tive peoples, a very
convenient trade-route ran through their country. This was the main road
from northern Europe to Constantinople. It followed the coast of the
Baltic until the Neva was reached. Then it crossed Lake Ladoga and went
southward along the Volkhov river. Then through Lake Ilmen and up the
small Lovat river. Then there was a short portage until the Dnieper was
reached. Then down the Dnieper into the Black Sea.

The Norsemen knew of this road at a very early date. In the ninth
century they began to settle in northern Russia, just as other Norsemen
were laying the foundation for independent states in Germany and France.
But in the year 862, three Norsemen, brothers, crossed the Baltic and
founded three small dynasties. Of the three brothers, only one, Rurik,
lived for a number of years. He took possession of the territory of his
brothers, and twenty years after the arrival of this first Norseman, a
Slavic state had been established with Kiev as its capital.

From Kiev to the Black Sea is a short distance. Soon the existence of an
organised Slavic State became known in Constantinople. This meant a new
field for the zealous missionaries of the Christian faith. Byzantine
monks followed the Dnieper on their way northward and soon reached the
heart of Russia. They found the people worshipping strange gods who were
supposed to dwell in woods and rivers and in mountain caves. They taught
them the story of Jesus. There was no competition from the side of Roman
missionaries. These good men were too busy educating the heathen Teutons
to bother about the distant Slavs. Hence Russia received its religion
and its alphabet and its first ideas of art and architecture from the
Byzantine monks and as the Byzantine empire (a relic of the eastern
Roman empire) had become very oriental and had lost many of its European
traits, the Russians suffered in consequence.

Politically speaking these new states of the great Russian plains
did not fare well. It was the Norse habit to divide every inheritance
equally among all the sons. No sooner had a small state been founded
but it was broken up among eight or nine heirs who in turn left their
territory to an ever increasing number of descendants. It was inevitable
that these small competing states should quarrel among themselves.
Anarchy was the order of the day. And when the red glow of the eastern
horizon told the people of the threatened invasion of a savage Asiatic
tribe, the lit