Askold and Dir

According to the "Tale of Bygone Years", in 866 Askold and Dir made a campaign to Constantinople. Arrived on 200 ships Russ have ruined vicinities of capital Byzantium. However the risen storm has broken Russian courts on coastal rocks. Only few managed to be rescued and to return home. Letters connect storm with intervention of the higher forces as the quiet sea was excited after immersing by Byzantines in his waters of a riza of the Virgin from church in Blachernae; shocked by this miracle, Russ has accepted a christening there and then. Modern researchers consider that this story is completely borrowed from the Byzantium sources, and names Askold and Dir Russian chroniclers have joined to it later. Messages of annals XVI-XVII of centuries also are based on the Byzantium sources. In 882 the Novgorod prince Oleg, who came to Kiev, killed Askold and Dir and seized the city.