Fortification Construction in Russia in the XV-XVI Centuries as the First Stage of the Purposeful Formation of the Resettlement System - the Forerunner of Linear Urban Planning Structures

The article considers the creation of a fortification line of defense of the Russian state during the 15th-16th centuries as a process of formation of a specific settlement system. It puts forward the hypothesis that the formation of a linear defensive-residential structure consisting of residential and defense constructions united by roads into a single structure of interconnected formations for various functions was purposeful. It is noted that one of the insufficiently studied pages of the Russian history of town-planning to this day remains "Watchline" not as object of fortification, but as an object of town-planning art. On the basis of the study of the works of D. Bagaley, F. Laskovsky, I.D. Belyaeva, A.I. Yakovlev and other researchers, including modern researchers, article concludes that the settlement of the XIV-XVI century's period originally had a planned character. That was, in fact, a complex system of resettlement created, based on a fundamentally new urban development technique for the development of territories. The article substantiates the legitimacy of using the concept of "Settlement System" as applied to the period of the XV-XVII centuries - the period of the state formation. It was the emergence of statehood that allowed the creation of a management system and the structure of such town-planning structures as the Zasechnye lines.