When the eastern Slavs trekked north and eastwards from south central Europe some fifteen hundred years ago, they found themselves in a strange terrain, flat and marshy, interspersed with broad rivers. Some tribes headed south from Kiev through a tree-less steppe of feather grass so high it could conceal a horse and rider, a country which Nikolai Gogol describes in Taras Bulba as ‘a land of the tall embrace, of a greenish-yellow ocean sprinkled with millions of spring flowers.’

Other tribes went due east, clearing a way by axe and fire through a forest of fir, pine, silver birch and larch, well watered by bog and lake, nourishing great numbers of wild animals: elk and wolf, bear and wild boar, and many fur-bearing rodents. Still others paddled their canoes along the Volga and Dvina rivers northwards, past Novgorod and Pskov, through solid pine forests to lakes Ladoga and Onega. All these varied lands settled by the eastern Slavs became known as Rus or Russia. Initially three of the tribes were called according to hair colour: red, black and white Russians. The white Russians - Belorus - retain their name to this day; the black Russians became ‘Little’ or ‘Minor Russians’, and then the people living on the borderlands (okraina) - ‘Ukrainians’. The red Russians became ‘Great Russians’, then simply Russians.

According to Russian historian Vasili Kliuchevskii (18 1-1911), we must learn about the Russian forest, river and steppe in order to understand the Russian people. In his Course of Russian History (written down by his students at Moscow University from his lecture notes), he wrote (Kliuchevskii 1901: I, 27):

But life in the forest was tough and dangerous; a way had to be hacked through the thick undergrowth; trees had to be cut down to make a clearing for huts and cattle; wolves and bears stalked man and beast. It was an awe-inspiring world of weird sounds and menacing shadows. The forest taught caution and kindled fantasy.