SAINT OLGA OF KIEV

Vengeful Viking warrior-princess turned Russian Orthodox saint
AD 890–969

When the Derevlians arrived, Olga commanded that a bath should be made ready, and invited them to appear before her after they had bathed. The bathhouse was then heated, and the Derevlians entered in to bathe. Olga’s men closed up the bathhouse behind them, and she gave orders to set it on fire from the doors, so that the Derevlians were all burned to death.

—The Russian Primary Chronicle

SAINT OLGA OF KIEV WAS A VIKING WARRIOR-princess who unleashed a dump truck of bloody vengeance on all who opposed her, cleansed the countryside of her enemies in a sea of unquenchable flames, conquered hordes of vicious barbarians, and saved her people during the Siege of Kiev with nothing more than her own fearlessness. She also instituted the first taxation system in Eastern Europe, built the first stone structures in Russia, and once buried twenty foreign dignitaries alive. And she somehow still managed to be sainted by the Orthodox Church for almost single-handedly turning Russia into a Christian country.

Born in Pskov, Russia, around 890, Olga was the daughter of powerful Swedish aristocrats who had moved to Russia not long after Rurik had taken over the show there. Known in Old Norse as Helga (the Russians pronounced it “Olga” because that sounded much more Russian to them), this tough-as-nails lady married Rurik’s son, Prince Igor of Novgorod, in 903. When Igor’s uncle (who had been named regent to rule for the young prince until he was old enough to do it himself) died in 912, Igor took over as ruler of Kievan Rus, and Olga found herself the powerful princess of an empire that spanned parts of modern-day Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland.

Igor did some killing and conquering-type stuff around Kiev and Novgorod, but things turned bad for him in 945, when he got a little too greedy and tried to demand that a Slavic tribe known as the Drevlyans pay him money to not attack them. According to the ancient chronicles, Igor rode into enemy territory with a few of his buddies and told the Drevlyans he was coming to steal all the silver in their empire. King Mal of Drevlya responded by ambushing Prince Igor, slaughtering his honor guard, decapitating him, and turning his skull into a decorative wine goblet he could show off at dinner parties. No, seriously, he actually did this.

In his mind, little King Mal of Drevlya (king of a tiny tribe nobody outside Russia had ever heard of) had won a great victory against the Vikings, saved his civilization from paying an unreasonable tribute demanded by an enemy tyrant, and vanquished the prince of Kiev once and for all.

Then Mal pushed his luck. He sent a team of twenty ambassadors to Kiev for two reasons—first, to inform Princess Olga that her husband had met an untimely sword-related demise, and second, to demand her hand in marriage. Together, he reasoned, they could unite the kingdoms of Kiev and Drevlya into one powerful Viking-Slavic empire.

I’ll give you two guesses how this one went over with Olga, a born-and-bred Viking warrior woman who only really had a sense of humor when it came to things like burning people to death or throwing them into bottomless pits.

If you said “not well,” you’d be correct.

Olga, who was now ruling Kiev in the name of her three-year-old son, Sviatoslav, heard what her guests had to say and politely responded with something along the lines of “Okay, let me think about it. Return to your ships and await my decision.”

The ambassadors, happy with this answer, went back to their boats. The next day, a large crowd of people from Kiev came out with big smiles on their faces, picked up the wooden ships, and carried the Drevlyan ambassadors on their backs all the way into the city. The Drevlyans, thinking this was a cool parade or something, kicked their feet up and waved politely to the crowd gathering inside the city.

Olga’s men walked to the center of town and threw the ships straight into a twenty-foot-deep hole they’d dug during the night. Princess Olga of Kiev walked to the edge of the pit, looked down at the shocked ambassadors, and ordered her men to fill the hole in with dirt, burying the terrified Drevlyans alive under ten tons of dirt and rocks. Their grave has never been discovered.

But this hardcore princess was just getting started. Knowing that King Mal still had no idea what was going on, she sent a messenger to Drevlya to inform the king that yes, she would marry him, and that he should send his greatest warriors to Kiev so they could escort his future wife back to Drevlya for the marriage stuff. King Mal was so wrapped up in the “Princess Olga likes me” thing that he sent all his best troopers to Kiev without waiting for word back from his entombed ambassadors.

The Drevlyan warriors arrived at the gates of Kiev, where they were greeted by the captain of Olga’s royal guard. The captain said that before these men could be admitted into Olga’s presence, they needed to bathe in the royal baths of Kiev. The captain’s men ushered the troopers into the baths, turned on the sauna, and then—just as Olga had commanded them—barred the door and set the entire structure on fire, melting King Mal’s greatest warriors to death in the World’s Hottest Sauna. Olga showed up to check it out and immediately started laughing her head off because, seriously, these guys would fall for anything.

King Mal, still unaware of Princess Olga’s intentions, next received word from Kiev that the princess, along with all the Drevlyan warriors and ambassadors, was on her way to Drevlya for her Super-Happy Fun Marriage with the Man Who Murdered Her Husband. Her only request was that she be allowed to visit the city where her husband had died, and that a big feast be thrown to commemorate his death. Mal set it all up, preparing the best meats, cheeses, and mead in the Ukraine to receive his would-be queen.

Olga of Kiev rode out on horseback to the town, threw roses on the tomb of her husband, mourned his death, and then went to King Mal’s party, where five thousand Drevlyan nobles and warriors fed her all kinds of delicious snacks and all the guests got their fill of mead and wine.

Then, once the party was raging and everyone was good and drunk, some Drevlyan guy had a moment of realization and was like, “Hey, Olga, how come none of your men are here with you? Did you ride all this way by yourself? And what happened to all those guys we sent to get you?”

It was roughly at this point that the doors to the banquet hall were flung open and a few thousand heavily armored Viking warriors came charging in, axes raised, screaming the bloodcurdling war cries of their Norse ancestors.

After wiping out another massive gang of her enemies, Olga of Kiev went on the offensive. Her army—all of whom had stayed fiercely loyal to their Viking princess—marched on the capital of Drevlya, surrounded it, and proceeded to starve the population into submission. King Mal, now sweating it, offered terms of surrender to Olga, saying he had no money but would do anything to get her Viking warriors to stop pummeling his citizens.

Olga thought about it for a second and then said she didn’t need anything big—just something symbolic. “Bring me one flying bird from every household in the city and we’ll call it even.”

King Mal and his people were pumped. They brought her doves, pigeons, sparrows, ravens, and all kinds of other birds from the city. Olga accepted this offering, turned around, and marched back to Kiev.

When she was about a mile away from King Mal’s capital, she ordered every man in her army to grab a bird, tie a slow-burning candlewick to it, light the wick, and set the bird free.

The freaked-out birds all returned home, where they set the entire city on fire, burning it to the ground and killing every single citizen. I like to imagine that Olga, like any good action hero, didn’t even look back at the explosion as she walked off into the sunset.