How Russia Was Born And Grew? What's Now?

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How Russia Was Born And Grew? What’s Now?

There are different ways of learning and opinions about how Russia was born and I am not a historian nor a specialist concerning Russia. I am only an old Finnish man that has gathered knowledge, a bit here and a bit there, in the schools that I went to, in several books and magazines and in these last years, on the Internet. My viewpoint is from Scandinavia, Finland and Lapland. Let the scholars argue among themselves. I say what I understand without arguing.

In the eighth century, the earliest part of the Viking time period, there were Finnish stem tribes around the Baltic Sea and around the Ladoga Lake that lies to the east of the Gulf of Finland, which is a gulf of the Baltic Sea. The Scandinavian Vikings, mostly Swedish, robbed and conquered the tribes. However, something else must have come along also, namely an alliance.

The Vikings were known as those famous belligerent warriors that came from the Northern Countries, namely from Denmark (Danmark), Sweden (Sverige) and Norway (Norge), the last two creating the core Scandinavia. What is mostly forgotten, is that a part of the Vikings came from Finland, which is well understandable on the basis of the nature of Finnish men and what is written about Finnish heroes in Kalevala, the Finnish national epos.

All the ancient Finnish heroes, like Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen, mentioned in Kalevala, were warriors in spite of what their civil occupation was. They had a warrior raiment, deadly weapons, shields, horses and big boats with oars and sails like the other Vikings had, which the Finns called by a different name – Rus. Also, the ancient Finns were able to forge weapons and make all kinds of artifacts and clothes and imported (or robbed) a lot of articles of commerce from abroad. The latter have been found in many places in Finland.

The Vikings of those days were called by the name “Rus”, which is an old Finnish word that means “dark-red”, due to the fact that the Vikings were baked by the sun to such a color while sitting all day long in their big, open boats or ships. The Vikings were also called by the name “Varyag” (Varjag), which comes from the Swedish name of the wolf (varg), obviously because they used wolf skins in their raiment. The very name of Russia comes from the word Rus.

Also in cartoons and movies, the regular distinctive mark of the Vikings is a helmet with a pair of horns of a cow or a bull. It may be an exaggeration, and anyway not an inevitable part of the raiment of the Vikings. Still, it is understandable if some Vikings made themselves a helmet from the thick skull of a bull and that way, the horned helmet may have become their general and feared sign.

Before long, the Finns allied with the Vikings, namely with the Sweden ones, and after that, there has been a hate-love relationship between the Finns and the Swedes. Why not? They both were equal in seafaring, warring, drinking and raging, but the Swedes always wanted and still want to be the leaders. To the grumpy Finns even today, the Swedes are the “beloved enemies”. They both always watch each other and squabble among themselves about whatever matter, but never very seriously. A war between the Swedes and the Finns is out of the question. It never can happen after the Vikings stopped robbing Finnish villages, when the Swedish kings put both them and the Finns into order.

The Swedes still have a big-brother complex towards the Finns and the latter still try to stifle their feeling of inferiority, trying to overcome the Swedes in sports and many other matters as well, whenever they are able to. Even the Finnish Nokia became a world class phone company after the Swedish Ericsson had first prospered in the phone market. The Finns wanted to show the Swedes that they can do it better, and they did, at least in that market niche. Yet over all, if the Finns and the Swedes are compared with each other objectively, the latter are still the leaders in several ways. We Finns only have to try harder and wait for the next chance.

What do the Russians have to do with the squabble between the Swedes and the Finns and the latter among themselves? A lot – after the Castle of Ladoga, the first remarkable fortress there had been established in 753 on the south shore of the Ladoga Lake to control the main eastern ship route of the Vikings from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. So, it just happened that some early Finnish tribes that had paid tribute to the Vikings, decided not to pay anymore and tried to get along among themselves. They were living on the shores of the great Ladoga Lake to the south-east of the present Finland. The Swedes probably suspected the proud attempt of the Finns to take care of their own business, but did not interfere. I think they knew that the plan would fail anyway. If so, they were right.

The tribes of Ladoga could not suffer each other due to their continuous strife and wars amongst themselves. After all, they were Finns and behaved typically as the ancient Finnish tribes did, with their hands constantly on the hair and beards of each other. The same concerned the clans inside the tribes. They had no choice but to call the Swedish Vikings back with their Finnish allies from the west to keep up the order that they desperately needed.

The Viking chief Rurik came with his two brothers, ships and an army and then, he was given a fortress that had been established already, the Castle of Ladoga on the southern shore of the Ladoga Lake. The year of Rurik’s coming was 862. That is said to be the very beginning of Russia, but only the beginning. (Later about 1155, the Swedes came to Finland to be umpires for the Finns again by making their first crusade to our south-west shore.) The Rurik brothers were in a hurry while conquering Novgorod and Kiev in the same year, both at the Viking ship route to the south of Ladoga Lake.

Later, when the younger brothers of Rurik died, he was left alone and became the first emperor of a future super state. He moved his court, ships and army to the south, to Kiev,  the capital of the present day Ukraine where the East Slavs had come already. The Slavs were a mixture also, a powerful conquering nation, but Rurik conquered them anyway with his Vikings and Finnish warriors.

Eventually, the Slavs mixed with the incoming Swedes and Finns, but gave the Slavic brand to the Russians, the majority as they were. That way slowly, the historical Russia was born with a language that is a mixture that includes many old Scandinavian, Finnish and Slavic words. Later, after several wars with Byzantium (East Rome), the Russians accepted the Orthodox Christianity and the Greek culture, with the cunning Byzantine maneuvering that still can be noticed in their politics. Also, they got the Cyrillic alphabet which is a high barrier in the communication with the west.

Then came the Mongols who conquered the rising Russia, except for the Novgorod state to the south of the Ladoga Lake. Novgorod was a hard rival and enemy of Sweden, which included Finland also at that time. After several centuries, the Muscovites, one branch of Russians, eventually overcame the Mongol rule and got the overpower in Russia. However, a lot of Mongol genes and culture were mixed with Russia permanently. Following the government model of East Rome, the Russian czars organized their government system and army, and began to conquer more and more regions of the eastern nations until the Pacific Ocean and beyond to Alaska.

The Soviet Union was only a reasonably short episode of the long Russian history. Its collapse did not stop the ancient Russian march, and the conquering process still continues. It does not promise anything good to the independence of Finland, Ukraine and other countries that have belonged to Russia some time in their history, or concerning some parts of those countries. Even Alaska is in a jeopardy. However, there may be an exception. Finland may be left largely alone for one reason. If Russia would annex Finland and remove the border from between, all Finnish drunks would go and roll over the entire Russian territory like a tsunami, right to the Pacific Ocean. It would be worse than the second world war!

Only Jesus Christ with His supernatural army is able to make an end of that eastern Dragon one day. The blood of numerous millions of slaughtered human beings is calling from the ground to God from the footprints of the Dragon. Even after the soon coming Millennium, the Realm of Christ, Russia will rise again for a short time, until God will destroy it totally.

It is sad to me as a Finn that our forefathers, under the lead of the forefathers of the present day benign Swedes, have participated in the creation of such a monster that seriously wants to conquer and rule the entire world by force and cunning. However, the situation is not better in the west where an equal beast, the Beast in different forms, has done the same that Russia has done in the east, but that is another story.

The both beasts are the heirs of ancient Rome, West Rome and East Rome, which have never really disappeared. Now, both beasts are about to take measure of each other, which would mean the destruction of the whole world if God would allow it. However, the statue of Daniel is about to collapse and because it is prophesied in the Bible to come, the evil forces cannot destroy the entire earth. The Rock (Jesus Christ) is about to hit the feet and toes of the combined giant that will be crushed and disappear.

Praise God, we know that Jesus Christ will come soon, destroy all the earthly beasts, imprison Satan, the ultimate troublemaker with his hordes and set all things in order in the world. We only have to endure until the moment when Jesus steps upon the earth again.

Kauko Loukas