Introduction: The Market — Foundation of Civilization
The origins of cities, states, and world civilizations are invariably linked to the emergence of trade and the market as the first civilized institution — a peaceful and mutually beneficial site of communication, exchange, and interaction among individuals and entire peoples. Modern researchers increasingly and more distinctly interpret the market not merely as an economic space of exchange, but as a complex social, legal, and even sacred structure that shaped not only the economy but also politics, belief systems, and the national identity of societies. It was the market that served as the space where the interests of tribes, peoples, and states intersected, enabling the exchange not only of goods but also of ideas, culture, values, technologies — ultimately creating civilization as such.

Mesopotamia: City, Temple, and Market
Even in the most ancient civilizations — in particular, in Mesopotamia — economic life was inextricably linked to temple and royal economies. The temple complexes of Babylon, Ur, and Lagash served not only as religious centers but also as vital hubs of social life: warehouses, exchanges, banks, and even judicial institutions. All major flows of grain, metals, crafts, and profits from distant caravans passed through the temple. Babylon, the first metropolis of the ancient world, was not only a center of political and cultic power — it became a node where the transit routes of Eurasia converged.

Notably, it was the expansion of long-distance trade — the supply of tin, wood, spices, and stone from remote lands — that necessitated the emergence of complex infrastructure: roads, caravanserais, warehouses, security systems, and consequently new legal and ethical norms. In this aspect, the temple economy functioned not so much as a planned economy but as the first financial and informational center of the market.

Antiquity: The Agora as the Heart of the City
In the Greek polis, the center of gravity of public life shifted to the agora — the marketplace, which simultaneously served as a venue for political gatherings, debates, festivals, and rituals. It was at the agora that the first democratic dialogue of citizens took place, where deals were made, goods were weighed, and disputes resolved. In the city-states of antiquity, the market became not only an economic but also a political, cultural, and even sacred platform. As V. Bernstein notes, in Rome “real economic life pulsates not on the forum but in the labyrinths of streets, warehouses, and shops.”

The commercial appeal determined the strategic location of cities: a convenient harbor, crossroads, the possibility of fast delivery and safety for merchants — all this contributed to the formation of a permanent market, around which administrative, religious, and residential quarters would then grow. Thus, classical Athens turned the port of Piraeus into the largest emporion — a special district for foreign merchants. This experience was repeated in dozens of other ancient cities.

Medieval Europe: The Market as a Center of Urbanization
The fall of ancient empires and the emergence of new feudal structures did not destroy the market — on the contrary, the market and fair became those magnets that attracted people, wealth, and energy. Cities grew from temporary fairs, roadside inns, warehouses, and port areas — first as commercial, and later as political centers.

A trade point near a harbor or bridge gradually became surrounded by a chapel, a mini-fort for protection from bandits, and public institutions.

In medieval Europe, the Church played the role not only of a spiritual center but also of a bank, repository, and exchange. Medieval cities — from Italian and Greek to Balkan — mostly emerged precisely around a market, and only then acquired independent governing bodies and religious buildings. In fact, the market became the universal language spoken by tribes and peoples, and this dialogue determined the course of history.

Even today, the main square of most cities is still the marketplace.

Religion as a Trade Protocol: From Judaism to Confucianism

Judaism: An Elitist “Trade Protocol”
The role of the Jewish diaspora and Judaism in organizing transregional trade during the early Middle Ages deserves particular attention. Jewish merchants — Radhanites (or Rachdonites) — scattered across Europe, Asia, and North Africa, transformed their faith, language, and legal norms into a kind of “social protocol”: a commercial system of trust, shared rules, and arbitration. Through the Torah and the Talmud, they acquired standardized formats for contracts, credit, and partnership that functioned from France to China.

The Khazar Khanate, situated at a transit crossroads, adopted Judaism in the 8th–9th centuries (primarily its elite), which enabled it to maintain a certain neutrality between the Christian West and the Muslim East and to operate within a unified protocol shared with other Jewish merchant networks. Thus, religion became not only a spiritual doctrine but also a tool for integration into global trade.

Islam: A Universal Code of the Road
With the emergence of Islam (7th–11th centuries), a unified space of travel, trade, and law — Dar al-Islam — took shape. Sharia law, the Arabic language, standardized weights and measures, and currency created the foundation for effective cooperation among merchants from Spain to Indonesia. Belonging to the umma meant not only shared faith, but also commercial benefits: a Muslim was granted lower taxes, the right to protection, access to credit, and the judicial system under Sharia. Foreign merchants often converted to Islam in order to gain access to these privileges — economic advantage and integration went hand in hand with spiritual choice.

Christianity: The Path into the Christian World
Christianity also became a platform for trade in Europe. The conversion of the rulers of Rus, Poland, and Hungary to Christianity granted them equal access to markets, legal institutions, literacy, and alliances. After the baptism of Kyiv, it gained the status of “one of us” in relation to Byzantium: trade agreements were signed, merchants received privileges as Christians, and religious and legal commonality reduced the risks of large transactions. Similarly, the Catholic Church in Europe organized fairs, provided shelter for merchants, and acted as a mediator in disputes.

Confucianism and Buddhism: Eastern Models of Trust
In Asia, Confucianism and Buddhism became no less effective protocols for trade. The Confucian bureaucracy ensured stability and unity of legal and metrological systems, significantly facilitating exchange across the vast territory of China. Buddhism, in turn, through its networks of monasteries and guesthouses, guaranteed merchants safe transit, rituals of mutual trust, and the opportunity to resolve disputes according to shared ethics. Monasteries served as de facto banks, warehouses, and information hubs, while clan ethics ensured honesty in partnership.

Trade, Cities, Empires: Power as the Guardian of the Market

Rome and the Mongols: “Empires of Transit”
Great empires arose not only as projects of conquest but also as instruments for guarding and controlling trade routes. The Roman Empire invested in the construction of roads, ports, warehouses — ensuring Pax Romana, the safety of caravans and ships. The Mongol state of the 13th–14th centuries united the greater part of the Silk Road, introduced a system of yam (relay stations), yarliqs (safe-conduct charters), and granted merchants of various religions equal access to the market.

Economic Policy: Infrastructure as the Foundation of Power
Empires traditionally showed favor to the merchant class, seeing it not only as a source of income but also as a tool of geoeconomic control over the flows of goods, precious metals, and human capital. It was precisely investment in routes, security, and administration that made empires the “skeleton” of global trade. At the same time, Italian republics like Venice and Genoa became powerful not through armies, but through technology — and only afterward through control over key ports, warehouses, and diplomatic privileges.

Shifts in Routes — Shifts in the Landscape of Power
World trade is a constant dynamic of routes. The collapse of old pathways (due to epidemics, wars, or the fall of empires) led to the decline of cities and states, whereas the success of new trade nodes ensured economic and political growth. This was the case with the shift of centers from the Black Sea to the Baltic (Hanseatic League, Novgorod), from East to West (the Age of Great Geographical Discoveries), from China to India, and from the Muslim world to Europe. The state that first intercepted a new transit hub acquired not only wealth but also a chance to present itself as a new civilizational model.

The History of the Silk Road and Eastern Europe

Transformations of Routes and the Impact on Rus
The Great Silk Road — a system of land and sea routes from China to Europe — repeatedly changed its trajectories, shaping the fate of the lands of Eastern Europe. Arab, Mongol, and Ottoman conquests redirected flows, elevating and then diminishing cities and states. After the collapse of Khazaria, Rus attempted to intercept control over transit, but by then this was no longer feasible. With the decline of security on steppe routes, the center of gravity shifted to the Volga and Crimea.

Periods of economic isolation (the “coinless period” in Rus) clearly correlate with the decline of transit trade and the loss of connections with both East and West. Conversely, the restoration of trade (via Genoese factories, Muscovite treaties with the English) was accompanied by the revival of minting, urban life, and political influence. By taking over the Volga route, Moscow laid the foundation for its future imperial policy.

The Rise of Rus as a Project to Intercept Trade Arteries
The Struggle for Transit: From Khazaria to Muscovy
The history of the rise of Kyiv is, above all, the history of a struggle for control over routes connecting North and South, West and East. Sviatoslav’s wars with the Khazars, the conquest of Sarkel and Itil, consolidation over the Dnieper route — all this was less a mythical “holy war” than a project to seize control of transit. When Kyiv lost its dominance (due to route shifts, nomadic raids, emergence of alternative channels), political unity disintegrated.

Moscow, having secured support from Venice, subjugated Novgorod, then Kazan and Astrakhan. In the 16th century, gaining control over key arteries of the East defined its further strategy of expansion — up to the Baltic and Black Sea ports.

Ideological and religious conflicts (the persecution of the Judaizers, destruction of Jewish merchants in Novgorod, imposition of Orthodoxy, expulsion of Italian merchants) accompanied these economic transformations. Moscow aimed to monopolize control — to eliminate competitors and internalize transit within the state.

Religion as a Platform of Trust in Trade: Theory and Practice

Religion — Infrastructure of Trust and Arbitration
Throughout history, religions functioned not only as means of spiritual integration but also as a social technology — a “compatibility protocol” for interregional trade. Faith created a shared field of values, reputation, and legal guarantees: a Jewish merchant, a Muslim caravan leader, a Christian factor, and a Buddhist pilgrim — in different eras — found a common language through the codes of religion. This reduced transaction costs, raised the level of trust, and enabled both judicial and moral oversight.

Arbitration at a synagogue or mosque, a contract under oath, the guarantee of the community, a network of guesthouses, holy places as market hubs — all of these formed a unique infrastructure of long-term, predictable exchange. This was especially evident in global diasporas, port and transit cities, where ethnic and religious communities became guarantors of obligations.

Asian Models: Ethics and Institutions
In China, the Confucian culture of trust, clan and family networks, ritual as a universal standard of communication — and in India, the Buddhist and Jain guilds and monasteries functioning as banking-trading centers — became the foundation for the emergence of large commercial associations. Buddhism, especially along the route from India through China to Southeast Asia, created a network of monasteries and guesthouses where a merchant could receive not only shelter, but also information, credit, protection, and fair arbitration.

Conclusion: God Follows the Caravan

The history of civilizations is the history of caravans that carried not only goods, but also ideas, religions, legal and moral norms. And indeed, behind these caravans walked God — in the form of a system of rules that united people into a lasting community. Wherever the market was open, protected, and legitimized by both power and religion, cities were born.

Modern political structures, linguistic identities, and geopolitical ambitions are merely late echoes of ancient routes that once connected the desert to the city, the shore to the temple, sand to coin. Trade creates civilization not only as an economic system, but as an infrastructure of meaning — where God is the name for trust that ensures the sustainability of exchange.

In Christian Europe, faith became a politico-economic pact: the ecclesiastical protocol allowed barbarian states to integrate into a single trading field. Protestantism legitimized capital, Calvinism — credit, Catholicism — mission. In Islam, religion transformed into the merchant’s code that encompassed empires from the Maghreb to Indonesia. In China, the Confucian vertical of responsibility turned bureaucracy into a guarantor of contracts.

The idea of God as a companion of the caravan is not a metaphor, but a deep historical formula: wherever a route appeared, faith took root — as a protocol of trust. It was not the church that founded the market, but the market that required ritual. It was not the state that built trade routes, but the route that demanded an arbiter.

The caravan is the matrix of civilization. It requires a route, stops, protection, a court, faith, hospitality, coinage, writing, and a shared language. And above all — trust, codified in a protocol that all parties observe.

Civilization is, in essence, a network of markets.
Not fortress walls, not temples, not armies make it alive — but trade. It is the market that forms horizontal connections, initiates the circulation of trust, and creates the space of agreements.

God in this model is the most enduring notary.
He does not punish or bless — he merely certifies mutual will: a silent witness to agreements, summoned to guarantee trust where no kinship exists.

And the market is the meeting place of shared interests.
Here not only goods converge, but also languages, traditions, and religions. It is a space of cultural exchange, institutionalized compromise, where competition turns into symphony.

Civilization begins where strangers make agreements.
And for that, they need not a sacrificial altar — but an accountant; not a prophet — but an arbiter. And that is why the first temple of humanity was the market.