The earliest polity thought to have based its power on these people's military and economic prowess is the Rus Khaganate, which emerged in the ninth century either at present-day Kiev or, more likely according to recent archaeological findings, along the Volkhov upstream of Lake Ladoga. One theory of Russian religious history points to these people as the means by which the self-sacrificing priest-king entered the Russian pagan pantheon shortly before the spread of Christianity, a transplant from the Norse Odin. Basil II's alliance with the Rus
The earliest polity thought to have based its power on these people's military and economic prowess is the Rus Khaganate, which emerged in the ninth century either at present-day Kiev or, more likely according to recent archaeological findings, along the Volkhov upstream of Lake Ladoga. One theory of Russian religious history points to these people as the means by which the self-sacrificing priest-king entered the Russian pagan pantheon shortly before the spread of Christianity, a transplant from the Norse Odin. Basil II's alliance with the Rus led to his forming an elite unit comprised of these people, and the Greece Runestones, found in numerous locations in Sweden, memorialize those who died as Byzantine mercenaries. For ten points, give the name for these Scandinavian traders and warriors who were powerful in medieval Russia and whose namesake guard fell to Alp Arslan's Turks at the Battle of Manzikert.
The earliest polity thought to have based its power on these people's military and economic prowess is the Rus Khaganate, which emerged in the ninth century either at present-day Kiev or, more likely according to recent archaeological findings, along the Volkhov upstream of Lake Ladoga.
{Varangians}