Rural Neighborhood of Azak According to Numismatic and Ceramic Findings. Interaction between the City and the Rural Population

The article describes the development of the rural district of Azak, the mutual interaction between the city and its rural settlements. The subject of consideration is the ceramic complex of rural settlements, its structure, and the peculiarities of the pottery craft development in small towns and villages. The intensity of contacts of rural settlements with the center and the property wealth of the population of the periphery are also estimated. These data complement the numismatic findings, which allow us to determine the degree of retail trade development in rural settlements, as well as to clarify the important question of the time of disappearance of the rural district of Azak by the end of the 1st quarter of the 15th century. Other categories of materials (weapons, jewelry and costume parts, agricultural equipment, sphragistics) are briefly described. The data of archaeology and written sources are also compared in this research. Conclusions are drawn about the cultural proximity of the rural and ordinary urban population of Azak, about the free population living in the territory of the rural district of Azak with average property wealth, about the synchronicity of the city and its district disappearance.