By the 600s, groups of people had settled west of the Ural Mountains, which divide the Asian and European continents. These people spoke Slavic dialects, languages used in a region of Eastern Europe and the Far East.
The Slavic people were nomads, individuals who had no permanent home and traveled from place to place. The separate Slavic groups operated like tribes. They did not develop into a unified nation.
They eventually settled along grand rivers like the Pechora and the Volga. There, they traded grain and other goods.
By the 850s, the Slavs established a trading center called Novgorod at the northern point of the region. From there, the people sent their goods east toward Asia and north toward Scandinavia. They also established another trade center farther south in Kyiv. These settlements became great rivals and fought among each other.
They often appealed for help from Vikings. A group of seafaring people, the Vikings used rivers, seas, and oceans to explore and trade with the world. They controlled various water trade routes across the Slavic region.
The story of Russia’s national origin comes to us from the Primary Chronicle, the first written history of the region put together by Russian monks around the year 1050.
According to the Chronicle, there were violent disagreements among the people in and near Novgorod. In 862, the people living in the city invited a powerful Swedish Viking group and their leader, Rurik, to rule and protect them. The Slavs referred to these particular Scandinavian Vikings as the Rus.
Rurik and his brothers, Truvor and Sineus, became the founders of the first Rus dynasty and the leaders behind the beginning of the first Russian kingdom. Rurik called himself the Grand Duke, and he appointed barons and sent them to various cities to build castles and maintain law and order.
In the next hundred years, Rurik’s ancestors captured the southern city of Kyiv and brought together all tribes under one Rurik Dynasty, also known as the Kievan Rus'. Eventually, the people ruled by the Rus would call themselves “Russians.” The Russian Kingdom prospered, and by the year 1000, Kyiv had a population of 8,000, making it equal to Paris, the largest city in Western Europe.