A posad (Russian: посад) was a settlement in the Russian Empire, often surrounded by ramparts and a moat, adjoining a town or a kremlin, but outside of it, or adjoining a monastery in the 10th to 15th centuries. The posad was inhabited by craftsmen and merchants and was its own distinct community, separate from the city it adjoined. Some posads developed into towns, such as Pavlovsky Posad and Sergiev Posad. During the 1920s administrative territorial reform in the Soviet Union, posads were converted into urban-type settlements.