Book of Yu. P. Spegalsky "Dwelling of North-Western Russia of the 9th-13th centuries" - the work is bright and unusual. There is no newly published material in it, there is no new archaeological data. The work is mainly built on already known, published material. Moreover, even published information about the ancient Russian dwellings of Yu. P. Spegalsky was far from fully used; among all the points where the remains of dwellings of the 9th-13th centuries were found on the territory of North-Western Russia, he chose only 3 cities in which these dwellings were found in the best preservation and in the greatest number - Ladoga, Toropets and especially Novgorod. And from the material of excavations in these cities, Yu. P. Spegalsky singled out and used only the part that gave the greatest opportunity to draw conclusions. Thus, Yu. P. Spegalsky limited himself to the circle of the most benign material, deliberately abandoning the use of all fragmentary remains of dwellings that do not allow reconstructing their original construction scheme.