escaping death at Rus hands on his way back. Adalbert’s claim chimes in with the Rus
Primary Chronicle’s tale of the response of Olga’s son, Sviatoslav, to her efforts to convert
him: allegedly he exclaimed, ‘My retainers will laugh at this!’ (PVL: 30 ; RPC: 83 – 4 ).
Around this time a prince or notable was buried in a huge barrow at Chernigov and
among his grave goods was a figurine of a god, seemingly Thor. Thor had devotees
among the wealthier echelons of the Rus, judging by the finds of his pendant ham-
merlets on iron neck-rings in graves and settlements. The use of these amulets seems to
have peaked around the mid- and second half of the tenth century, and pendants in
the form of valkyries were being worn at commercial centres such as Gnezdovo in the
second half of that century (Pushkina 2001 : 313 – 16 ; 2004 : 51 ; Novikova 1992 : 79 – 87 ;
Duczko 2004 : 132 – 3 , 239 – 40 ). The profusion of amulets may well register the mutual
awareness of cross-bearers and the devotees of hammerlets and other pagan pendants,
some individuals opting for multiple affiliations. It also reflects the diverse directions
which the Rus faced in their desire for trading and self-enrichment. Dessert at the
emperor’s high table was one manner whereby a Rus ruler could express her politico-
cultural affiliation, but others, no less politic, were available.
Sviatoslav’s policy, upon taking over effective power from his mother, was to remain
on amicable terms with the Byzantines, still letting warriors serve with their forces in
hundreds if not thousands, but he also sought conspicuously to align himself with the
peoples of the steppes. A Byzantine eyewitness account and the Rus Primary Chronicle
agree that Sviatoslav took on the hair- and lifestyle of a Eurasian steppe chieftain: his
scalp was shaven save for one long strand of hair, denoting nobility of birth, and a ring
was in one ear; life in the saddle was his delight, ‘making many wars’ and sleeping
beneath the open sky. Sviatoslav’s prime target was the Khazars who, as his own father
had found, could threaten the Rus from across the steppes and still raised tribute from
some Slav populations. Allying, probably, with the Uzes, Sviatoslav led an attack on
their core-lands, laying waste the main towns and dealing a deathblow to Khazaria as a
steppe-power.
Soon afterwards the Byzantines approached him to carry out a similar job on their
truculent neighbours, the Bulgarians, in return for 1 , 500 pounds of gold, paid in
advance. The Rus overwhelmed the Bulgarians at a stroke in, probably, late summer and
autumn 968 , but Sviatoslav proceeded to seize on the opportunities that a river-mouth
offered, in the manner of Vikings on the other side of Europe. Reportedly, he proclaimed
that he would make Pereiaslavets on the Lower Danube ‘the centre of my land, for there
all good things flow’ (PVL: 32 ; RPC: 86 ). Sviatoslav’s desire to base himself at the
intersection of several trade routes near the sea, without reliance on any single market,
made strategic sense: no attempt was made to repeat past expeditions against the
‘God-protected city’, but the Rus could hope to trade with the Greeks from a more
favourable vantage-point than the Middle Dnieper. Sviatoslav hastened back to Kiev
when the Pechenegs – perhaps at Byzantine instigation – threatened to seize it in his
absence. A deal was struck, Pechenegs joined forces with Rus to return to the Balkans
and soon the Bulgarian tsar Boris was reigning over his people from his palace in Preslav,
in effect a puppet of the Rus occupation-force. Sviatoslav’s project of maintaining
hegemony over steppe-peoples and Rus was not inherently absurd: his governors
assigned to Danubian towns might soon have begun raising revenues sufficient to
remunerate retinues and nomads to police the steppes. Sviatoslav’s miscalculation was
to take apparent Byzantine inertia for acceptance of the status quo. In the spring of 971
–– chapter 37 : The Viking Rus and Byzantium––