeological sites of the Vyatka region. In 1949, he examined the Iskor fortified settlement site – one of the first ancient Russian settlements of the region. Starting 1954, V. F. Gening headed the Udmurt Archaeological Expedition and the Udmurt Detachment of the Lower Kama Expedition, which discovered quite a number of new archaeological sites, including Russian ones. He conducted excavations on the Gon'ba burial ground site in the lower reaches of the Vyatka (1955), where 16-18th-century burials were uncovered, and later (1970-1972) on the Zuyevo-Klyuchevskaya I settlement site with 14-15th-century Russian antiquities. He analyzed ancient Russian materials from surveys on a number of settlement sites in the Middle Vyatka River region and provided a detailed description and typology of ceramics. The researcher attributed the start of the Russian colonization of the Middle Vyatka River region to the late 14th century. In his book on "Archaeological monuments of Udmurtia" (1958), V.F. Gening characterized the monuments uncovered and discoveries made, including those referring to the 15th – 18th centuries.