Kievan Rus'
▶ Explore on the mapKievan Rus' was the first East Slavic state, dominating the river routes between the Baltic and the Black Sea from the ninth to the thirteenth century. Its ruling dynasty, the Rurikids, came from the Varangians, Norse traders and warriors: according to the Primary Chronicle the Slavic tribes invited Rurik to rule in 862, and his successor Oleg took Kiev in 882 and made it the centre of the trade in furs, wax, slaves and honey bound for Constantinople. The Rus' collected tribute in silver, and the dirhams found in hoards across Scandinavia show how far their commerce reached. In 988 Vladimir the Great accepted baptism from Byzantium, married a Byzantine princess and ordered the population of Kiev into the Dnieper; the conversion gave Rus' the alphabet made by Cyril and Methodius and its churches. Yaroslav the Wise issued a law code, the Russkaya Pravda, and married his daughters into the royal houses of Europe. The state fragmented after his death in 1054, and the Mongol invasion of 1237 to 1240 destroyed Kiev itself, leaving the north-eastern principalities, and later Moscow, to inherit the name of Russia. The word Russia is thought to come from the Norse Rus' who rowed those rivers.