Early Russia
Ukrainian landscape
People have lived in Russia since at least 500 BC, when some of them were called the Scythians. Russian people had some hard times between about 300 and 600 AD, when they were invaded by the Ostrogoths, the Avars, and the Huns.
But the first time that those people united into one country was about 800 AD (the same time as Charlemagne in Western Europe).
Santa Sophia cathedral in Novgorod (1050 AD)
About this time, Vikings from Scandinavia (modern Norway, Denmark, and Sweden) discovered that they could trade with the Byzantine Empire on the Black Sea by sailing down the Volga and Dnieper rivers, through Russia. When they did this in the 800's AD, they met the Slavs, who were also moving into Russia, and together the Vikings and the Slavs united Russia into a kingdom with its capital at Novgorod.
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