For several days in succession the slaying of people and the destruction of buildings continued. The Vladimir Church fell; the Sophia Cathedral, built by Yaroslav the Lawgiver, endured best of any; the body of that church remained sound, and there is one uninjured part of the wall, on which is an image of the Virgin, preserved to the present. Of the Catacomb Monastery, the ancient church and walls were destroyed; of the Golden Gate, built by Yaroslav, only ruins remained. The more violently the people defended the remnant of their city, and fought out their last hour, the more joyously did the destroyers carry on the destruction. They slew old men and children to the last one. If in other cities they had taken pleasure in general slaughter and devastation, they took tenfold more pleasure now. The strong places and the sanctuaries of a city were never overthrown with such fury, and never were the Mongols so relentless as in Kief, the city of churches. The destroyers did not spare even tombs; they forced them open, and with their heels crushed the skulls and broke the bones of the ancient princes. The havoc was so great that during the entire fourteenth century which followed, and in the fifteenth century, a large part of the city remained a desert covered with refuse. The remnants of stone buildings which had stood for centuries sank into the ground, dust drifted in over them, and then was concealed all those ruins. Of that Kief which, in the days both of Yaroslav the Lawgiver and Monomach, was compared by travelers with Tsargrad, there remained only the memory. It fell December, 1240, and was never renewed in its former magnificence, even to our day. The defender of Kief, Daniel’s boyar, Dmitri, was brought half alive before Batu, who repeated these words of praise: “The Russians know well how to drink the cup of death.” He gave him his life, and took the hero with him in his campaign against Volynia and Galitch. The boyar, continuing to serve his prince, strove to lead the Khan from ruining Galitch. He advised him to go quickly and take vengeance on the King of Hungary for harboring Kotyan and his Polovtsi, saying: “It is time to go against the Hungarians; unless thou go now they will gather great forces and exclude thee forever. Their land is a strong one.” Thus spoke Dmitri to Batu, while, in mind, he was weeping over Galitch.