Sarskoye Gorodishche

Sarskoye Gorodishche or Sarsky fort (Russian: Сарское городище, literally "Citadel on the Sara") was a medieval fortified settlement in present-day Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia.

Excavations begun by Count Aleksey Uvarov in 1854 revealed a number of superb Varangian objects comparable to the sites in Scandinavia, notably a Carolingian sword with the inscription "Lun fecit".

After Soviet archaeologists resumed excavations, they rejected the traditional attribution of the site to the Norsemen, proclaiming it the largest centre (perhaps the capital) of the Merya, a Finnic tribe which inhabited the region prior to the arrival of the Slavs.

According to one theory, the town was transferred primarily for religious considerations, so as to have the water frontage facing a rocky island with a major sanctuary of Veles.

Whatever the reasons for the decline of Sarskoe, the similar sites at Timeryovo near Yaroslavl and Gnezdovo near Smolensk relinquished their administrative and economic primacy roughly in the same period.