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By Root 3297 0

runs eastwards a pleasant minor river called the Kliasma. It was upon this river, a little to the east of the loop’s centre, that Monomakh had set up the present capital of Vladimir. Other fine cities like Suzdal, Rostov or Tver, all lay in the northern half of the loop. The southern half of the loop, however, until one came to the cities on the Oka – Riazan and Murom – contained very little except hamlet, forest and marsh. It was here, in the southern half of the loop between the Kliasma and Oka Rivers, that the boyar Milei owned an estate. From this place a stream obligingly ran northwards up to the Kliasma, not far from Vladimir. It was also possible, some miles away, to pick up other streams, that led south to the sluggish Oka.

The boyar Milei’s grandfather who had been given the place had decided he did not like its barbarous Finnish name; and so he had renamed both the little stream that ran northwards and the settlement beside it. He named them after an estate he was fond of, in the south: the stream he called the Rus, and the village, Russka.

There were many such names that were carried like this from the south into the north.

It was not a bad place, and the winter that the boyar Milei spent there had convinced him that it had more possibilities than he had supposed. ‘Indeed,’ he told his wife, ‘from what I’ve discovered at Russka, we could make it highly profitable. All we need is more people.’ But then, finding enough peasants was the perennial problem of the Russian landlord.

The next spring, he returned to Murom to find his house outside the city walls burned down, but the large cache of coins he had hidden deep under the floor still quite safe. For the time being there had been plenty to do, for the Mongol invasion left much to repair. But the little village of Russka was often in his mind.

‘We must attend to it when we have time,’ he often remarked.

And so, late in the summer of 1246, he was surprised and delighted to find before him two peasants from his estate in the south.

Since the Mongol invasion, he had found it harder than ever to get enough peasants to work his land. So far he had only managed to add three families of Mordvinians to the settlement at Russka. ‘And two of those are drunk most of the time,’ his steward told him mournfully.

Now, as Yanka looked up at this tall, powerful man with his fair beard, only half grey, and his broad Turkish face, she saw nothing but friendliness. His hard blue eyes beamed. ‘I have the very place for you,’ he announced. ‘The Russka of the north.’

‘I’ve no money,’ her father lied.

The boyar gazed at him, not deceived for a second. ‘It’s more profit to me to give you land and have you work it than get no return at all,’ he replied. ‘You can build yourself a house – the villagers will help you. And my steward will take you there and set you up with everything else you need. You’ll repay me over time.’

He questioned them about their journey, and when he heard they had come with another family, with two strong sons, he at once made an offer to them too.

But they refused. ‘The offer’s good,’ their travelling companion told Yanka’s father, ‘but I don’t want a landlord. Come with us,’ he urged instead.

‘No,’ her father was shaking his head. ‘We prefer to remain. Good luck to you though.’

The next day, their companions were on their way. ‘God knows what they’ll do up by the Volga,’ her father growled. ‘We’re safer in the village.’ Then he turned away.

Russka.

This northern Russka was a very different place from the village in the south that she had left.

Its only similarity was that, like most Russian villages, it lay beside a river: that was all.

At the site chosen for the settlement, the river made a large, S-shaped curve. The western bank here was about fifty feet higher than the eastern, so that the curve formed a promontory on the west side, and left a large, sheltered space on the eastern bank just below it. This sheltered area had been made into a meadow.

There had once been a settlement in this meadow; but over time it had been moved for greater