The rivalry of the princes, together with the increasing power of Suzdal, the remote northeastern division of Russia, were destined to bring ruin to the ancient, magnificent capital of the realm. Andrei Bogoliubski, son of Iuri Dolgoruki, and prince of Suzdal, assembled an army composed of the men of his three cities, Rostof, Vladimir, Suzdal, and descended upon Kief. The Russia of the Forests, remote from Byzantine and from western civilization, had been silently developing resources of strength and of wealth from within; and was ready, at this time, to measure lances with the Russia of the Steppes, a region ever exposed to the invasions of barbarians, and of rival princes who were willing to take the barbarians into military service against Russian kinsmen. In this state of affairs, the peaceful advance of industrial civilization, or a firm system of government could no longer be hoped for upon its soil. The northern Russians took the city by assault. “Many times had she been besieged and brought to extremity,” writes Karamsin. “She had opened her Golden Gate to her foes; but till that day, none had ever forced it. To their shame, the victors forgot that they, too, were Russians. For three days the grandson of Vladimir Monomakh pillaged the mother of his own cities. The houses, monasteries, churches, the Temple of the Tithe, the sacred Saint Sophia were demolished. The precious images, the priestly vestments, the books and the bells”—the latter especially dear to the Russian heart—“all were despoiled or borne away by the ruthless soldiery of Suzdal.” Thus dishonored (1169) fell the capital of Oleg, Iaroslaf, and Vladimir the Baptist; and with her was obscured the _prestige_, the power and glory of Southern Russia. The metropolis of the realm, in the course of subsequent events, was transferred from the Dnieper to the Moskova. The Russia of the Steppes, gorgeous with Byzantine art, illustrious with the learning, the wisdom of the Orient, the fertile, beautiful realm whose fame had reached the ends of the earth, was left a prey to the hordes that swarmed along its river banks, and to the Olgovitchi of Tchernigof, unrelenting foemen, though kinsmen of her princes. Her ancient glory was departed. Nothing was left save the “warm soil,” the genial airs and golden sun that in the former days had allured the mighty Variags from the borean forests of the north.