Fama Shopping Center

Fama is the name of one of Narva bastions.

Fama bastion (1690), which was famous for its interior and commercial activities, used to house workshops, smithies, mows, stables, and fabrics storages. It was knocked down to enable the construction of the trade route to Europe. At present it is the only bastion that does not exist. However, now on its grounds a modern trade center has been erected. "Restoration of history on the trade route" is the motto of the initiators of the project.

In the history of Europe, Narva was traditionally known as a center of international trade. The waterway along the Narva River was opened as far back in history as the era of the Vikings (V-IX centuries); it represented a branch of the legendary Baltic-Mediterranean River Route, named in the Russian chronicles as "The Route from the Varangians to the Greeks". Later (from the XIII c.), the land road from Tallinn to Novgorod, which ran through the town, was intensively used. On the road, near the river crossing point, a trade settlement was founded in the XIII century, which in 1345 was granted the status of a town by the privilege from the Danish King Valdemar IV Attergad. That is how the town of Narva came into being.

The medieval Narva played an important role in the Baltic trade system formed by the Hanseatic League and the Germanic Order. From the end of the XV c. on (after the Novgorod Feudal Republic joined Moscow), Narva gradually earns the historical role that Novgorod had used to have, being an intermediary in the Russian-European trade relations. In the second half of the XVI c., during the Livonian War, Narva was conquered by the troops of the Russian Czar Ivan IV the Terrible and for 20 years enjoyed the status of the major hub of the Russian naval trade on the Baltic Sea. A new, and probably the most remarkable period in the history of Narva as a town of commerce refers to the XVII c., when the town became part of the powerful Swedish Kingdom. That period is considered to be "the Golden Era" of the trading Narva. At that time the trade routes, which tied the Baltic states not only with Russia but also with Persia and Transcaucasia, ran through the town.