The article analyzes Russian historical and legal heritage containing the norms governing social relations that arose in the process of development of water and inland roads, transportation, state administration in the transport field, and studies the most important norms of Russian transport legislation. The purpose of the research was to study legal regulation of transport relations in the historical period from 9th through 18th centuries in order to identify the main stages of development and periodization of domestic transport law.The study was carried out using methods of legal analysis, including formal-dogmatic method, which allowed to reveal some of shortcomings and gaps of legal regulation; historical and legal method, that, in combination with the methods of taxonomic analysis, made it possible to carry out authors’ periodization of formation of transport legislation during the studied period. The use of achievements of legal hermeneutics and tools of the linguistic-semiotic and semantic approaches provided an opportunity to clarify the content of legal norms and legal documents referring to the period under review.The results of the study are of interest from the point of view of revealing historical patterns of development of transport law, make it possible to assess the role and place of transport legislation in the system of legal regulators of public relations. The presented scientific results, taking into account already existing and practically substantiated developments, can serve as a starting point for further discussion about the prospects, trends and directions of development of Russian transport law and transport legislation.

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