Rus

A people made up of Scandinavian warrior merchants who travelled Eastern European river-roads from the eighth century, and whose settlements around Novgorod, Kiev/Kyiv and the Volga and Dnieper/Dnipro gave rise to the Rus' principalities.

Kievan Rus, the medieval East Slavic state established by these same warrior merchants in the 9th century, whose capital was in Kiev.