The nomadic Cuman people, driven from their homelands by the Mongol storm.

780 years ago today in 1240 A.D., the city of Kiev, the ancient capital of the Kievan Rus', was plundered and slaughtered by the Mongol horde of Batu Khan, grandson of the great Genghis Khan. From this moment onwards, Kiev would cease in its role as the spiritual, economic, and political capital of the Rus’.

The Kievan Rus' had been in decline well before the horsemen emerged out of the steppes. A string of weak rulers, internal dynastic struggles, and the decline of trading partners such as the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate along with the eastward push of the Prussian Crusade by the Teutonic Knights, had all served to leave the federation of the Rus' weak and enfeebled by the turn of the 13th century. 

It was in this state of growing decrepitude that word of a nameless terror rising out of the expanses of the east had first reached the ears of Kievan princes.

 The nomadic Cuman people, driven from their homelands by the Mongol storm, had warned that all would fall to the sword of the Khan if they did not band together against the coming onslaught. 

Though a grand coalition was indeed forged to face the threat, they were cut to pieces like chaff at the Kalka River in 1223 A.D. in what was the bloody and climactic end of Jebe and Subutai’s three year-long cavalry rampage through the Middle East and the Caucasus.

 Fortunately, for Kiev, the mighty Genghis Khan had died in 1227 A.D and so the 20,000 horsemen had returned to the Mongol heartland. 

This afforded the Princes of the Rus’ to lick their wounds. The Mongols however did not so easily forget of the bountiful lands which lay ripe for the taking to the West. In 1235 A.D the earth had begun to shake and quake once again as the horde decided to return to the land of the Rus' with the intention now of conquering the territory.

Equipped with Chinese and Islamic siege expertise and machinery, the Mongols smashed down the walls of all those cities who dared resist them. 

One by one the cities of the Rus’ fell to the near unstoppable power of the horde till all that remained was Kiev itself. 

The old Varangian city at this time was controlled by the principality of Halych-Volhynia, the city's 1,000 strong garrison commanded by Voivode Dmitr. 

Coming towards them was an army beyond reckoning, most likely numbering in the tens of thousands.

Batu Khan's cousin, Möngke, led the vanguard to the city and reportedly was so impressed by the its splendour that he sent envoys in to negotiate a surrender rather than see it turned to ashes. Preferring to stand and fight than submit to the eastern conquerors, Dmitr killed the envoys.

With Mongol mercy being a rare gift, this act typically served to provoke the wrath of the horde and this was no exception. Catapults were deployed and the word was given to pulverise the walls into rubble.

 For seven days and seven nights the Mongol siege engines hammered the ancient walls till finally they buckled and collapsed.

 With the mighty fortifications no more, the horsemen surged through the breach and brought their fury to bear upon their prey.

 Close quarters street-to-street fighting ensued with the Kievans suffering heavy losses. As night fell, the Mongols halted their advance and allowed fear and panic to set in on the terrified populace.

 The survivors gathered about the Church of Tithes, desperately hoping that there they might be saved by their God. 

So many had crowded into the church in fact that a balcony came crashing down under their weight and crushed a great many people. 

On the final day, the sun arose from the horizon and the Mongols moved in for the kill and finished off what resistance was left. No God came to the salvation of the souls crushed into the Church of Tithes. When the Mongols were finished hacking flesh from bone, they set the great city afire.

 When the Mongols had entered, the city had been home to some 50,000 people. When they departed the burning city, there were but 2,000 left alive.

 Amongst the survivors was Dmitr himself whose life Batu Khan had deliberately spared on account of his great bravery in the face of certain death. 

With Kiev reduced to ashes, the horde now continued to knife its inexorable way westward.

 The eyes of all Christendom looked on in horror as the eastern horizon glowed red and orange with fire.

 In just a few months, the great horde would be making mincemeat out of the knights of Hungary and Poland at Mohi and Leignitz. 

While the Mongols were not to make any permanent mark on Central Europe, in the Slavic lands of what is now Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, they were to cast a long shadow.

 Under Mongol rule the Russian princes were forced to pay tribute to their overlords from the east. 

This submission to the Khans was to finally see its end when the princes of Muscovy learned to use Mongolian hegemony to their advantage and emerged in the late Middle Ages as the new leading Russian state. By then Moscow, and not Kiev, would be the new capital of the Rus’.