Russia and the east

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

THE VIKING RUS AND BYZANTIUM

Jonathan Shepard

B

yzantium was far from being the main attraction for persons drawn from the Nordic
world to lands east of the Baltic in the early Middle Ages. Mostly their priorities lay
closer to hand, trapping animals for their furs in the vicinity of Lake Ladoga and dealing
in furs at trading posts such as Staraia Ladoga from the mid-eighth century onwards. At
that time the Abbasid caliphate stimulated or revived multifarious nexus of exchange
through issuing silver coins on a massive scale and general promotion of commerce
(Noonan 1986 ).
Silver was prized by virtually all the peoples living in the forest zones to the north of
the Eurasian steppes and in the opening stages of the trafficking in Islamic silver most
routes led through territories under the Khazars’ control. The Khazars’ power could
hardly have failed to make an impression on those from the Nordic world who joined
with indigenous populations of the eastern lands in a common quest for silver, and in
fact the head of their first recorded polity to the east of the Baltic sported the same title
as that of the Khazar ruler, chaganus or kagan. The Khazars probably supplied the
inspiration for authority-symbols and customs, including that of setting a more or less
sacral figurehead at the polity’s head. As with the Khazars, this totem-like overlord
(reportedly residing on an immense bed-cum-throne) acted in tandem with a military
commander who handled earthly affairs in the later ninth and early tenth centuries
(Lewicki 1985 : 75 – 6 ; Montgomery 2000 : 21 – 2 ; Golden 1982 : 45 – 50 , 52 – 3 ; Golden
2006 ).
Such adaptations are understandable, in that the Khazars could make their presence
felt well to the north of the Black Sea steppes: they were still exacting tribute in the
mixed-forest zone from Slavic tribes such as the Viatichi in the mid- 960 s (PVL: 31 ;
RPC: 84 ). In contrast, no continuous land route led from the eastern lands to Con-
stantinople, nor was there any question of the Byzantines seeking tangible hegemony to
the north of the steppes.
But while the Greco-Byzantine world played second fiddle to the semi-nomadic
Khazars and to Islamic markets in the opening stages of the exchanges of Abbasid
silver for produce from the northern forests, northern traders did encounter Greek-
speakers. One of the earliest hoards of Islamic silver found in the north, near modern St
Petersburg, contains several pieces on which Scandinavian and Turkic runes have been