“The Rus, who belong to the Slavic race, go from the most remote regions of the country of the Slavs, on the coasts of the Rum Sea (the Mediterranean), and sell there beaver and fox skins, as well as swords. The (Byzantine) emperor was content to levy a tenth of their goods. The Rus traders also descend the river of the Slavs (the Volga), cross the arm that passes through the city of the Khazars (in the vicinity of Astrakhan), where the sovereign of the country takes from them a tenth; then they enter the sea of Jordjan (Caspian), and move towards the point they have in view. This sea has 500 fars. in diameter. Sometimes the goods of the Rus are transported on the camels from the city of Jordjan to Baghdad.” (The Book of Roads and Kingdoms).
Why is this particular quote important?
- Per Wikipedia, Ibn Khordadbeh (820 – 913) was Director of Posts and Police for the Abbasid province of Jibal in modern-day Iran, and this position combined the duties of a political agent and a police chief who was in constant contact with the vizier and even the caliph.
- It was through his province that the Rus’ trade caravans passed, so he was bound to know who he was writing about.
- Ibn Khurdadhbih’s most outstanding contribution, based on his specialised knowledge and professional work, became his Book of Roads and Kingdoms, an official compendium on caravan and trade routes, the journey halts, stages in the different regions and the provinces of the Caliphate. He published this work in two editions, the first one in 846 AD, and the second enlarged one around the 880s. Apart from becoming a pioneer work associated with postal services, the book opened up a new field of study and investigation, and works with comparable titles appeared soon thereafter. As of now, it is the earliest surviving Arabic book of administrative geography.
Arabic sources of the 9th century directly say: Rus = Slavs, they live near the Black Sea, and conduct logistical trade operations of a scale inaccessible to most other peoples of contemporary Europe.
That is why the idea that “Rus was founded by Vikings” has a fundamental bug within itself: this “year 862”, the year of the alleged summoning of the first ‘Russo-Viking Rurik’.
If the Viking Rurik was summoned to the future Rus’ no earlier than 862, then Rus’ could not have existed before 862.
This is where the problem with nonsense comes in. Because there is a lot of evidence of the existence of Rus’ before 862.
And in these reports – such a bummer – the Rus not only exist, but already have a statehood; for eyewitnesses like Khordadbeh, they are “Scythians” or “Slavs” and are localized in the Northern Black Sea region, and not somewhere in the far Novgorod north.
Only Ukraine is Rus
The fiction about Rus being founded by Vikings from Scandinavia is now being spread by Putin with one goal: to make Ukraine’s history anonymous, and then appropriate the history of Kyiv Rus.
Khordadbeh lived and wrote his book before 862 – a “key date in history” in Putin’s terms (i.e., when the fictional Viking Rurik was supposedly “summoned” by some people 1000 km north of Kyiv). Even this fact alone shows that the whole ‘Rurik summoning’ was a colonial pseudo-historical fabrication and should have been rejected as anti-scientific a long time ago.
To summarize, modern Muscovy has nothing to do with Rus, because:
- In the 9th century, the Rus lived next to Rum [Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium] and the Khazars. They traded across the Black Sea and the Don – with Rome and, which is very important in this case, Baghdad.
- The Rus had a state apparatus capable of organizing logistical operations inaccessible to most peoples of Europe.
- The Rus were Slavs, and not the Volga Finns who are the title nation of the Muscovites.
That the Rus were not the Norsemen is obvious in the Scandinavian Sagas.
Read the ‘Kyiv Rus in Heimskringla Sagas and Byzantine Texts’ book.
Or ‘Gardariki, Ukraine’ e-book which mentions other mentions of Rus in the Arabic sources.
Moscow’s theft of Kyiv’s legacy is the major reason for the current war. Ukraine’s Total Recall >
