Category
Trade & Travel
Trade routes, merchants, embassies and travel accounts: how goods, silver and ideas crossed the borders on the map.
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Trade & Travel · Novgorod Republic
Sadko: The Novgorod Merchant Between Chronicle and Legend
Sadko, the gusli-player who became Novgorod's richest merchant: what the bylina tells, what the chronicle says about a real Sotko, and Novgorod's trade.
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People · Bahmani Sultanate
Afanasy Nikitin: The Tver Merchant Who Travelled to India Beyond Three Seas
Afanasy Nikitin, a merchant from Tver, reached India around 1471 and wrote the Journey Beyond Three Seas. What his text says, when he went, and what is myth.
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Trade & Travel · Viking settlements
Viking Coins and Silver: Dirhams, Hacksilver and Hoards
Did the Vikings have coins? How weighed silver, Arab dirhams and hacksilver served as money, the great hoards from Cuerdale to Spillings, and Danegeld.
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Peoples & Migrations · Rus'
Gnezdovo: Viking Graves on the Dnieper
Gnezdovo near Smolensk was the largest Viking-Age site in Rus'. Its thousands of burial mounds, chamber graves, swords, hoards and oldest Rus' inscription.
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Trade & Travel · Viking settlements
Viking Trade Routes to the East: The Volga and the Dnieper
How Viking traders reached Constantinople and Baghdad: the Volga and Dnieper routes, their portages and rapids, and the furs, slaves and silver they carried.
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Peoples & Migrations · Viking settlements
Staraya Ladoga: The First Viking Town in the East
Staraya Ladoga, the Norse Aldeigjuborg: its smithy of 753, eleven building levels, runes, boat graves, sagas and the "first capital of Russia" claim.
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Empires & Dynasties · Volga Bulgaria
Volga Bulgaria: The Trading Kingdom on the Volga
Volga Bulgaria was a Muslim Turkic kingdom on the Volga and Kama that grew rich on furs and silver. Discover its story, from AD 922 to the Mongols.
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Peoples & Migrations · Viking settlements
Who Were the Varangians? Vikings of the Eastern Rivers, Rus' and Byzantium
Who were the Varangians? The Vikings in Russia and Ukraine: Scandinavian traders, warriors and princes on the river roads to Byzantium and Baghdad.
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Sources & Evidence · Volga Bulgaria
Ibn Fadlan: The Baghdad Envoy Who Met the Vikings on the Volga
Who was Ibn Fadlan? Follow the Abbasid envoy from Baghdad to the Volga in 921–922 and read what he really wrote about the Rus' and their ship funeral.