In 1043 AD THE Kyivian Rus began its 9Tth. naval campaign against Constantinople. Prince Vladimir, son of Yaroslav the Wise, sailed into the Bosporus with his armada of lodyas & totally routed the Byzantine's naval forces. This was last assault of a Kyivian Rus fleet upon Tsargrad. The death of Vladimir Monomakh in 1125 AD, began the struggle for power between the princes of the Ancient Kyivian Rus which became intensified. Un-united & weakened through internecine strife, the princes gave no thought or attention to warring against their neighbor states.
The princes of the Kyivian Rus began to use their fleets of lodyas to fight against one another. In 1151 AD Prince Izyaslav Mstislavich used a more advanced type of sailing vessel in a battle against the forces of Prince Yuri Dolgoruky: Prince Isyaslav's lodyas had decks & had been built with rudders at the bow & the stern. During the years that followed almost no other changes were made in the basic design of this primitive water craft. By the end of the 12th. Century Vladimir-Suzdal had become a notably vigorous & strong princedom. Prince Vesevolod, a son of Yury Dolgoruky & nicknamed "Bolshoye Gnezdo," meaning the "Great Nest" claimed himself the Grand Prince of Kyiv. He then proclaimed himself, Grand Prince of Vladimir as well.
Both Vesevolod & his son, Prince Yury II, equipped multiple fleets of lodyas & sent them forth against the Volga Bulgars. It was during one of these military campaigns that Prince Yury II founded the eastern-most of the Kyivian Rus princedoms, the city of Nizhny-Novgorod, situated at the confluence of the Volga & Oka Rivers. Prince Yury II's efforts to strengthen the eastern boundaries of his Rus princedom were inspired by a divination of things to come. In the East the might of the Golden Horde was beginning to build. It was out of the East that the Tatar-Mongols would sweep into the Rus & impose upon the Rus the "yoke" that lasted for nearly 300 years before the yoke was thrown off.
What was to later become Ukraine, Belorus (White Rus) & modern Russia began as seen in the Kyivian Rus. The addition of Varengian Viking aristocracy to that of the Slavs & augmented by tribal hierarchy of the Khazars made a strong & militant Slavic Rus under strong & crafty princes. More is to be learned about this fascinating history of what subsequently became Russia & later the roots of the Soviet Union. At a later date we will examine more of this culture, the Rus.
