Russia

Their first, legendary, leader was a Jutlander called Riurik. He had made a reputation raiding in western Europe, including the British Isles, but then decided to turn east to seek his fortune. Around 856 he and his followers established a base at Ladoga in northern Russia. Subsequently, however, he decided that the area of Novgorod (which the Vikings knew as Holmgarthr) was better situated, and so he built a fort there. Novgorod was to be the key access point to the Russian river route for traders coming from the west. But, as these Vikings probably already knew, Kiev was the key point in the south. It had access to the Dnieper river system, which led to the most populous areas of Russia at that time. Kiev was ruled by the Khazars, but in 858 a Viking war band led by Askold and Dir took command of it. The ambition of these two adventurers soon extended further, and two years later, accompanied by a large force of Russians, they raided Constantinople. The city was heir to the imperial as well as the newer Christian traditions. Its language was now Greek rather than Latin, and since it is commonly referred to nowadays as the Byzantine Empire that is what we shall call it.

The raid of 860 was the first known encounter between Constantinople and the Rus. We do not know precisely who organized it and how, but a book written by the emperor Constantine VII nearly a century later provides evidence about a Rus trading expedition. His account, intended as a brief for his heir, vividly describes the preparations required and the perils of the route. The essential vessel for the enterprise was a dugout ship (monolyxa in Greek) fashioned out of a tree trunk. The trees would have been cut in the forest zone of central Russia during the preceding winter, then dried out and launched into the lakes which ran into the river Dnieper when the ice melted. They would then be ribbed, widened with side-planks, and taken down to Kiev to be sold to the expedition’s organizers, who saw to their fitting out with rowlocks, oars and tackle. In June they would have moved off from Kiev to a gathering point downsteam. Then, when all the boats and men were ready, the expedition set out.

Danger threatened almost at once, at the first of the infamous Dnieper rapids, a defile as narrow, Constantine tells us, ‘as the polo ground’ in Constantinople, full of high rocks. ‘Against these … comes the water and wells up and dashes over the other side, with a mighty and terrific din.’ Here there was no alternative but to put into the shore and disembark most of the men with their slaves in their chains. The remaining men then negotiated the rapids, some with punt-poles, while others, ranged round each boat, felt for hidden rocks with their bare feet, and walked the vessel through. Having negotiated this set of rapids, six more had to be negotiated. The third set was so dangerous that the boats had to be taken out of the water entirely and dragged or carried a distance of 6 miles overland. The fourth set had to be skirted in a similar manner. And from this point the expedition had to watch out for raiding parties from the fierce Pecheneg people, who would come in from the steppe on the prowl for booty.

The most dangerous point of all was a wide ford used by merchants of Kherson to access a river island with a huge oak tree. This was the Pechenegs’ favourite ambush point. So, on reaching the island, members of the expedition would leave food to propitiate their gods and kill some cocks as sacrifices. Four days later they would have reached an island in the Black Sea where they would fit out the boats with the masts, sails, ropes and tackle they had brought with them, for from that point on sail-power could supplement rowing. ³ Now at last they were ready.

The great Rus — Viking raid on Constantinople in 860 was a masterpiece of the genre. Two hundred boats and up to 8,000 men took part. They struck with savagery as well as in force, and they achieved complete surprise. ‘The unexpectedness of the attack,’ wrote a distinguished eyewitness, ‘its strange swiftness, the inhumanity of the barbarous tribe, the harshness of its manners and the savagery of its character proclaim the blow to have been discharged like a thunderbolt from God.’ The civilized inhabitants of the city were pious Christians, and so they saw the Viking attack as a punishment for their sins. And it was shaming as well as surprising to have been hurt by unknowns — by ‘an obscure people, a people of no account, a people ranked as slaves’. ⁴ In this way, the Rus leaped to the front of the political stage and into the history books. Then they disappeared from it just as suddenly as they had arrived.