KIEVAN RUS

Vikings settle the Baltic Coast, inadvertently create Russia
c. AD 830–879

Masses of spears and arrows could be seen flying through the air, axes swung violently, shields were split, armor was cut open, helmets were slashed, and skulls were cloven. Many men fell to the ground.

—The Saga of the Volsungs

WE’VE SEEN MARAUDING VIKING CHIEFTAINS have their way with towns and countries across Western Europe, create powerful new cities, overthrow kings, and plunder loot by the shipful. But while this was going on, Viking jarls on the other side of Europe were out there doing something even more important for the course of world history.

They were creating the foundation for the country we now know as Russia.

The tale of how a Viking leader named Rurik went from a minor jarl to an all-powerful tsar (“emperor”) of Russia starts back in the ninth century, when this sea-marauding warrior and his Viking buddies were having a blast sailing their totally rad dragon-headed longships down the twisting waterways of present-day Eastern Europe. Rurik and his war band had performed many successful raids against the English and Franks, but they became infamous among the local Slavic people for the total devastation they brought with them.

It worked like this: Rurik’s group would attack a town, burn it, loot it, and then tie up every able-bodied person who lived there and take them prisoner. They’d then sail down the mighty Dnieper River, past dangers ranging from intense rapids and sharp rocks to bears and bloodthirsty marauders, cross the five-hundred-mile-wide Black Sea, and pull their ships into the Byzantine Empire’s capital at Constantinople. The Vikings would sell their captives as slaves; spend their money on weapons, gear, and party supplies; and then head back upriver to do it all over again. The whole thing worked out so well for Rurik that the English word slave actually comes from the word Slav, the name of the people who lived in Russia at the time (and still do today).

This is pretty messed up, for sure, but the Vikings weren’t exactly the sort of people who put a lot of value on human life. For these guys, life was short and difficult, and the strong were there to take what they wanted from the weak. These were big, scary dudes, and nobody wanted them around for very long (for obvious reasons).

Rurik mostly stuck to coastal villages along the Dnieper River and generally left the big cities alone at first. Around this time, the most powerful city in the Slavic world was the wealthy trading town of Novgorod. Defended by imposing city walls and a well-trained army of steel-toed Slavic warriors, Novgorod had been protected from Rurik’s raids. But these guys had problems of their own. The short version is that there were three or four groups of powerful noblemen all arguing and fighting over money and power, and things had gotten so out of hand by 860 that corrupt merchants and nobles were having people murdered in back alleys by hardcore hired assassins.

One day, an enterprising Novgorod businessman decided he was going to find a clever way to tip the power struggle in his favor. He sent messengers across Russia to track down the most ferocious human being he could think of—the super-scary Viking leader Rurik. The man whose imposing battle-axe and bad attitude were feared by cowering peasants from Dublin to Constantinople. The last person you’d want to open the gates of your city to.