Sit­u­at­ed on the ancient trade route between Cen­tral Asia and north­ern Europe, Nov­gorod was Russia‘s first cap­i­tal in the 9th cen­tu­ry. Sur­round­ed by church­es and monas­ter­ies, it was a cen­tre for Ortho­dox spir­i­tu­al­i­ty as well as Russ­ian archi­tec­ture. Its medieval mon­u­ments and the 14th-cen­­tu­ry fres­coes of Theo­phanes the Greek (Andrei Rublev‘s teacher) illus­trate the devel­op­ment of its remark­able archi­tec­ture and cul­tur­al cre­ativ­i­ty.