PreRussia

The image of the fortress "Staraya Ladoga" by Dionisius1976 (pseudonym) from https://pl.wikipedia.org under CC License.

Thus, the Russian Slavs had owned the city of Staraya Ladoga for more than a century and Novgorod had been built 3 years before the arrival of Rurik.

It should be noted that with the exception of the reconquest of Staraya Ladoga no serious conflicts were recorded between the local Slavs and the Scandinavian Varangians which further confirms the fact that the Vikings were present in Russia for a very long time and were already perceived as "their foreigners". Of course the Varangians (Vikings) themselves were primarily interested in peace so that they would not have to defend their transshipment towns and transports with blood all along the trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" (that would make this commercial project impossible). The idea of such a way was to sail on ships on rivers and drag ships between rivers. This route is drawn on the map below.

Map of the Varangian Routs (Varangianroutes.png) from the free repository commons.wikimedia.org under CC License.

Between the rivers the ships rolled on logs laid under them. Many later wondered where the equestrian Cossacks acquired such skills in dragging ships by land, especially during Yermak's campaign in Siberia. As we can see the Varangians (Vikings) where their teachers.

The excavations also indicate the massive presence of Prussians, Finno-Ugric, Tatars and many other peoples in Russia. In the author's opinion, proceeding from all the remaining secondary sources and indirect evidences, it is most likely a certain Varangian Rurik was invited indeed by the Russian principalities to rule. He was rather a Western Slav (Rujan, Obodrit, etc.) or a Slavic Prussian than a Scandinavian. It has been confirmed by the Bertin Annals recognized in the West that the statehood in Russia arose before the arrival of Rurik. So, the age of Russia is really determined incorrectly even by Western evidences. Below is the list of foreign documents about the Russians and Slavs in general from Anton Belyakov's study "Keys to Russian History…" 36 (2018).

I century. The famous Roman writer and politician Tacitus (lived from 50 to 120) mentions rugs (Rujans) on the southern shore of the Baltic.

II—III centuries. The Gothic historian Jordan (lived in the VI century) reports on the struggle of the Goths in the Baltic States with the Rugs.

Between 307 and 314 years. In the Verona Document (the list of Rome's allied countries obliged to supply troops for Rome's needs but retaining some political independence) the Rugsare named among the Roman federates.

Before 337. The Byzantine writer of the first half of the XIV century Nikephoros Gregorr mentions a Russian prince who held a court position under Emperor Constantine.

The second half of the IV century. The historian Jordan (lived in the VI century.) mentions the Rogs as part of the Germanic power and then speaks of the Rosomon tribe which broke out of obedience.

Between 379-395 years. Russian chronicle from the reign of Vladimir Svyatoslavich to Ivan IV inclusive) speaks about the "battle with Russian soldiers" of Emperor Theodosius troops. It also mentions the Russian attack on the Selunsky Grad.

434-435 years. The Rugs appear on the Sava River near the town of Novieduna (present-day Yugoslavia) where they come into collision with the Goths.

454 year. A part of the Rugs joins the Huns and together with them are defeated by the Gepids and the tribes acting on their side including most of the Rugs. The defeated retreat from the Danube to the Dnieper and the Black Sea and some of them retreat to the Adriatic coast.

469. The Rugs are defeated by the Goths in the struggle for Pannonia.

476 year. Odoacer (who is Rug according to the Gothic historian Jordan) the commander of a detachment of barbarian mercenaries in the Roman army (and later the king of Italy) as the head of an army consisting of Rugs, Skirrs and Turks overthrows the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire. He is called the Russian prince from the island of Rugen.

489 year. The Gothic King Theodoric opposes the Italian King Odoacer. There are rugs in both armies.

493 year. Theodoric treacherously kills Odoacer. The Rugs participate in the proclamation of Theodoric as King of Italy.

The middle of the VI century. The Rugi seize power in Italy for a while and raise their leader Erarich to the royal throne.

568 year. The Avars occupy Pannonia and the Lombards pass through the Slavic kingdom of Rugiland (in present-day Austria) to Northern Italy.

VI century. The Syrian author Pseudo-Saccharum mentions the Ros people in the Black Sea region.

VI century. As-Sa'alibi, the historian of the beginning of the XI century at the court of the Ghaznavids (now Southern Afghanistan) in the story about the construction of the Derbent Wall by Khosrow I (531-579) mentions the Russ along with the Turks and Khazars.

VI century. Zahir al-din Mar'ashi, the 15th-century Persian author from the Caspian region mentions the Russ in the North Caucasus region.

626 year. The Byzantine poet Konstantin Manassi (XII century) names the Russians among those who besieged Constantinople together with the Avars.

643 year. At-Tabari, the Arab historian from Baghdad (838-923) twice calls the Russ as enemies of the world, especially the Arabs.

765 (or 773) year. The Byzantine chronicler Theophano (died 817) mentions Russian helandiy (ships).

773-774 years. Russian Count Erno is mentioned in the French poem about Ogier the Dane (XII—XIII centuries) who led a Russian detachment defending Pavia (the capital of the Lombards) from the army of Charlemagne. In Northern Italy the Russ occupy the Garda area near Verona (the Scandinavians then called Eastern Russia "Guards").

Ca. 778. The famous heroic French poem of the Middle Ages "The Song of Roland" names the Russ among the opponents of the Frankish army. "Russian cloaks" are also mentioned.

The end of the VIII – beginning of the IX century. In the poem "Renaud de Montebane" (late XII – early XIII century) based on ancient folk tales a Russian count is named among the entourage of Charlemagne.

The end of the VIII century. In “The Life of Stefan Surozhsky” the Russian Prince Bravlin is mentioned. The name of the prince probably comes from Bravalla at which in 786 there was a great battle between the Danes and the Frisians. The Frisians were defeated and many of them left their country moving to the east.

The end of the VIII century. "Geographer of Bavaria" in his list of peoples and tribes who inhabited the areas east of the Frankish state in the IX century (found in the Bavarian State Library, Munich) mentions the Russ located next to the Khazars as well as certain Ros (Rots) somewhere in the interfluve of the Elbe and Sala: Attoroses, Viliroses, Hoziroses, Zabroses.

VIII—IX centuries. Popes Leo III (795-816) and Benedict III (855-858) send special messages to the "clerics of the Rogs". Apparently, the Rug communities continued to keep apart from the rest of the Christians.

839 year. The Bertin Annals report the arrival of a representatives of the people of Ros whose ruler bore the title of Khagan to Louis I the Pious (in a company with the ambassadors of the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus).

Before 842. The description of the life of Saint and Bishop George of Amastrid tells about the attack of the Roses on the Byzantine city of Amastrida (Asia Minor).

Between 836-847. The outstanding scientist Muhammad ibn Musa al Khorezmi in a geographical composition mentions the Russian Mountain from which the river Drus originates.

844 year. The Arab historian from Khorezm Al-Yakubi reports on the Rus attack on Seville in Spain.

844 year. The head of the post offices of northern Persia and geographer Ibn Khordadbeh in his "Book of Ways and Countries" calls the Russ a kind of the Slavs.

June 18, 860. The attack of the Rosses on Constantinople is documented in the Byzantine chronicles.

861 year. The Byzantine Greek Konstantin-Kirill the Philosopher, the future creator of the Slavic alphabet (together with Methodius) discovers in the Crimea the gospel and the psalter written in Russian scripts, learned the spoken language and deciphered the writing (meeting with a person who spoke this language).

As we can see since the VI century (3 centuries before the arrival of Rurik) Russia in one form or another is constantly present in Western European, Arab and Byzantine sources. Moreover, as other researchers have already noted, these Russ operate throughout Europe – from the Pyrenees to the Caucasus Mountains and from the Baltic coast to the Mediterranean coast. If we take into account all the evidences then at least 14 Rus states are known: as many as four Rus(es) were in the Baltic States. Rus also existed on the banks of the Dnieper, on the Don, at the mouth of the Danube, in the Carpathian Mountains, on the coast of the Azov and Caspian Seas, in the Crimea, in Western Europe (on the territory of modern Austria), in Thuringia, in Saxony, and even some Rus (Ruzzika) was part of the Vandal kingdom in North Africa.37

The question is how many of these Rus states scattered all over the earth were the fragments of a single Russian super-ethnos? How much were they related to each other? Which of them contributed and in which way to the creation of the Russian state of the Eastern Slavs? It is simply impossible to bring all this information, theories and hypotheses in one book. The most well-established and reasoned 3 groups of theories are the following:

– Norman

– Slavic (including Lomonosov's)

– North Black Sea (including Indo-Iranian).

The origin of Russia is such a topic where there are three opinions between two historians. There is a separate thick book dedicated to numerous inconsistencies in ancient Russian history where the author has dug up so many of them that in his opinion it's time to rewrite the entire history anew.38 As a matter of fact it is going to happen indeed as the now officially accepted Norman theory is very shaky under the blows of new and new pop-up facts.

Russia adopted the Orthodox faith from the Greeks through Byzantium. After the conquest of Byzantium by the Ottoman Turks, Russia considered itself to some extent its spiritual heir. Even during the time of the atheistic USSR some historians called Moscow the Third Rome (the second was Constantinople of Byzantium, later renamed to Istanbul). The relations of the growing strength of the Russian state with the decrepit Byzantine Empire were not always friendly. Below is the list of conflicts.

A successful robbery raid by the "great Russian army" on the Crimean Byzantine city of Surozh (Sugdea) in 750 (according to other sources – in 790) led by Prince Bravlin from Novagrad.

Rus' campaign against Byzantium (830s). The Russ raided on the province of Paphlagonia during the reign of Emperor Theophilus. The Russ plundered the city of Amastrida and withdrew. Perhaps it was a revenge for the failure of the Russian embassy mission to Byzantium in 839 (because the consulate was not established).

The campaign of Russia against Byzantium in 860. Although Constantinople (Tsargrad) was not captured the Russ took away a large booty. Presumably the campaign was led by the Varangian Kievan princes Askold and Dir. According to “The Tale of Bygone Years” this campaign took place in 866 by a Russian chronology (which was 6 years ahead of the Byzantine one), that is two years after Rurik's arrival in Russia.

The Russian-Byzantine War of 907 – the legendary campaign against Constantinople by Prince Oleg. According to the "Tale of Bygone Years" it led to the signing of peace in 907 and was followed by the conclusion of a trade agreement beneficial for Russia in 911.

The Russian-Byzantine War of 941-944 – the campaigns against Constantinople by Prince Igor. In the first campaign the Rus army failed at sea, the second campaign ended with the signing of a peace treaty and a tribute from Byzantium.

The Russian-Byzantine War of 970-971 – the campaign of Prince Svyatoslav, first in alliance with the Greeks against Bulgaria and then in alliance with the Bulgarian tsar (king) Boris II against Byzantium. The war ended with the withdrawal of Russian troops from Bulgaria and the death of Svyatoslav at the hands of the Pechenegs.

The Russian-Byzantine War of 988 – the successfull siege of Korsun in the Crimea by Prince Vladimir. After that the gradual baptism of the Russian people followed.

The campaign of Russia against Byzantium in 1024 – an “independent” non-state campaign of a detachment of the Russ led by Chrysochyrus to the island of Lemnos during the time of troubles of the power struggle in Russia. All 800 participants of the campaign were killed.

The Russian-Byzantine War of 1043 – fleet attack (400 ships) to Constantinople (Tsargrad) led by Yaroslav the Wise. It ended in failure – some ships were lost to a storm, others were burned by Greek fire.

These campaigns against Byzantium were aimed not only at extracting profit from robbery, trade or imposed tribute, but also the original desire of Russia to be a maritime power. Russia strived to get access to the sea and control the entire trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" – from the cold Baltic to warm Byzantium. However, we cannot exclude that these campaigns were carried out by several different "Russian" states. Such campaigns taught the predecessors of the Cossacks the skills of making special small durable vessels that could sail both on the seas and rivers and be dragged by the ground.

So, what is the true age of Russia? According to Lomonosov – no less than that of Ancient Greece and Rome. Many researchers agree with his assessment. Some of them rely on the "Letter of Alexander the Great to the Slavs"39, which reads as follows: "We, Alexander, are the son of the supreme god Jupiter in heaven and Philip, King of Macedon on earth, the ruler of the world from sunrise to sunset and from noon to midnight, the conqueror of the Median and Persian kingdoms, Greek, Syriac and Babylonian , etc . To the enlightened Slavic genus and its language. Mercy, peace, respect and greetings from us and our successors in the governance of the world after us. Since you have always been with us in loyalty in battle, reliable, brave and restless, we grant and freely give you forever all the lands from the full sea of the great Arctic Ocean to the Italian southern rocky Sea, so that no one dares to settle in these lands but only your kind and if any outsiders have been discovered here, they will become your serf or servant with their offspring forever. Given in the city of Alexandria, founded by us on the glorious river Nile in the 12th year of our reign with the permission of the great gods Mars, Jupiter and the goddess Minerva. The witnesses of this are the noble Altera, our treasurer, and the other 11 princes, whom, in the event of our death without sons, we leave our and the whole world’s heirs."

This is a very interesting and at the same time devilishly insidious document, first mentioned by the Czech historian Vaclav Gaik in the "Czech Chronicle" of the Brno Archive describing the events of 1348. In 1516 the Czech historian Joseph Pervolf of the University of Warsaw discovered a copy of this letter in Latin. In 1551 this document was printed in Polish, in 1596 – in German, in 1601 – in Italian. He becomes widely known in Europe and soon in Russia. It was believed that the original was kept in the archive of the Czech Kingdom. For five hundred years there have been heated debates and disputes among scientists about the authenticity of this document. Naturally, German-speaking scientists actively dispute the authenticity of the Letter because it gives priority to the Slavs and the Slavic language in Europe. And this was at a time when Ancient Rome, the cradle of Western civilization, was just beginning to gain its strength. Photos of the original text of the diploma are easily found on the Internet. We do not give it here as they are protected by copyright.

There are some indirect evidences that the document may be authentic. The Charter mentions the twelfth year of Alexander's reign. This date falls on 324 BC, the penultimate year of his life. A campaign to distant India has just ended. Although it turned out to be not very successful, almost all the states of the Ancient World lay at the feet of the Great commander. It is known that after the Indian campaign Alexander the Great was actively preparing for a campaign to conquer "wild, barbaric" Europe. Now Europe and North America are the centers of world civilization, but in that distant past Greece and Rome (to a lesser extent) were such centers while the rest of Europe was considered wild and barbaric.

Alexander's favorite technique was "divide and conquer" playing on contradictions in the camp of the alleged enemy. This slogan is as old as the world. It was widely used by many leaders, leaders, princes, tsars before Alexander and it is now. During the conquest of the Persian Empire Alexander skillfully opposed the population of provinces to the Persians. As a result he was greeted with flowers as a liberator almost everywhere. Cities opened their gates wide before him without a fight. After the conquest of Egypt he was proclaimed the vicar of the God on earth and in some places even the God. He skillfully timed the trip to India to coincide with the internecine war between the Ruler of India and the Ruler of the Indian city of Taxila. Only fatigue and the murmur of his soldiers forced Alexander to turn back.

In preparation for the conquest of the "barbaric West", Alexander was likewise looking for allies in Europe and found the Slavs to be them. In those distant times they lived on the territory of modern Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Austria. Descendants of the defenders of Troy glorified by Homer, they took a lively part in Alexander's victorious campaigns. In addition, the land road from Greece to Europe ran through their lands. The ancient authors who wrote about the Slavs emphasized their love of freedom and bravery in battle. No better allies could be found. The Macedonian letter to the Slavs is a poisoned knife stuck in the back of Europe by the iron hand of the Great commander. With one stroke of his pen he split the unity of Europe for millennia, spilled rivers of blood, opposing one European nation to another. Now we can only guess where the whole course of history would have turned and what would have happened to Europe if Alexander Macedonian had not died suddenly on the eve of the already prepared campaign. Scientists are still arguing about the authenticity of this letter.

There is a hypothesis that in addition to the letter to all Slavs, Alexander the Great also sent a separate letter specifically to the Russians when passing through the Czech land. The copies of that letter also spread to the Slavic countries. Alexander granted the Muscovite ancestors lands not from Aquilon to Italy but from the Baltic Sea to the Caspian.40 The Russian empress Catherine the Great (Catherine II, German by origin) knew about the existence of such a letter and considered it a genuine historical document.41 In her "Notes on Russian History" she wrote "16. They say that the Russ helped Philip of Macedon in the war three hundred and ten years before the Birth of Christ, his son Alexander as well and for bravery in this they got a charter written in golden words, which seems to be in the archives of the Sultan of Turkey. But since the sultan's baths are heated with archival papers, it is likely that this letter has also been used for that purpose long time ago, if it was there."42 The opinions of historians are divided about the authenticity of this letter of Alexander the Great.

Back in the middle of the 19th century historian E.I. Klassen insisted that Slavic tribes existed even before the time of the city of Troy.43 Lomonosov M.V. in his "Ancient Russian History" also emphasizes that "the greatness and power of the Slavic tribe began many centuries before the ruin of Troy."

I, the humble author of this article, watched the film “Troy” in English in remote Australia in 2004. At that time I had not yet gone into the specific details of the history of Russia. After a few minutes of watching the movie I suddenly felt some inexplicable kinship with the Trojans. There was something in their faces, manners, clothes, actions that made them not strangers to me. Even the very name of Troy seemed painfully familiar to me as if I had known it since birth. Then I had a "wild and impossible" thought that the Trojans were Russians. Now the scientists are beginning to prove that my feelings had some basis – Troy was inhabited by Slavs indeed. Probably the creators of the film so scrupulously embodied the images of Troy and the Trojans based on legends, myths and excavation data that I saw the Trojans as kindred people.

Troy (also known as Ilion) was located in Asia Minor near the Dardanelles and controlled the sea trade routes of Europe and Asia. Such a beneficial strategic location allowed the Trojans to control all the trade flows of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, made them rich and strong. It caused envy among the Achaean Greeks and some peoples of the Black Sea region. According to a legend the Trojans blocked the narrow strait with a tension chain, not letting merchant ships through until they paid the established fee. There are certain reasons to believe that Troy did not exist on its own but was rather a part of the state "Mediterranean Russia".44

Seven cultural layers have been discovered at the excavation site of Troy. They are associated with different periods in the existence of historical Troy. There used to be several “Troys” in fact. The city itself turned out to be much older than the Homeric Troy – it was originally built in the 4th millennium BC by the Pelasgians, the ancestors of the Slavs. “It is known from history” – wrote E.I. Klassen – that the Trojans were called first Pelasgians, then Thracians, then Teucrians, after that Dardanians and finally Trojans, and their descendants after the fall of Troy – Pergamians and Kemeians. He also notes that the Greeks called all of the Trojans, Macedonians and Phrygians to be Thracians, that the Thracians are descended from the Pelasgians. Among the Thracians as well as among the Pelasgians we meet many purely Slavic tribal names including the Russ and the Ruthenians, according to Herodotus. The Thracians wore forelocks as later the Little Russians (Malorossians) did; their graves were made in a mound, which is common among all the Slavs, their weapons were Slavic too. The most famous Thracian is Spartacus. After his capture by the Romans he almost demolished the Rome state by raising a slave rebellion. And since the Thracians were Slavs then the Trojans were too (as a part of the Thracians). The excavations found the majority of the buried Thracian girls with the specifically Slavic headdresses (kokoshniks).

Many sources call all the tribes of the Slavs with a common word – Wends. The chronicle of Fredegard, the 7th century A.C. says "… the Slavs, called Wends …". Ion of Bobby (also the 7th century A.C.) in his description of the life of St. Columbia says – “The idea came to him to go to the Wends who are also called the Slavs.” The Anglo-Saxon writer Alcuin of the times of Charlemagne wrote "We call the Slavs Wends." The Germans used to call all Slavs “Vend”. The Finns and the Estonians still call the Russians "Vene". And the Finnish name of Lake Ladoga is Veneimiere, which means “the Sea of Vene”.

The main neighbor of Troy was the state of Paphlagonia inhabited by the Wends and located on the southern coast of the Black Sea, east of Troy. When the Greeks and their allies went to war against Troy, a detachment of the Wends of Paphlagonia came to its aid. And most of the other neighboring principalities of the Wends joined the defenders of Troy. At the end of the second song of the “Iliad” Homer gives a "Catalogue of ships" with the troops that arrived to help Troy. It lists the peoples who participated in Troy’s defense. Those are the Trojans (apparently from the towns around, not from Troy itself), the Wends, the Pelasgians, the Dardani, the Kikons, the Peons, the Thracians, the Phrygians, the Carians, the Lycians, the Medes and others. Most of these tribes (if not all) are Slavic. We may say that an ancient world war took a place there then.

It needs be noted that several Slavic tribes of the Black Sea region opposed Troy on the side of Greece. For instance, a detachment of Myrmidons led by Prince Achilles. This "ancient Greek" hero deserves a closer look. Achilles was the son of Peleus and the grandson of the Aegin ruler Aeacus. He was a noble Scythian from the city of Myrmikion near the Meotida Lake (the Sea of Azov). Exiled for his wild, cruel and insolent behavior, he settled in Thessaly (according to Leo the Deacon, a Byzantine historian of the 10th century). The cut of Achilles’ cape fastened with a clasp, the habit of fighting on foot, blond hair, light blue eyes are typical of the ancient Slavs. Leo Deacon, like all medieval authors, considered the Scythians to be not the Scythian nomads (Iranians) but the entire population of the southern Russian steppes (Achilles is not nomadic at all, indeed). Many medieval authors (for instance Eustace of Thessaloniki and Attaliot) considered Achilles to be a Tauro-Scythian and even a Russian.45 Leo Deacon refers to the Jewish prophet Ezekiel who emphasizes the connection of Achilles with the Russ people.

The abduction of Helen the Beautiful, the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta by Paris was not a reason, but just a pretext for war. The war was cruel and merciless. The siege of Troy lasted for 10 years.

After the fall of Troy the Wends left their land mainly in three ways – some went to the Armenian (then Iranian) highlands around the Lake Van where the state of Urartu was subsequently formed. The kings there had names Rusa-I and Rusa-II which is no coincidence – the Armenians have always firmly held on to Russia. Another group of Wends traveled by sea and reached the northwestern coast of the Adriatic Sea (subsequently the city of Venice arose there). After a certain period of time the Wends were scattered throughout Europe. They settled not only along the coast of the Adriatic Sea but to the north as well. They settled on the Danube, Dniester, Dnieper and Vistula, reached the Baltic Sea, Scandinavia, France, Ireland and Britain. The famous "Troyanian path" is the path along which the ancient Russians returned to their ancestral home, to the North. Professor Abrashkin A.A. writes about this in great detail.46

Klassen E.I. writes that there was a river Rsa (also called Rasa) on the land owned by Troy. Wherever the Russ settle we find a river of that name. The present river Arake is an ancient Rsa; the river Araks in the Caucasus was called El-Ras by the Arabs, Orsay and Raskha by the Mongols, Ras and Oros by the Greeks. The Volga was called Rsa when the Russ and the Unna came to it from across the Caspian Sea; one of the rivers is still called Rusa in the Novgorod province where the ancient state of Alaunian Rus used to be; the river Ros flowing into the Dnieper where the Dnieper Rus state used to be; the Russian Sea (the Black Sea) where the Black Rus state used to be; the river Rusa in Moravia where the Rusniaks are still living; the river Rusa being a right tributary of the Memel (the Neman) along which the Pomorian Rus state used to be (the successor of Alaunian Rus).

Perhaps, the list of Russian and semi Russian territories is even more extensive. The well-known linguist V.D. Osipov in his article "The Karian trace" says that in Karia (Asia Minor, the southwest of Turkey) a stone was found with an inscription dating back to the 16th century BC. It is read in Slavic. What do we know about the Carians? Almost nothing apart from the fact that the "father of history" Herodotus was half a Carian… He was born and raised in Halikarkas, his father's name was Luka. It was in the middle of the VI century BC. From Herodotus we learn that in those distant times the Carians were called "Lelegs". The Pelasgians, the ancestors of the Slavs, were also called Lelegs. And in the great city of Serbin (later renamed to Xanthos by the Greeks) founded in the VIII century BC or earlier (near the city of Lika the former capital of the Lycian Federation on the territory of modern Turkey) the "Obelisk of Xanthos" was discovered. It is a high tomb with a large column decorated with an inscription in the Lycian language. All attempts to translate the texts based on ancient Greek and other languages failed. Finally the text was fully deciphered by the priest Svetislav Bilbia (born in 1907 in Bosansko-Grahovo in Bosnia-Herzegovina) using the ancient Serbian language and the alphabet from Lydia and Lycia. So, the territory of modern Turkey also has some previous Slavic strata.

The Russian academician Chudinov V.A. easily deciphered many Etruscan inscriptions about an era that until recently was shrouded in mystery. 47 He proceeded from Russian. The Serbian code of laws of the 8th century BC was found carved on a large stone in the alphabet "Serbica" (the so-called the Xantian Obelisk). It is read in Serbian with no much difficulty."

We know from the Vatican archives that after the fall of Etruria (Rasseni, Etruscan Twelve-Grad) and the assimilation of the Etruscans by the Romans, some of the Etruscans left the Apennines to the Russian Plain on the east (according to the instructions on the map) and founded a "second Etruria" there. The Vatican itself is built on the ruins of the City of the Dead named after the pagan goddess Vatican. The city was built by the Etruscans (which are the Slavs).

Among the indigenous Italian names purely Etruscan-Russian names are frequently encountered – Danilo, Ivan, Katia, Nadia, Nastia, Natascia, Vladmir, Tania. The Italians apparently do not realize that they have many namesakes in Russia. All the inscriptions of the Venedi-Etruscans of Italy are read only in Slavic. Here is an example of a short tombstone inscription: "Lar oe celua". Translation is not required even into modern Russian. It means "I kiss her coffin" – a sorrow for the deceased woman.

Other historians deduce the date of the birth of Russia from the fact that before Peter the Great (Peter-I) the so-called "calendar since the Peace Making" was widely used in Russia. To calculate the year in that old calendar we need to add 5508 to the year of the modern calendar. For instance, the 2020 year corresponds to 7528 in it. It was still in use during the reign of Peter the Great as a number of documents are dated according to it.

The cover of the "Ulojeniya…" (Set of Rules for Courts) from the free repository https://commons.wikimedia.org under the CC license.

Where did this calendar come from? And what does the date of "making peace in the star temple" mean in it? Here the opinions of historians differ again. Some researchers believe that at that time the Slavs in alliance with the Turkic tribes formed the state of Great Tartary. Christian theosophists believe that the chronology there is conducted from the date of the creation of Adam and Eve by God. The historians consider that the calendar’s zero-date is the moment of signing the peace treaty between China and Tartary. If this is so, then it means that the chronology was conducted even before that. These historians believe that both the Chinese and the Slavs had calendars going back to such a fabulously distant past that not even all the priests had complete knowledge about the events mentioned in the previous calendar. That previous super-ancient calendar is called «Круго Лѣть Числобога» (или «Сороковник») in Slavic, which literary means “Circles of years of Figuregod” (sometimes referred to as "Sorokovnik"). I can easily be found on the Internet as well as in the libraries of some universities and other educational institutions.

It was necessary to cut off some too distant past from that “previous super-ancient” calendar for daily practical use by the ordinary population, leaving the original calendar only for educated priests. Such a "cut-off date" or a new starting point was the date of the signing of the peace treaty after the grandiose war between the Slavs and China. The peace deal was signed in the city of the Star Temple in Northern China just 5508 years BC.48 Thus, the Slavic state and China had existed long before that date, before the erection of the Egyptian pyramids (if we accept this standpoint).

Most of the above information has been known for a long time, but previously it was published only in the so-called "yellow" media. The "official" historians (supporters of the Norman theory) long ignored it all as "fairy tales", "myths" and "fantasies" under the pretext of the alleged absence of firm evidences. However, due to the rapid growth of the amount of "compromising material" against the Norman theory, a few years ago this information began to be published officially and scientists began to receive PhD decrees for their dissertations on this topic.

The firm evidences came in connection with the development of DNA analysis. At first it was believed that if human bones had lain for several millennia then the DNA chain in them disintegrated beyond recognition. However, later it turned out that DNA molecules decay very slowly in some conditions. Moreover first they break up into fragments, then into smaller fragments and only then into primitive molecules of several atoms. Sufficiently long fragments can be extracted from bones several tens of thousands of years old and even from the bones of some Neanderthals. That is, in one place bones may have some parts of DNA preserved, in another – others. By collecting many different pieces from different parts of the bone you can make up the entire complete DNA chain (mathematically). In practice, the situation is much simplified by the fact that scientists do not need a complete DNA chain to establish a race or ethnicity – only those parts of it that contain specific "markers" of one or another people.

In recent years the results of several authoritative DNA studies of fossil remnants have been published. They do confirm all of the above facts about the antiquity of the Slavs and even more. DNA analysis shows that Europe was first populated by the Slavs and only four thousand years later did the Western Europeans come there. Both events occured thousands of years BC. One of such publications is a series of books by Anatoly Klesov, the President of the Academy of DNA Genealogy of Russia, professor at the Moscow State and Harvard (USA) Universities: "The origin of the Slavs. DNA genealogy against the ‘Norman theory’" 49, "DNA genealogy of the Slavs. Origin and history" 50, "DNA genealogy of the Slavs. New discoveries." 51

It turned out that both Slavs and Western Europeans came from Southern Siberia. The mutation mark that sits in half of ethnic Russians – DNA label R1A – originated in Southern Siberia about 24 thousand years ago. Our ancestors lived around the Lake of Baikal, in Altai and in the whole of Southern Siberia. They came there from somewhere else as then all the peoples on earth were constantly moving because of climate change, game shortages, etc. The ancestors of the Slavs (Proto-Slavs) came out of Southern Siberia about 20 thousand years ago. They moved along the "southern arc" – through Tibet, India, the Iranian plateau, Turkey and about 9 thousand years ago they reached the Balkans and then settled in Europe. This people became the ancestors of ethnic Russians.

Another mutation, the DNA label R1B, also originated in Southern Siberia and its carriers became the ancestors of Western Europeans. They moved from Southern Siberia to Europe along a longer "northern arc" – through Northern Kazakhstan, the Samara region, the Middle Volga, turned through the Caucasus, the Middle East, North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, crossed Gibraltar and reached Europe about 5 thousand years ago too. By that time the Proto-Slavs had been living in Europe for 4 thousand years.

The ancestors of the Western Europeans went to war against the Slavs and managed to dislodge them from the territory of Western Europe about 4 and a half thousand years ago. The Slavs retreated to the Russian Plain and lived there for about two thousand years. Then the Western Europeans again moved on the Slavs. Near the Talenzi River (halfway between Berlin and the Baltic Sea) a gigantic battle that took place three thousand two hundred years ago at the end of the second millennium BC. Many bones and weapons were found there, including Slavic clubs and wooden hammers. Both infantry and cavalry participated on both sides. The bone remnants of at least several thousand dead bodies are there. The total number of combatants was obviously much higher, perhaps tens of thousands. For that time such a number of troops was incredible. Some historians dubbed this battle "the first world war in history." Pulling up such armies, ammunition and food by the roads required transport, logistic chains, hierarchical management and command system. That implies that the statehoods had already been sufficiently formed on both sides. Since all the towns that appeared later around the battle site got Slavic names, we may assume that this time the Proto-Slavs defeated the ancestors of the Western Europeans and stopped their further advance to the Russian plain. Subsequently many more attempts were made by the Western Europe to break through this border line formed six and a half thousand years ago, but to no avail. Of the latter are the wars of Charles XII, Napoleon and Hitler against Russia.

Apart from the above Klesov publicized some other surprising facts. One of them is that the Slavs are also descendants of the Aryans (Hitler would be shocked and disappointed by that). Another one is that neither the Slavs nor the Western Europeans bear the markers of the Africans, which casts serious doubt on the theory that Africa was the cradle of humanity and that homo-sapiens people came from there. Both points are based on DNA analysis and therefore cannot be ignored. However, here we deviated a bit from the initial topic. Thus, the ancient Slavs and their states existed tens of thousands of years before our era and were the contemporaries of Ancient Greece, Egypt and Rome if not older.