1.
Rurik
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There is a debate over how Rurik came to control Ladoga and Novgorod. Afterwards the tribes started fighting each other and decided to invite the Varangians, led by Rurik, according to the Primary Chronicle, Rurik was one of the Rus, a Varangian tribe likened by the chronicler to Danes, Swedes, Angles, and Gotlanders. Rurik remained in power until his death in 879 and his successors, however, moved the capital to Kiev and founded the state of Kievan Rus, which persisted until the Mongol invasion in 1240. A number of extant princely families are descended from Rurik, although the last Rurikid to rule Russia, Vasily IV. According to the entries in the Radzivil and Hypatian Chronicles under the years 862–864 and it is only later that he moved his seat of power to Novgorod, a fort built not far from the source of the Volkhov River. The meaning of place name in medieval Russian is new fortification. The only similarly named figure described in Western chronicles was Rorik of Dorestad, since the 19th century, there have been attempts to identify him with the Rurik of Russian chronicles. Rorik of Dorestad was born about ca, 810–820 to Ali Anulo, 9th king of Haithabu. Frankish chroniclers mention that he received lands in Friesland from Emperor Louis I and this was not enough for him, and he started to plunder neighbouring lands, he took Dorestad in 850, captured Haithabu in 857, and looted Bremen in 859. The Emperor was enraged and stripped him of all his possessions in 860, Rorik of Dorestad reappeared in Frankish chronicles in 870, when his Friesland demesne was returned to him by Charles the Bald, in 882 Rorik of Dorestad is mentioned as dead. The Russian chronicle places the death of Rurik of Novgorod at 879, according to Western sources, the ruler of Friesland was converted to Christianity by the Franks. This may have parallels with the Christianization of the Rus, as reported by Patriarch Photius in 867, the hypothesis of their identity currently lacks support among scholars, though support for a Normanic origin of the Rus has increased. The Rurikid dynasty went on to rule the Kievan Rus, and ultimately the Tsardom of Muscovy, until 1598. Vasily Tatishchev claimed that Rurik was of Wendish extraction and went so far as to name Ruriks wife, Ufanda of Norway, mother, Umila, his grandfather, Gostomysl. According to the FamilyTreeDNA Rurikid Dynasty DNA Project, Rurik appears to have belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup N1c1, N1c1 is not widely found in Scandinavian countries, but is overwhelmingly found among Baltic and Finnish ethnicities. The N1c1 haplotype possess the distinctive value DYS390=23, also found in Scandinavia
2.
Viktor Vasnetsov
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Viktor Mikhaylovich Vasnetsov was a Russian artist who specialized in mythological and historical subjects. He is considered the co-founder of Russian folklorist and romantic nationalistic painting, Viktor Vasnetsov was born in the remote village of Lopyal in Vyatka Governorate in 1848, the second of the six children. His father Mikhail Vasilievich Vasnetsov, known to be inclined, was a member of priesthood. His grandfather was an icon painter, two of Mikhail Vasnetsovs three sons, Viktor and Apollinary, became remarkable painters, the third one becoming a schoolteacher. It was in Lopyal that Viktor started to paint, mostly landscapes and scenes of village life, recalling his childhood in a letter to Vladimir Stasov, Vasnetsov remarked that he had lived with peasant children and liked them not as a narodnik but as a friend. From the age of ten, Viktor studied in a seminary in Vyatka, during his seminary years, he worked for a local icon shopkeeper. He also helped an exiled Polish artist, Michał Elwiro Andriolli, having graduated from the seminary, Viktor decided to move to Saint Petersburg to study art. He auctioned his paintings of Woman Harvester and Milk-maid in order to raise money required for the trip to the Russian capital, in August 1867 Viktor entered the Imperial Academy of Arts. Three years later, the Peredvizhniki movement of realist painters rebelled against the Academism, Vasnetsov befriended their leader Ivan Kramskoi, referring to him as his teacher. He also became close to his fellow student Ilya Yefimovich Repin. It is ironic, but Viktor, whose name is associated with historical and mythological paintings, for his graphic composition of Christ and Pontius Pilate Before the People, the Academy awarded a small silver medal to him. In the early 1870s he executed a lot of engravings depicting contemporary life, two of them won him a bronze medal at the World Fair in London. At that period he started producing genre paintings in oil. Such pieces as Peasant Singers and Moving House were warmly welcomed by democratic circles of Russian society, in 1876 Repin invited Vasnetsov to join the Peredvizhniki colony in Paris. While living in France, Viktor studied classical and contemporary paintings, at that period, he painted Acrobats, produced prints, and exhibited some of his works at the Salon. It was in Paris that he became fascinated with fairy-tale subjects, starting to work on Ivan Tsarevich Riding a Grey Wolf, Vasnetsov was a model for Sadko in Repins celebrated painting Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom. In 1877 he returned to Moscow and these works were not appreciated at the time they appeared. Many radical critics dismissed them as undermining the realist principles of the Peredvizhniki, even such prominent connoisseurs as Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov refused to buy them
3.
Rurik dynasty
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The Rurik dynasty or Rurikids was a dynasty founded by the Varangian prince Rurik, who established himself in Novgorod around the year AD862. They ruled until 1610 and the Time of Troubles, following which they were succeeded by the Romanovs and they are one of Europes oldest royal houses, with numerous existing cadet branches. The Rurikid dynasty was founded in 862 by Rurik, a Varangian prince, come and reign as princes and have authority over us. Three brothers came with their kin and all the Rus in response to this invitation, Rurik set up rule in Novgorod, giving more provincial towns to his brothers. The Rurikid Dynasty DNA Project of FamilyTreeDNA commercial genetic genealogy company reports that Y-DNA testing of the descendants of Rurikids suggests their non-Slavic origin, Rurik and his brothers founded a state that later historians called Kievan Rus′. By the middle of the century, Kievan Rus′ had dissolved into independent principalities. The dynasty followed agnatic seniority and the izgoi principle, in addition, a line of Polotsk princes assimilated themselves with the princes of Lithuania. In the 10th century the Council of Liubech made some amendments to a succession rule, vsevolods line eventually became better known as the Monomakhovychi and was the predominant one. The line of Svyatoslav later became known as Olegovychi and often claim to the lands of Chernihiv. The Izyaslavychi who ruled Turov and Volhynia were eventually replaced by a Monomakhovychi branch, the Rurikid dynasty… attempted to impose on their highly diverse polity the integrative concept of russkaia zemlia and the unifying notion of a Rus′ people. But Kievan Rus′ was never really a unified polity and it was a loosely bound, ill-defined, and heterogeneous conglomeration of lands and cities inhabited by tribes and populous groups whose loyalties were primarily territorial. This caused the Rurik dynasty to effectively dissolve into several sub-dynasties ruling smaller states in the 10th and 11th centuries and these were the Olgoviches of Severia who ruled in Chernigov, Yuryeviches who controlled Vladimir-Suzdal, and Romanoviches in Galicia-Volhynia. The Olgoviches descended from Oleg I of Chernigov, a son of Sviatoslav II of Kiev and they continued to rule until the early 14th century when they were torn apart by the emerging Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Grand Duchy of Moscow. Vsevolod I of Kiev was the father of Vladimir II Monomakh, two of Vladimir IIs sons were Mstislav I of Kiev and Yuri Dolgorukiy. The Romanoviches were the line of Roman the Great, descended from Mstislav I of Kiev through his son Iziaslav II of Kiev and his grandson Mstislav II of Kiev, father of Roman the Great. The older Monomakhovychi line that ruled Principality of Volhynia, they were crowned kings of Galicia and Volhynia. Romanovychi displaced the line of Izyaslavychi from Turov and Volhynia as well as Rostyslavychi from Galicia. The last were two brothers of Romanovychi, Andrew and Lev II, who ruled jointly and were trying to repel Mongol incursions
4.
Belozersk
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Known as Beloozero until 1777, it was first chronicled in 862 as one of the five original Russian towns. According to the Primary Chronicle, Sineus, a brother of Rurik, however, Sineus most likely never existed. On several occasions, the settlement was moved from one bank of the lake to another, in the 11th century, the region was still inhabited primarily by Finno-Ugric tribes who fiercely resisted Christianization. In 1071, local pagan priests rose in rebellion, which was put down by the Kievan commander Yan Vyshatich, the Primary Chronicle reports that the dead bodies of priests were suspended from an oak tree, until they were torn to pieces by a bear. From the 10th to the 13th centuries, the territory was controlled by the Novgorod Republic, Beloozero was the seat of a small principality between 1238 and the 1370s, but subsequently between 1380 and 1384 became subordinate to the Grand Duchy of Moscow. On July 10,1612, Polish and Lithuanian vagabonds captured Belozersk without a fight, in the course of the administrative reform carried out in 1708 by Peter the Great, Beloozero was included into Ingermanland Governorate and named one of the towns constituting the governorate. In 1727, a separate Novgorod Governorate was split off and Belozersk became the seat of Belozersk Province in Novgorod Governorate, in 1776, the territory was transferred to Novgorod Viceroyalty. In 1796, the viceroyalty was abolished and Belozersky Uyezd became a part of Novgorod Governorate, in June 1918, five uyezds of Novgorod Governorate, including Belozersky Uyezd, were split off to form Cherepovets Governorate, with the administrative center in Cherepovets. On August 1,1927, Cherepovets Governorate was abolished and its territory became Cherepovets Okrug of Leningrad Oblast, at the same time, uyezds were abolished and Belozersky District was established. On September 23,1937, Belozersky District was transferred to newly established Vologda Oblast, within the framework of administrative divisions, Belozersk serves as the administrative center of Belozersky District. As an administrative division, it is incorporated within Belozersky District as the town of significance of Belozersk. Belozersk falls just within the subarctic climate range, with the fourth-warmest month being just below the isotherm of 10 °C to nearby humid continental areas, winters are cold but not severe by Russian standards for areas north of the 60th parallel. The economy of Belozersk is based on industry and food industry. Belozersk is connected by roads with Cherepovets, Kirillov. The Belozersky Canal, a part of the Volga–Baltic Waterway, which connects the river courses of the Sheksna, the town of Belozersk is classified as a historical town by the Ministry of Culture of Russia, which implies certain restrictions on construction in the historical center. The medieval monuments in the center are the Assumption Church. The wooden shrine of St. Elijah was built in 1690, the neighborhood is rich in old cloisters, such as Kirillo-Belozersky and Ferapontov Monasteries. Two of the most famous medieval icons were created in the 13th century in Belozersk and they constitute an intermediate style between Novgorodian and Northern icon painting
5.
Pskov
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Pskov is a city and the administrative center of Pskov Oblast, Russia, located about 20 kilometers east from the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River. Pskov is one of the oldest cities in Russia, the name of the city, originally spelled Pleskov, may be loosely translated as of purling waters. Its earliest mention comes in 903, which records that Igor of Kiev married a local lady, Pskovians sometimes take this year as the citys foundation date, and in 2003 a great jubilee took place to celebrate Pskovs 1, 100th anniversary. The first prince of Pskov was Vladimir the Greats youngest son Sudislav, once imprisoned by his brother Yaroslav, he was not released until the latters death several decades later. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the town adhered politically to the Novgorod Republic, in 1241, it was taken by the Teutonic Knights, but Alexander Nevsky recaptured it several months later during a legendary campaign dramatized in Sergei Eisensteins 1938 movie Alexander Nevsky. Having fortified the town, Daumantas routed the Teutonic Knights at Rakvere and his remains and sword are preserved in the local kremlin, and the core of the citadel, erected by him, still bears the name of Dovmonts town. By the 14th century, the town functioned as the capital of a de facto sovereign republic and its most powerful force was the merchants who brought the town into the Hanseatic League. Pskovs independence was recognized by Novgorod in 1348. Several years later, the veche promulgated a law code, which was one of the sources of the all-Russian law code issued in 1497. For Russia, the Pskov Republic was a bridge towards Europe, for Europe, the importance of the city made it the subject of numerous sieges throughout its history. The Pskov Krom withstood twenty-six sieges in the 15th century alone, at one point, five stone walls ringed it, making the city practically impregnable. A local school of icon-painting flourished, and the masons were considered the best in Russia. Many peculiar features of Russian architecture were first introduced in Pskov, finally, in 1510, the city fell to Muscovite forces. The deportation of families to Moscow is a subject of Rimsky-Korsakovs opera Pskovityanka. As the second largest city of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, most famously, it withstood a prolonged siege by a 50, 000-strong Polish army during the final stage of the Livonian War. The king of Poland Stephen Báthory undertook some thirty-one attacks to storm the city, even after one of the city walls was broken, the Pskovians managed to fill the gap and repel the attack. Its amazing how the city reminds me of Paris, wrote one of the Frenchmen present at Báthorys siege, as a consequence, the citys importance and well-being declined dramatically, although it has served as a seat of separate Pskov Governorate since 1777. During World War I, Pskov became the center of much activity behind the lines, Pskov was also occupied by the Estonian army between 25 May 1919 and 28 August 1919 during the Estonian War of Independence when Bułak-Bałachowicz became the military administrator of Pskov
6.
History of Russia
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The History of Russia begins with that of the Eastern Slavs. The traditional beginning of Russian history is 862 A. D. Kievan Rus, the state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988, beginning with the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Kievan Rus ultimately disintegrated as a state because of the Mongol invasion of Rus in 1237–1240, after the 13th century, Moscow became a cultural center. By the 18th century, the Tsardom of Russia had become the huge Russian Empire, expansion in the western direction sharpened Russias awareness of its separation from much of the rest of Europe and shattered the isolation in which the initial stages of expansion had occurred. Successive regimes of the 19th century responded to such pressures with a combination of halfhearted reform, peasant revolts were common, and all were fiercely suppressed. Russian serfdom was abolished in 1861, but the peasant fared poorly, from its first years, government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the Communists, as the Bolsheviks called themselves, beginning in March 1918. The Russian Federation began in January 1992 as the successor to the USSR. Russia retained its nuclear arsenal but lost its superpower status, Russias treatment of Ukraine led to severe economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union. In 2006,1. 5-million-year-old Oldowan flint tools were discovered in the Dagestan Akusha region of the north Caucasus, arctic Russia was reached by 40,000 years ago. During the prehistoric eras the vast steppes of Southern Russia were home to tribes of nomadic pastoralists, in classical antiquity, the Pontic Steppe was known as Scythia. Remnants of these long gone steppe cultures were discovered in the course of the 20th century in places as Ipatovo, Sintashta, Arkaim. In the latter part of the 8th century BCE, Greek merchants brought classical civilization to the trade emporiums in Tanais, gelonus was described by Herodotos as a huge earth- and wood-fortified grad inhabited around 500 BCE by Heloni and Budini. At about the 2nd century CE Goths migrated to the Black Sea, and in the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, a Turkic people, the Khazars, ruled the lower Volga basin steppes between the Caspian and Black Seas through to the 8th century. Noted for their laws, tolerance, and cosmopolitanism, the Khazars were the commercial link between the Baltic and the Muslim Abbasid empire centered in Baghdad. They were important allies of the Byzantine Empire, and waged a series of wars against the Arab Caliphates. In the 8th century, the Khazars embraced Judaism, some of the ancestors of the modern Russians were the Slavic tribes, whose original home is thought by some scholars to have been the wooded areas of the Pripet Marshes. The Early East Slavs gradually settled Western Russia in two waves, one moving from Kiev towards present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk towards Novgorod, scandinavian Norsemen, known as Vikings in Western Europe and Varangians in the East, combined piracy and trade throughout Northern Europe. In the mid-9th century, they began to venture along the waterways from the eastern Baltic to the Black, thus, the first East Slavic state, Rus, emerged in the 9th century along the Dnieper River valley
7.
Early Slavs
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The first written use of the name Slavs dates to the sixth century, when the Slavic tribes inhabited a large portion of Central and Eastern Europe. By that century, native Iranian ethnic groups had been absorbed by the regions Slavic population, over the next two centuries, the Slavs expanded southwest toward the Balkans and the Alps and northeast towards the Volga River. Beginning in the century, the Slavs gradually converted to Christianity. The meaning of Slav depends on the context in which it is used, the word can refer to a culture living north of the River Danube, east of the River Elbe, and west of the River Vistula during the 530s CE. Slav is also an identifier for the group shared by these cultures. When discussing evidence used to construct a history of the Slavs, archaeologically, early Slavic physical evidence ranges from hill forts, ceramic pots and fragments to abodes. However, archaeologists face difficulties distinguishing Slavic and non-Slavic findings, many of these findings are inaccurately radiocarbon-dated or so isolated that they do not reflect organized Slavic settlement. Although a number of sources describe the Slavs, there are problems with using the texts to build upon available knowledge of the early Slavs. Useful historical information about the Slavs from them is cryptic or does not identify their source, the works tend to discuss the Slavs only in terms of their effects on surrounding empires, particularly the Byzantines and the Franks. The variety of names referring to the Slavs, such as Antes, Sclaveni, and Venethi, place names have changed, or no longer survive, and most texts are second-hand accounts or describe an encounter with the Slavs years, decades, or centuries after it occurred. Earlier texts contextualize the Slavs early history and development, but those written long after an event are less reliable, the Slavs were described by their neighbors as Antes, Sclaveni, and Venethi in texts written during and after the 500s. The concept of ethnicity during this period was fluid, more than one ethnicity would be ascribed to a group and this map of Slavic settlement during the 6th century relative to their neighbors drawn from written fragments, omits source information which contradicted Parczewskis conclusions. The association by archaeologists of pot and burial styles with ethnonyms, Ethnic identification can be subjective, especially in a region where many tribal groups identified themselves as distinct from one another. The history of the early Slavs is inseparable from political agendas underlying much 19th- and 20th-century archaeological, linguistic, according to Florin Curta, the creation of such a history was a function of both ethnic formation and ethnic identification. The Slavic languages, with about 300 million speakers in 2006, are a branch of the Indo-European language family. All known Slavic languages share a number of features, which suggests that they evolved from mutually intelligible dialects spoken in a relatively restricted core area, although the former common language is not attested in written sources, it can be reconstructed by studying its daughter languages. The similarities among the daughter languages indicate that Common Slavic was spoken during recorded history, theories attempting to place Slavic origin in the Near East have been discarded. None of the proposed homelands reaches the Volga River in the east, over the Dinaric Alps in the southwest or the Balkan Mountains in the south, southern Ukraine is known to have been inhabited by Scythian and Sarmatian tribes before the Goths
8.
Varangians
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According to the 12th century Kievan Primary Chronicle, a group of Varangians known as the Rus settled in Novgorod in 862 under the leadership of Rurik. Before Rurik, the Rus might have ruled an earlier hypothetical polity, Ruriks relative Oleg conquered Kiev in 882 and established the state of Kievan Rus, which was later ruled by Ruriks descendants. Engaging in trade, piracy, and mercenary activities, Varangians roamed the river systems and portages of Gardariki and they controlled the Volga trade route, connecting the Baltic to the Caspian Sea, and the Dnieper and Dniester trade route leading to the Black Sea and Constantinople. Attracted by the riches of Constantinople, the Varangian Rus initiated a number of Rus-Byzantine Wars, at least from the early 10th century many Varangians served as mercenaries in the Byzantine Army, constituting the elite Varangian Guard. Eventually most of them, both in Byzantium and in Eastern Europe, were converted from paganism to Orthodox Christianity, culminating in the Christianization of Kievan Rus in 988. Coinciding with the decline of the Viking Age, the influx of Scandinavians to Rus stopped. Some scholars seem to assume a derivation from vár with the common suffix -ing, the reduction of the second part of the word could be parallel to that seen in Old Norse foringi leader, correspondent to Old English foregenga and Gothic
9.
Veliky Novgorod
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It is situated on the M10 federal highway connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg. The city lies along the Volkhov River just downstream from its outflow from Lake Ilmen, UNESCO recognized Novgorod as a World Heritage Site in 1992. At its peak during the 14th century, the city was the capital of the Novgorod Republic, the Charter of Veliky Novgorod recognizes 859 as the year when the city was first mentioned. Archaeological dating is fairly easy and accurate to within 15–25 years, as the streets were paved with wood, and most of the houses made of wood, allowing tree ring dating. The Varangian name of the city Holmgård/Holmgard is mentioned in Norse Sagas as existing at a yet earlier stage, originally, Holmgård referred only to the stronghold southeast of the present-day city, Rurikovo Gorodische. First mention of this Nordic or Germanic etymology to the name of the city of Novgorod occurs in the 10th-century policy manual De Administrando Imperio by Byzantine emperor Constantine VII, in 882, Ruriks successor, Oleg of Novgorod, conquered Kiev and founded the state of Kievan Rus. Novgorods size as well as its political, economic, and cultural influence made it the second most important city in Kievan Rus, according to a custom, the elder son and heir of the ruling Kievan monarch was sent to rule Novgorod even as a minor. When the ruling monarch had no son, Novgorod was governed by posadniks, such as the legendary Gostomysl, Dobrynya, Konstantin. Of all their princes, Novgorodians most cherished the memory of Yaroslav the Wise and his son, Vladimir, sponsored construction of the great St. Sophia Cathedral, more accurately translated as the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom, which stands to this day. In Norse sagas the city is mentioned as the capital of Gardariki, four Viking kings—Olaf I of Norway, Olaf II of Norway, Magnus I of Norway, and Harald Hardrada—sought refuge in Novgorod from enemies at home. No more than a few decades after the 1030 death and subsequent canonization of Olaf II of Norway, the town of Visby in Gotland functioned as the leading trading center in the Baltic before the Hansa League. At Novgorod in 1080, Visby merchants established a trading post which they named Gutagard, later, in the first half of the 13th century, merchants from northern Germany also established their own trading station in Novgorod, known as Peterhof. At about the time, in 1229, German merchants at Novgorod were granted certain privileges. In 1136, the Novgorodians dismissed their prince Vsevolod Mstislavich, the year is seen as the traditional beginning of the Novgorod Republic. One of the most important local figures in Novgorod was the posadnik, or mayor, the tysyatsky, or thousandman, originally the head of the town militia but later a commercial and judicial official, was also elected by the Veche. Another important local official was the Archbishop of Novgorod who shared power with the boyars, archbishops were elected by the Veche or by the drawing of lots, and after their election, were sent to the metropolitan for consecration. While a basic outline of the officials and the Veche can be drawn up. The boyars and the archbishop ruled the city together, although where one officials power ended, throughout the Middle Ages, the city thrived culturally
10.
Izborsk
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Izborsk is a rural locality in Pechorsky District of Pskov Oblast, Russia. It contains one of the most ancient and impressive fortresses of Western Russia, the village lies 30 kilometers to the west of Pskov and just to the east of the Russian-Estonian border. According to the Russian Primary Chronicle, the town was the seat of Ruriks brother Truvor from 862-864, the next mention of the town in Slavonic chronicles dates back to 1233, when the place was captured by the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. Pskov moved the fortress to a convenient site in 1302. The most ancient extant structure is the Tower Lukovka, constructed in 1330, at that time it was the only stone building west of Pskov and adjoined a wooden wall. After seven other stone towers and the new stone wall were completed, the Nativity church within the fortress was built in the 16th century. Near the fortress is a museum of stone crosses, in the later 16th century, Izborsk was one of the smaller, but nonetheless strategically important fortresses that protected the northwest Russian borders from invasion. The fortress was supposed to be impregnable, which is why the seizure of it in 1569 by a small Lithuanian regiment came as such a shock to the then ruler, the relative ease and suspicious circumstances of the seizure of the fortress deeply troubled the already paranoid Ivan. With rumors of disaffection and growing discontent throughout the country on the rise, recent restoration of the fortress, completed in 2012, was accompanied by gross embezzlement of money, and the fortress was severely damaged. On 15 March 2016, Grigory Pirumov, deputy minister of culture of Russia, and two other offices of the Ministry of Culture, were arrested on criminal charges related to the embezzlement
Media related to Sineus and Truvor at Wikimedia Commons
