East Europe (820 – 963 CE): Varangian Routes, Khazar Gateways, and the Making of Rus’

Geographic and Environmental Context

East Europe includes Belarus, Ukraine, the European portion of Russia, and the sixteen Russian republics west of the Urals.

• A vast transition from northern taiga and mixed forests to southern forest-steppe and Pontic steppe, threaded by great rivers—the Dnieper, Volga, Dvina, Oka, and Don.

• Major nodes formed along portage chains between the Baltic, Caspian, and Black Sea basins, especially at Novgorod, Smolensk, Kiev, and Volga Bulgar markets.

Climate and Environmental Shifts

• A cool–temperate regime prevailed; by the mid-10th century the onset of the Medieval Warm Period (c. 950–1250) modestly lengthened growing seasons in the forest-steppe.

• Flood pulses on the Dnieper and Volga structured seasonal travel; winter freeze created over-ice corridors for sled transport.

Societies and Political Developments

• Varangians and Tribal Unions (9th c.): Scandinavian merchant-warriors (Varangians) entered forest trade routes, installing ruling groups among Slavic and Finnic unions—Krivichs, Drevlians, Severians, Radimichs, Vyatichs, and others.

• Rurik and Oleg: Tradition places Rurik at Novgorod (862); his kinsman Oleg seized Kiev (882), uniting the “route from the Varangians to the Greeks.” Kiev became the core of   Kievan Rus’, extracting tribute from neighboring tribes and mediating steppe diplomacy.

• Khazar Khaganate: The Khazars controlled the lower Volga–Don and Caspian Gate, taxing trade between the steppe and Islamic markets; their elite adopted Judaism (9th c.). Rus’ princes alternately paid tribute, raided Khazar towns, and competed for Volga access.

• Volga Bulgars: A commercial polity at the Volga–Kama confluence; conversion to Islam (922) under Almış tied them to the Samanid economy.

• Steppe Frontiers: After c. 895 the Magyars moved into the Carpathian Basin; Pechenegs replaced them on the Pontic steppe, pressuring Rus’ river traffic and Sarmatian corridors.

• Byzantine Relations: Rus’ raids on Constantinople (notably 860) gave way to treaties (907/911 per later compilations), regulating trade duties and mercenary service.

Economy and Trade

• Exports: high-value furs, wax, honey, slaves, and falcons moved south on river craft; iron swords and worked amber moved internally along forest routes.

• Imports: Byzantine silk, wine, fine metalwork via the Dnieper; Samanid silver dirhams, glassware, and textiles via the Volga.

• Monetization: massive inflows of Samanid dirhams fueled a hack-silver economy; coin hoards appear from Ladoga/Novgorod to the middle Dnieper and upper Volga.

• Kiev and Novgorod functioned as hinge markets, auditing tolls and tribute before goods crossed portages toward Cherson and Constantinople, or toward Volga Bulgar and the Caspian.

Subsistence and Technology

• Agriculture: forest-steppe communities practiced plow agriculture (millet, rye, wheat) with slash-and-burn in the forest zone; stock-keeping expanded in river meadows.

• Crafts: iron tools, plows, and broad-seax blades; antler combs, bone skates, glass beads; early urban smithies in Ladoga, Novgorod, Kiev.

• River boats: light dugouts and plank-built craft—monoxyla—ported between watersheds; winter travel used sleds over frozen rivers.

• Fortifications: earthen ramparts and timber palisades ringed hillforts (gorodishche); princes maintained druzhina (retinues) of armored cavalry and river fighters.

Movement and Interaction Corridors

• “From the Varangians to the Greeks”: the Dvina–Dnieper and Volkhov–Dnieper chains funneled Baltic goods to the Black Sea; the Dnieper porohy (rapids) demanded portage and escorts through Pecheneg country.

• Volga Route: Ladoga/Novgorod → Volga → Volga Bulgar → Khazaria → Caspian, connecting to Samanid markets in Gurgān and Tabaristan.

• Forest Portages: Smolensk, Rzhev, and Gorodets nodalized crossings between upper river systems, creating dense hub-and-spoke exchanges.

Belief and Symbolism

• Slavic paganism (Perun, Veles), Finnic and Baltic animisms, and Norse cults coexisted among Varangian elites and local communities; shrines and sacred groves sacralized hilltops and river bends.

• Khazars patronized Judaism at court; Volga Bulgars normalized Islamic law and markets after 922.

• Christianity: Byzantine missions influenced Crimea and lower Dnieper; individual baptisms occurred among elites, but mass conversion of Rus’ came later (988).

Adaptation and Resilience

• Dual-route strategy (Dnieper + Volga) hedged against steppe raids and political tolls; when Pechenegs blocked the Dnieper, merchants shifted to the Volga.

• Seasonal logistics—summer navigation, winter sled freight—smoothed transport risk; caches and fortified gorodishche protected goods and people.

• Tribute diplomacy balanced payments to Khazars and Pechenegs with punitive raids and alliances, keeping corridors open.

• Urban niches (Ladoga, Novgorod, Kiev) developed storage, craft specialization, and legal customs for foreign merchants, stabilizing long-distance exchange.

Long-Term Significance

By 963 CE, East Europe had coalesced into a river-route commonwealth under emerging Kievan Rus’, framed by Khazar gatekeeping on the Caspian and Byzantine markets on the Black Sea.

• Silver-driven commerce integrated forest, steppe, and sea;

• Tribal unions and Varangian retinues forged the institutions of Rus’ rulership;

• Volga Bulgar Islam and Khazar Judaism embedded the region in wider religious economies.

On the eve of the next age, Sviatoslav’s campaigns (from 964) would crack Khazar hegemony, Pecheneg pressure would intensify, and the Dnieper metropolis of Kiev would begin its ascent toward high-medieval preeminence.

Igor of Kiev is killed while collecting tribute from the Drevlyans in 945.

The Byzantine historian and chronicler, Leo the Deacon (born around 950), describes how Igor met his death: "They had bent down two birch trees to the prince’s feet and tied them to his legs; then they let the trees straighten again, thus tearing the prince’s body apart.")

He is avenged by his wife, Olga of Kiev.

The Primary Chronicle blames his death on his own excessive greed, indicating that he was attempting to collect tribute a second time in a month.

As a result, Olga changes the system of tribute gathering (poliudie) in what may be regarded as the first legal reform recorded in Eastern Europe.

Constantine Zuckerman, drastically revising the chronology of the Primary Chronicle, argues that Igor actually reigned for three years, between summer 941 and his death in early 945.

He explains the epic thirty-three-year span of his reign in the chronicle by its author's faulty interpretation of Byzantine sources.

Indeed, none of Igor's activity are recorded in the chronicle prior to 941.

Sviatoslav, a member of the Varangian Rurik dynasty, succeeds his father as duke of Kiev; his mother, Olga, rules as regent.

Virtually nothing is known about Sviatoslav's childhood and youth, which he spent reigning in Novgorod.

Sviatoslav was tutored by a Varangian named Asmud (meaning "quick as a leopard").

The tradition of employing Varangian tutors for the sons of ruling princes will survive well into the eleventh century.

The efforts of Kievan ruler Olga to bring Christianity to Russia are resisted by her son Sviatoslav, grand prince of Kiev from 945, who, after coming of age around 963, had begun a series of bold military expeditions, leaving his mother to manage the internal affairs of the Kievan state.

Sviatoslav is the son of Grand Prince Igor, who was himself probably the grandson of Rurik, prince of Novgorod.

Virtually nothing is known about his childhood and youth, which he spent reigning in Novgorod.

Sviatoslav's father, Igor, had been killed by the Drevlyans around 942.

The Russian Primary Chronicle says that Sviatoslav “sent messengers to the other lands announcing his intention to attack them.” Shortly after his accession to the throne, Sviatoslav had begun campaigning to expand the Rus' control over the Volga valley and the Pontic steppe region.

Between 963 and 965, he has attacked the Ossetes and Circassians in the northern Caucasus; …

…he has also attacked the Volga Bulgars.

Sviatoslav’s greatest success is the conquest of Khazaria, the Jewish state between the Volga and the Don, which for centuries has been one of the strongest states of Eastern Europe.

The sources are not clear about the roots of the conflict between Khazaria and Rus', so several possibilities have been suggested.

The Rus' had an interest in removing the Khazar hold on the Volga trade route because the Khazars collected duties from the goods transported by the Volga.

Historians have suggested that Constantinople may have incited the Rus' against the Khazars, who had fallen out with the Empire after the persecutions of the Jews in the reign of Romanus I Lecapenus.

Sviatoslav began by rallying the Khazars' East Slavic vassal tribes to his cause.

Those who would not join him, such as the Vyatichs, are attacked and forced to pay tribute to the Kievan Rus' rather than the Khazars.

Proceeding by the Oka and Volga rivers, he invades Volga Bulgaria and exacts tribute from the local population, thus bringing under Kievan control the upper Volga River.

He employs Oghuz and Pecheneg mercenaries in this campaign, perhaps to counter the Khazars' and Bulgars' superior cavalry.

Oleg receives the rulership of of Drelinia, a region which is today in the western Ukraine.

Yaropolk’s Kievan forces defeat his brother Oleg’s Drevlian troops in 977; Oleg is slain while fleeing.