EthnSkifth

A significant part of the silver in the form of Kufic (Abbasid) dirhams began to enter Scandinavia from Bulgaria, often visited by Muslim merchants from the Arab Caliphate countries for exchange trade with the local population and the Varangians who arrived there, from the end of the VIII century after the economic rapprochement of Khazaria with the Arabs [KOMAR A.V. 2017: 61, 67]. The ruling elite of the Arab Kaganate was the Anglo-Saxons [STETSYUK VALENTYN. 2023] and this simplified the formation of a trade route to the Muslim world along the Volga.

In exchange for the fur of sable, squirrel, ermine, ferret, weasel, marten, fox, beaver, goat and horse skins, wax, honey, fish glue, beaver stream, amber, and slave merchants offered luxuries and silver, the accumulation of which was a great passion for the Varangians. As far as the scale of the slave trade can be judged by the words of Ibn Fadlan, who pointed out that the Rus, arriving in Bulgaria, traditionally had to give one «head» from every dozen slaves to the local tsar. From this, it can be concluded that the total number of slaves brought with each Varangian caravan consisted maybe of hundreds of ships.

From the Oka, merchant vessels could go up the Moscow River and through the Ruza, Vazuza, and Dnieper Rivers to get to the Western Dvina. This way is not easy, because several times they would have to pull ships from the river to the river by dragging. The trek lasted several months and from time to time it was necessary to make stops to provide food taken from the local population, which required certain expenses.

However, the Great Volga Route stands out among all the main thoroughfares, connecting Europe with Asia. It is evaluated as «outstanding geopolitical, cultural, transport and trade, international and interstate importance.» Export-import operations on it brought fabulous profits to merchants, reaching 1000 %. [KIRPICHNIKOV A.N. 2006, 34]. Particularly profitable was the trade with slaves.

The slave trade is connected with logistical difficulties, so the acquisition of them by the Ruses should have taken place in the area nearest to Bulgaria. The towns of Rostov and Suzdal, the future centers of the principality didn’t lie on the main trade routes, so the slave trade was only the base of their subsequent raising. Local princes supplied slaves for the Ruses to the ports on the Oka and Volga at the time of flourishing trade with the countries of the Caliphate. The local princes, in exchange for silver dirhams, supplied the Varangians with slaves to the ports on the Oka and Volga during the heyday of trade with the countries of the Caliphate. Trade with Abbasid Tabaristan on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and Samanid Central Asia proceeded in two directions:

and Samanid Central Asia proceeded in twor directions:

during the first eighty years of the IX cen. Islamic silver entered Eastern Europe from the Middle East through the Caucasus / Caspian Sea and Khazaria, between about 900 and the beginning of the XI cen., it was delivered there mainly from Samanid Central Asia through South Ural steppes and Volga Bulgaria. This flow of Central Asian dirhams ceased in the second decade of the XI cen. [KOVALEV R.K. 2015: 96-97].