"Yes, we are Scythians, yes, we are Asians, with slanted and greedy eyes!" - Blok exclaimed and was wrong. First of all, because the Scythians are not at all Mongoloids with "slanting eyes" and are not the direct ancestors of the Russian people.
No matter how tempting the theory of kinship and continuity with the mighty tribes that inhabited the lands of the northern Black Sea region in antiquity looks, modern research by anthropologists at Moscow State University. Lomonosov in the field of genetics does not confirm it.
Nevertheless, the ancestors of the Slavs and the Scythians lived side by side for some period of time and could not help but influence each other. What did we inherit from the Scythians? It turns out a lot.
Territories
First of all, these are vast lands that we now consider ours. On ancient maps, the entire space from the Black Sea region to the Northern Ocean and between the Dnieper River and the Ural Mountains, that is, in fact, the entire European territory of Russia, was called the Great Scythia.
Look
On the famous gold bib-hryvnia from the Tolstaya Mogila mound, on the gold dishes from the Kul-Oba mound, Scythians are depicted galloping, polishing weapons, feasting and even providing each other with medical assistance. These images convey the appearance of the Scythians very accurately: Caucasoid faces, beards and mustaches, shoulder-length hair, sometimes intercepted with straps on the forehead. These Scythians look exactly like Russians. Outward similarity is aggravated by pants, shirts and caps. Of course, we are not talking about the fact that the Scythians and the Russians, contrary to the opinion of anthropologists, are a single people. But it is still possible to talk about a certain relationship and mutual influence.
Even Herodotus divided the Scythians into "royal Scythians" - nomads and pastoralists - and "Scythian plowmen" who were engaged in the cultivation of lands along the banks of the Dnieper and Don. Scythian plowmen are not at all like a violent nomadic tribe. They revered the plow, which according to legend fell from heaven, and grew so much grain that they successfully traded grain with the Greek colonies on the Black Sea. According to academician Boris Rybakov, the Scythians-ploughmen could well have been among the peoples who participated in the ethnogenesis of the Eastern Slavs.
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River names
The Greeks considered the Scythians to be the descendants of Hercules and the serpentine goddess Echidna. According to scientists, they adopted this myth from the Scythians themselves, identifying the Scythian hero-progenitor with Hercules. And what did the Scythians call their foremother? The image of a woman or a woman's head framed by snakes arranged around her, like rays, is often found among the Scythian finds. There is, for example, a fairly well-known horse harness forehead with such a motif. The Greek letters found on such images add up to the word "Dna" (or "Danu"). The language of the Scythians is of Iranian origin, and in the ancient Iranian "bottom" is a river. Let's remember the names of our rivers: Don, Dnieper, Dniester. It looks like they came to us from the Scythians.
Serpentine charms were also in vogue among the Russian nobility until the 17th century. On one side was placed an icon with the face of a saint, and on the other - a highly stylized image of the serpentine goddess Danu.
Mythology
The Scythians also left their mark in Slavic mythology. It is known that Vladimir Svyatoslavich, before adopting Christianity, made an attempt to create a single pantheon of pagan gods. He staged the idols of Perun, Khors, Dazhdbog, Stribog, Simargl and Mokosh in Kiev. Unfortunately, the pagan beliefs of our ancestors are practically unknown to us, but experts see the Scytho-Iranian influence in the pantheon of Vladimir. At least two deities from this list are of Iranian origin - Simargl and Khors. Both are associated with the sun. And the Scythians, according to Herodotus, called themselves "chipped", that is, "children of the sun", "following the sun."
There is a Scythian imprint in Russian fairy tales and epics. First of all, this is a motive known to all of us about three brothers, of which the youngest is the smartest, luckiest and bravest. Herodotus wrote down such a Scythian legend. In time immemorial, a golden plow, a golden bowl and a golden ax fell from the sky. Three sons of King Targitai, whose names were Lipoksai, Arpoksai and Koloksai, tried to take these items. But the two elders did not succeed - they burst into flames. And only the youngest, Koloksay, fearlessly stretched out his hands and took them. The fire immediately went out, and Koloksai became the first king of the Scythians. The name Koloksay means "Tsar-Sun", and the self-name "Chipped" is derived from "Koloksay".
And, finally, a well-known character of Russian epics - a mighty maiden-Polyanitsa, some Nastasya Mikulishna, with whom not every hero can cope. Such meadows famously ride on horseback, masterfully wield a bow and a sword and, in general, are very reminiscent of the Amazons.
The myth of the Amazons appeared among the Greeks under the influence of the same Scythians. Before marriage, Scythians participated in military campaigns on an equal basis with men. There are burial mounds in which Scythian young women are buried as warriors - with full armor and weapons. And the mighty meadows penetrated into Russian epics from all the same Black Sea Scythian steppes.
Details of clothing and jewelry
The reconstructed robes of noble Scythians from burials bear a clear resemblance to the clothes worn by our ancestors. And the female headdress is surprisingly reminiscent of the one that took root among the Slavs and was named "kokoshnik".
Crests, bracelets, breast torcs have a certain similarity with later Slavic samples. On the Scythian ridges, there is often an image of two animals (griffins or panthers) facing each other in threatening poses. The same motif is found later on the Slavic ridges. Scythian bracelets with a two-level ornament were later repeated in finds made in Kiev and Chernigov. Like the Scythian ones, they have not only the function of decoration, but also a kind of metal cuff - while fastening, they held the sleeve.