Yaroslav. Tysyachu let nazad (2010)

The film’s events take place around 1010, roughly toward the end of Yaroslav’s rule in Rostov. Yaroslav is the son of Vladimir, “the Baptizer of Rus,” and would later be called “the Wise.” It has been twenty years since his father appointed him to govern the eastern lands of the Upper Volga region. There, in the remote, impassable forests of northeastern Rus, live Finnic and Ugric tribes that have not yet converted to Christianity, as well as Slavic tribes that are still few in these parts. These tribes are peaceful and, for the most part, “know no weapons,” making them targets for brutal capture and sale into slavery. The forest people are captured and sold both by Russian princes and boyars who came there from the west and by their southeastern neighbors, the Bulgars and Khazars, who ship newly captured slaves south along the Volga to centers of the international slave trade. The film depicts the Rostov prince Yaroslav’s struggle against overt and clandestine slave trading in his lands; the love story between him and Raida, daughter of the chief of a fictional “Bear Tribe” invented by the film’s authors; and Yaroslav’s efforts to unite the local forest tribes around Rostov and spread Christianity among them. In governing, Yaroslav relies on his ancient kinsmen: a band of hired northern warriors, the Varangians. The Varangians, however, are still not Christians either, which often leads to misunderstandings between them and the “Rus,” and even to open betrayal and hostility. The film’s central event is Prince Yaroslav’s founding of the city of Yaroslavl on the site of the destroyed “pagan” sanctuary of the “Bear Tribe.”