Ancient historians were sure that warlike tribes and "people with dog heads" lived on the territory of Ancient Rus. Much time has passed since then, but many mysteries of the Slavic tribes have not been solved until now.
Northerners living in the south
At the beginning of the 8th century, the tribe of the northerners inhabited the banks of the Desna, the Seim and the Seversky Donets, founded Chernigov, Putivl, Novgorod-Seversky and Kursk.
The name of the tribe, according to Lev Gumilyov, is due to the fact that it assimilated the nomadic tribe of Savirs, which in ancient times lived in Western Siberia. The emergence of the name "Siberia" is also associated with savirs.
Archaeologist Valentin Sedov believed that the Savirs were a Scythian-Sarmatian tribe, and the place names of the northerners are of Iranian origin. So, the name of the river Seim (Seven) comes from the Iranian śyama or even from the ancient Indian syāma, which means "dark river".
According to the third hypothesis, the northerners (north) were migrants from the southern or western lands. On the right bank of the Danube there lived a tribe with that name. It could easily be “moved” by the Bulgars who invaded there.
The northerners were representatives of the Mediterranean type of people. They were distinguished by a narrow face, an elongated skull, were thin-boned and had noses.
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They brought bread and furs to Byzantium, and back - gold, silver, luxury goods. They traded with the Bulgarians, with the Arabs.
The northerners paid tribute to the Khazars, and then entered the union of tribes, united by the Novgorod prince Prophetic Oleg. In 907 they took part in the campaign against Constantinople. In the 9th century, the Chernigov and Pereyaslavl principalities appeared on their lands.
Vyatichi and Radimichi - relatives or different tribes?
The lands of the Vyatichi were located on the territory of the Moscow, Kaluga, Oryol, Ryazan, Smolensk, Tula, Voronezh and Lipetsk regions.
Outwardly, the Vyatichi resembled northerners, but they were not so nosed, but they had a high bridge of the nose and light brown hair. The "Tale of Bygone Years" indicates that the name of the tribe came from the name of the ancestor Vyatko (Vyacheslav), who came "from the Poles."
Other scholars associate the name with the Indo-European root "ven-t" (wet), or with the Proto-Slavic "vęt" (large) and put the name of the tribe on a par with the Wends and Vandals.
Vyatichi were skillful warriors, hunters, they collected wild honey, mushrooms and berries. Cattle breeding and slash farming were widespread. They were not part of Ancient Rus and more than once fought with the Novgorod and Kiev princes.
According to legend, Vyatko's brother Radim became the ancestor of the Radimichs, who settled between the Dnieper and Desna in the territories of the Gomel and Mogilev regions of Belarus and founded Krichev, Gomel, Rogachev and Chechersk.
The Radimichi also rebelled against the princes, but after the battle on Peschania they submitted. The chronicles mention them for the last time in 1169.
Krivichi - Croats or Poles?
The passage of the Krivichi is not known for certain, which from the VI century lived in the upper reaches of the Western Dvina, Volga and Dnieper and became the founders of Smolensk, Polotsk and Izborsk. The name of the tribe came from the ancestor of Kriv. The Krivichi were distinguished from other tribes by their high growth. They had a nose with a pronounced hump, a well-defined chin.
Anthropologists attribute the Krivichi to the Valdai type of people. According to one version, the Krivichi are migrated tribes of white Croats and Serbs, according to another, they are immigrants from the north of Poland.
The Krivichi worked closely with the Vikings and built ships on which they sailed to Constantinople.
The Krivichi entered the structure of Ancient Russia in the 9th century. The last prince of the Krivichi Rogvolod was killed with his sons in 980. The Smolensk and Polotsk principalities appeared on their lands.
Slovenian vandals
Slovenes (Itelmen Slovenes) were the northernmost tribe. They lived on the shores of Lake Ilmen and on the Mologa River. The origin is unknown. According to legend, their ancestors were Sloven and Rus, who founded the cities of Slovensk (Veliky Novgorod) and Staraya Russa even before our era.
From Sloven, power passed to Prince Vandal (known in Europe as the Ostrogothic leader Vandalar), who had three sons: Izbor, Vladimir and Stolposvyat, and four brothers: Rudotok, Volkhov, Volkhovets and Bastarn. The wife of Prince Vandal Advind was from the Varangians.
Slovenes now and then fought with the Vikings and neighbors.
It is known that the ruling dynasty descended from the son of Vandal Vladimir. The Slavens were engaged in agriculture, expanded possessions, influenced other tribes, were engaged in trade with the Arabs, with Prussia, with Gotland and Sweden.
It was here that Rurik began to reign. After the emergence of Novgorod, Slovenes began to be called Novgorodians and founded the Novgorod Land.
Rus. People without territory
Look at the map of the settlement of the Slavs. Each tribe has its own land. There are no Russians there. Although it was the Rus that gave the name to Rus. There are three theories of the origin of the Russians.
The first theory considers the Rus as Varangians and is based on the "Tale of Bygone Years" (written from 1110 to 1118), it says: "They drove the Varangians across the sea, and did not give them tribute, and began to own themselves, and there was no truth among them, and race after race, and they had strife, and began to fight with each other. And they said to themselves: "Let us look for a prince who would rule over us and judge by right." And they went across the sea to the Varangians, to Russia. Those Varangians were called Rus, as others are called the Swedes, and other Normans and Angles, and still other Gotlandians - that's how these are."
The second suggests that the Rus are a separate tribe that came to Eastern Europe earlier or later than the Slavs.
The third theory says that the Rus are the highest caste of the East Slavic tribe of the Polyans, or the tribe itself that lived on the Dnieper and on the Ros. "Glade is even more n'inzovaya Rus" - was written in the "Laurentian" Chronicle, which followed the "Tale of Bygone Years" and was written in 1377. Here, the word "Rus" was used as a toponym, and the name Rusa was also used as the name of a separate tribe: "Rus, Chud and Slovenia" - this is how the chronicler listed the peoples who inhabited the country.
Despite the research of geneticists, disputes around the Russians continue. According to the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, the Vikings themselves are descendants of the Slavs.