Olga, the wife of Prince Igor, the mother of Svyatoslav and the grandmother of the baptist of Russia, Vladimir, entered our history as a holy princess who was the first to bring the light of Christianity to our land. However, before becoming a Christian, Olga was a pagan, cruel and vengeful. This is how she entered the chronicle "The Tale of Bygone Years". What did Olga do?
Igor's hike
One should start with the last campaign of her husband, Prince Igor. The record for 945 says that the squad began to complain to Igor that the “youths of Sveneld,” that is, the people who made up the inner circle of his governor Sveneld, were all “made up of weapons and clothes,” while the Igor’s guards themselves “naga ". It is unlikely that the prince's warriors were so "naked" that it was worth talking about it seriously, but in those days they tried not to argue with the retinue, since it depended on it whether the prince would sit on the Kiev throne. Therefore, Igor went to the Drevlyans - this is a tribe that lived on the territory of the Ukrainian Polesye - and made a complete pogrom there, adding new payments to the previous tribute in order to cover up the blatant nakedness of his warriors. Having collected this tribute, he went home, but on the way, apparently, decided that the cunning Drevlyans had hidden something somewhere else. Having sent the bulk of his people home, he himself with a small squad returned to the Drevlyansky capital Iskorosten, "wanting more wealth." This was a mistake. The Drevlyans, led by their prince Mal, repulsed him, killed all the soldiers, and Igor himself was subjected to a terrible execution: they tore him up, tied him by the legs to the tops of two bent trees.
Olga's first revenge
Having dealt with Igor in this way, the Drevlyan prince sent a delegation to Kiev, to a helpless, as it seemed to him, widow. Mal offered Olga his hand and heart, as well as protection and patronage. Olga received the ambassadors affectionately, uttered pleasantries in the spirit that Igor, they say, cannot be returned, and why not marry such a wonderful prince as Mal. And so that the wedding arrangement was even more magnificent, she promised the ambassadors to show them great honor, promising that tomorrow they would be brought with honor to the prince's court right in the boat, after which the princely will would be solemnly announced to them. While the ambassadors slept at the pier, Olga ordered to dig a deep hole in the yard. In the morning, the boat with the Drevlyans was lifted by Olga's servants in their arms and solemnly carried through Kiev to the very prince's court. Here they, together with the boat, were thrown to the bottom of the pit. The chronicler reports,that Olga, approaching the edge of the pit and bending over it, asked: "Well, what is your honor?", to which the Drevlyans answered: "We are more bitter than Igor's death." At a sign from Olga, the wedding embassy was covered with earth alive.
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Olga's second revenge
After that, the princess sent an ambassador to Mala with a request to send her the best people for matchmaking, so that the people of Kiev could see what honor they were doing. Otherwise, they might even resist, not let the princess go to Iskorosten. Mal, not suspecting a catch, immediately equipped a large embassy. When the matchmakers arrived in Kiev, Olga, as befits a hospitable hostess, ordered them to prepare a bathhouse so that the guests could wash from the road. And as soon as the Drevlyans began to wash, the doors of the bath were propped up from the outside, and the bath itself was set on fire from four sides.
Olga's third revenge
Having dealt with the matchmakers, the princess sent to tell Mal that she was going to him, but before the wedding she would like to perform a funeral feast on her husband's grave. Mal began to prepare for the wedding, ordering mead for the feast. Having appeared to Iskorosten with a small retinue, Olga, accompanied by Mal and the most noble Drevlyans, came to Igor's grave. The feast on the mound was almost overshadowed by the questions of Mal and his entourage: where, in fact, are the matchmakers whom he sent to Kiev? Why are they not in the princess? Olga replied that the matchmakers are following and are about to appear. Satisfied with this explanation, Mal and his men began to drink intoxicating drinks. As soon as they got drunk, the princess gave a sign to her warriors, and they put all the Drevlyans in their place.
Hike to Iskorosten
After that, Olga immediately returned to Kiev, gathered a squad and set out on a campaign to Derevskaya land. In an open battle, the Drevlyans were defeated, they fled and hid behind the walls of Iskorosten. The siege lasted all summer. Finally, Olga sent an ambassador to Iskorotsten, who proposed lifting the siege on very mild terms: Olga will confine herself to expressions of obedience and tribute: three pigeons and three sparrows from each yard. Of course, the requested tribute was sent immediately. Then Olga ordered to bind a lighted tinder to each bird and release it. The birds flew, of course, to their nests, and a fire started in the city. So Iskorosten fell, the capital of the Drevlyane prince Mal. At this Olga was fed up with revenge. Further, according to the chronicle, she no longer behaved like an angry woman, but like a wise statesman. She traveled across vast landssubject to the Kiev princes, establishing "lessons and churchyards" - that is, the amount of tribute and the place of its collection. Now no one could, like the unreasonable Igor, go to the same place for tribute several times, arbitrarily setting its size. The prince's tribute from robbery began to turn into normal taxation.