Oleschje
Oleschje ( Russian Олешье ) was a fortified port of the Kievan Rus on the lower reaches of the Dnieper and next to Beresan , Tmutarakan and Belaya Wescha one of several old Russian exclaves in the areas of nomadic Turkic peoples . The settlement was founded in the 10th century. There may have been a Greek trading post at this point before. The name Oleschje comes from Olcha, the alder . The port fortress had the task of controlling the strategically important estuary of the Dnepr into the Black Sea , since the Dnieper represented an essential part of the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks , around which the Kievan Rus grew. It is known that Russian princes often received Byzantine ambassadors and church representatives in Oleschje. Oleschje was about a thousand kilometers away from the southern border of the Old Russian Empire, which ran along the Ros River . The steppe areas in between, known as the Wild Field , were the home of various equestrian peoples such as the Pechenegs or the Polowzer (Cumans, Kyptschaks), who repeatedly attacked Oleschje. The Mongol invasion of the Rus in the 13th century marked the end of Oleschje.
literature
- П. П. Толочко: Киев и Киевская земля в эпоху феодальной раздробленности XII – XIII веков. Наукова думка. Киев, 1980.