Why is Russia so hard to understand — even for the experts? From its vast empire to its shifting identity between East and West, Russia’s story is one of power, paradox, and destiny. Join historian David Clark as he unpacks a thousand years of ambition, conflict, and transformation — revealing how Russia became the force it is today.

This episode takes you back to where Russia’s story truly began — on the vast plains between Europe and Asia, where Vikings met Slavs and a new civilization took shape.
It’s a tale of power, trade, and identity — how Kievan Rus rose from chaos to become the seed of a great empire.
And beneath it all lies a timeless question: Is Russia part of Europe… or something entirely its own?

In 988 AD, thousands of people in Kievan Rus plunged into the Dnieper River — not to cool off, but to be baptized. That moment marked the birth of Eastern Orthodoxy in Russia, a faith that would shape the nation’s soul, politics, and destiny for over a thousand years. In this episode, David Clark explores why Prince Vladimir chose Orthodoxy over other religions, how it unified the early Russian state, and how it planted the seeds of Russia’s conservatism, expansionism, and the powerful idea of being the “Third Rome.”

In this episode of A Brief History of Russia, David Clark unravels the dramatic collapse of Kievan Rus — once a flourishing and cultured medieval state — that was suddenly wiped off the map by the Mongol invasion. But as we’ll discover, this destruction was more than just tragedy; it reshaped Russia’s destiny. From the chaos of civil wars to the rise of absolute power, the Mongol conquest planted the seed for a new, centralized Russia. How could devastation give birth to an empire? Let’s find out.