The Soviet Empire, like many such conglomerations, slowly evolved out of centuries of aggression, anarchy and pure accident. About 500 years ago, the Muscovy state that was beginning to emerge from Mongol rule extended over just a few hundred miles on the upper reaches of the Volga. Today the U.S.S.R. represents one-sixth of the world's landmass, and its 289 million people include Armenians, Buddhists, Muslims, Tatars, Uzbeks, Yakuts -- more than a hundred different national and religious groups united mainly by their mistrust of their rulers and one another.
Before this empire was even born, the fertile steppe north of the Black Sea was repeatedly swept by nomadic tribes from Central Asia. The first known invaders were the fierce Scythians, who swarmed in from the east around 700 B.C., driving out the resident Cimmerians. The Greek historian Herodotus, who lived for a time in the Black Sea trading post of Olbia, wrote with a shudder that the Scythians' customs "are not such as I admire." Among them: human sacrifice, blinding of slaves and drinking from the skulls of fallen enemies. Still stronger tribes kept invading and conquering this region that is now the Ukraine: first the Sarmatians; then, in Roman times, the Goths and Huns; then, after the fall of Rome, the Avars and Khazars. The Khazar dynasty took the unusual course of adopting Judaism in about A.D. 740, whereupon Jewish refugees from Christian Constantinople helped create a Golden Age of trade and learning on the Black Sea.
Somewhat to the north, a people known as the East Slavs began settling in the dense forests in about A.D. 500, finally occupying an area from what is now Leningrad to Kiev. From their forests, they shipped furs and honey down the Dnieper to the imperial capital of Constantinople. In 862, according to a 12th century document known as the Primary Chronicle, there occurred a semi- legendary encounter when the quarreling Slavs sent a delegation to Scandinavia to negotiate with the Vikings, whom they called Varangians, specifically with a tribe known as the Rus. "Our whole land is great and rich, but there is no order in it," said the Slavs. "Come to rule and reign over us." Though patriotic Soviet historians have strenuously challenged this % saga, the Chronicle reports that a Viking Rus named Rurik went to take over the region, and that it "became known as the land of the Rus."
Rurik's sons and grandsons not only united the Slavs of the Dnieper Valley but also were soon trying to expand. In 907 Prince Oleg invaded the Eastern Roman Empire with 2,000 ships, "accomplished much slaughter among the Greeks" and supposedly nailed his shield to the imperial gates of Constantinople. From this foray, the Russians brought home to their capital in Kiev an advantageous trade treaty and an even more advantageous contact with the Christian religion and sophisticated culture of Constantinople. Thus emerged the first Russian state, known as Kievan Russia.