Eastern Slavs and the beginning of Russia

in his famous "Tale of Bygone Years" by the monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery Nestor, who lived at the beginning of the XII century. In his chronicle, Nestor names about 13 tribes (scientists believe that these were tribal unions) and describes in detail their places of settlement. Near Kiev, on the right bank of the Dnieper, there lived a glade, along the upper course of the Dnieper and the Western Dvina - Krivichi, along the banks of the Pripyat - Drevlyans. On the Dniester, Prut, in the lower reaches of the Dnieper and on the northern coast of the Black Sea, Uliches and Tivertsy lived. Volhynians lived to the north of them. Dregovichi settled from Pripyat to Western Dvina. On the left bank of the Dnieper and along the Desna, the northerners lived, along the river Sozh - a tributary of the Dnieper - Radimichi. Ilmen Slovenes lived around Lake Ilmen

peoples, the Western Slavs (Poles, Czechs), in the south - the Pechenegs and Khazars, in the east - the Volga Bulgarians and numerous Finno-Ugric tribes (Mordovians, Mari, Murom).The main occupations of the Slavs were agriculture, which, depending on the soil, was slash-and-burn or shifting, cattle breeding, hunting, fishing, beekeeping (collecting honey from wild bees). In the 7th-8th centuries, in connection with the improvement of the tools of labor, the transition from a fallow or transfer system of agriculture to a two-field and three-field system of crop rotation, the Eastern Slavs experienced the decomposition of the clan system, an increase in property inequality.

VIII-IX centuries led to the emergence of cities - centers of handicrafts and trade. Usually cities arose at the confluence of two rivers or on a hill, since such an arrangement made it possible to defend against enemies much better. The oldest cities were often formed along the most important trade routes or at their intersections. The main trade route passing through the lands of the Eastern Slavs was the route “from the Varangians to the Greeks,” from the Baltic Sea to Byzantium. In the 8th - early 9th centuries, the tribal and military nobility stood out among the Eastern Slavs, and military democracy was established.