In the seventh and eighth centuries, the Vikings began to explore new lands and spread to northern and western Europe, plowing seas and rivers with their flexible ships.
They raided because fighting wars and pillaging was essential to their survival.
As Danes and Norwegians occupied England and raged in France, the Swedish began to descend the rivers of Eastern Europe. In time, the Swedes dominated the Slavic population of modern day Russia, adopted their language and culture and established their own hegemony by founding cities such as Novgorod and Kiev. These people went down in history as “Rus”, from the Finnish word Ruotsi which meant rowers and in them are the roots of today’s Russia.
The Dnieper river took them to the Black Sea, and from there they reached Constantinople. The Vikings’ attempts to seize Constantinople proved futile.
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