It is a mistake to imagine that the very first foundations of Russian intellectual development were laid by Peter the Great and that Russia, although behind western Europe in culture and civilisation, is still in her youthful vigour and freshness and will soon overtake the old world. There was a time, at the beginning of the eleventh century, when the Slavonic countries under the rule of the Norman conquerors were on the same level of civilisation as western Europe. The foundations were laid before the Norman invasion and very frequent were the relations between this people in the east and those in the north of Europe. Long before the ninth century, Kiev was known to the inhabitants of Scandinavia. Many a jarl sought refuge there and many a merchant ship found its way to the shores of Russia. On the road along which the commercial connection between the East Sea and Byzantium developed were situated the towns of Smolensk, Tchernigov, Pereiaslavl (cf. V. der Brüggen, _Wie Russland Europaisch Wurde_, p. 22). When the Norman princes, the warags as they were called by the Slavonic nations, conquered these towns and subdued one tribe after the other, the already existing civilisation developed rapidly under the protection of the new rulers. Forth from Byzantium and Greece, from Italy, Poland, and Germany, with which countries the descendants of Rurik kept up a connection, western influence came to the north. Learned monks came from Byzantium, architects, artisans, and merchants from Greece, Italy and Germany, and were instrumental in spreading the languages, customs and ideas of the west. Not only did the _kniazi_ (princes) of Kiev build churches and edifices after the model of Greek and Italian art, but they established schools to which Vladimir compelled his nobles and boyars to send their children. The commercial relations with the west and the south were very vivid and frequent, and on the market places of Kiev and Novgorod a motley crowd of Normans and Slavs, Hungarians, Greeks, Venetians, Germans, Arabs, and Jews were to be seen.