So, today we're going to talk about persistent stereotypes about Russia, and how Russia came to take its current shape, a turn of events we owe largely to the Mongols.
But before we discuss the Mongol conquest of Russia, let's discuss exactly what got conquered.
So before there was a Russian empire, or even a Russian kingdom, there was the Kievan Rus.
We know Kiev was a powerful city-state, but who exactly founded it is a subject of debate.
Most historians now believe that the settlers of Kiev were Slavic people who migrated from around the Black Sea.
But there's an older theory that the settlers of Kiev were actually, like, Vikings.
That theory goes that Vikings came down to Kiev from rivers like the Dnieper and founded a trading outpost similar to ones they'd founded in Iceland and Greenland.
Which is an awesome idea and everything, but Russian, the language that developed from what the Rus spoke, sounds a lot more Slavic than it sounds, you know, Swedish.
To illustrate, here is a Swede fighting with a Russian over who founded Kiev.
Right, okay, so trade was hugely important to Kiev. Almost all of their wars ended with trade concession treaties, and their law codes were unusually devoted to the subject of commerce.
