Talk:Route from the Varangians to the Greeks

Untitled
It is interesting that this article can talk about this trade route and avoid mentioning the Varangians as anything but a geographic location.--Wiglaf 06:36, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * You are more than welcome to add info about the Varangians. If you followed the COTW discussion of this article, there are very few books on this topic. I translated this text from the Soviet Encyclopedia. Obviously, they paid more attention to Kievan Rus'. KNewman 06:46, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
 * Of course :).--Wiglaf 07:03, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Title
The title of the article sounds kind of strange...it needs to be "more English-sounding." That's the best way I can describe it. Right now it sounds like, yes, you translated it from Russian :) "The Viking Road to Byzantium" is the name (in English) of a book on this subject, but that probably wouldn't work. What about "Varangian-Byzantine trade route", or something like that? Adam Bishop 04:10, 6 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree. The name of the article is a direct translation from Russian and Varangian-Byzantine trade route sounds more idiomatic. Would KNewman object to renaming the article?--Wiglaf 07:13, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't mind, of course. I just wasn't sure about its official name in English, so I translated it word for word. KNewman 02:07, May 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * discussion continues under "Idäntien Kulkijat" below...--HilmarHansWerner (talk) 10:53, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Idäntien Kulkijat = Eastway Wanderers
This is in my opinion the correct transliteration for the Varakkis / Varjags (armed Pedlars) who travelled through Roshland to Constantinople, Byzantium (Miikkeli / Miklagård / Miklagard) and to Caspian Sea along Valgia (Valka) Raw, Itel, later Russians Volga. The Rootshis / Ruotshis appeared to these river routes c. after 550. They left their mark to Russian history in place names which exists still today. Originally they were not of Scandinavian origin, but of Finno Baltic origin. The Scandinavian pedlars joined later, c. 750 - 850 to Eastway Wanderers. They have not left any signigicant place names in todays Russian map exept Novgorod, (Nygård) which in fact, had also at least eight other names. The key is knowledge of Finno Ugrian languages.

Suomenlahti / Soomelaht / Finskaviken /Kvenoviken = Bay of Finland (Kvenoland) Nevajoki = Neva River (neva = march, swamp, fen) = Fen River

Nevajärvi, later Laatokka = Lake Fen (Russian Ozero Ladozhkoje)

Alavanmaanjoki,later Olhavanjoki = Low Land River (Russian Reka Volhov)

Ilmajärvi, Ilmjärv = Air Lake (Russian Ozero Ilmen)

Palajoki = Bit River (Russian Reka Pola)

Valtavan mäet = Enermous Hills (Russian Kheberet Valdai ) = Valdai Uphills or Valdai Uplands.

Rootshien / Ruotshien Kannas = Rosh Isthmus ( Roshihij Peresheek)

Valgiajogi (Valkajoki) = White River (Russian Mother Volga)

Raw = Mordvan name of Valgia River

Itel = Tatar (Turkic) name for Valgia / Volga River

Väinäjoki = Latvian Daugava River, (Russian Zapadnaja Dvina)

Tesnajoki = (Russian Desna)

Lovattijoki = (Russian Reka Lovat)

Dnjepr (already in area settled by Eastern Slavs, no ancient Finno Baltic name traced yet)

Kijav, Kijev = Kvenugård / Kvenugard / Kainuunlinna / Kywa

JN


 * Your source seems to have purged the account of Scandinavians, so I did some fact checking, and checked with the source you refer to :). Concerning the name, there is no "official" name in English. Adam Bishop thinks that it does not sound idiomatic in English, and perhaps the "varangian road to Byzantium" would be the most accurate solution.--Wiglaf 08:16, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

I have tried to Google the most common name for this route in English, and changed the name. I hope that nobody objects.--Wiglaf 15:32, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Should be moved to Varangian-Greek Trade Route. --Macarion 00:01, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Magocsi (A History of Ukraine, 1996) refers to it by the translated name in quotation marks, as the “watercourse ‘from the Varangians to the Greeks’”. I think the current title Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks is fine. —Michael Z. 2006-09-21 18:08 Z 

I have finally moved to a more idiomatic title. Adam Bishop 08:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, Ghirlandajo, we discussed this a year and a half ago, what is the problem now? Adam Bishop 16:57, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 * There are absolutely no references or precedence for "Varangian-Byzantine trade route", it is a neologism! Moving back to the old name; this is how it has been known for a millenium. -- Petri Krohn 21:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * why should one not introduce the simple term "the varangian route" or "the viking route" (better because more people would understand it immediately), including the volga-branch in the notion, like everbody talks about the "silk road" which also had serveral branches and ends... a substantial difference would be that "the viking route" was not a 'road' but mostly a water-way (for that reason the general term route would be more suitable). one could then distinguish between the branches "the viking-route to byzantium" and "the viking-route to bagdad". --HilmarHansWerner (talk) 10:59, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

First steps to a map


I've made an initial version of a map with locations plotted for this article, at Image:Route from the Varangians to the Greeks.png. It still needs the actual route plotted, but it's easy to recreate in line-art format, if you're handy with Illustrator. Details are on the image description page.

For an example of how it should look, see Magocsi (1996) A History of Ukraine, p. 59. —Michael Z. 2006-09-22 02:04 Z 
 * who put the albanians on the map? wha that's a good joke.89.205.59.137 (talk) 20:23, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Rapid names and translations
The names for the rapids, spelling and above all, meanings are definetly more ambiguous than given here. See Blöndal: "The Varangians of Byzantium" and Ellis Davidson "The Viking Road to Byzantium". In general it appears that this article is based on a very narrow source of information. Aiforr 03:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Why not up the Western Dvina River??
can anyboldy please explain why the vikings/varangians took the route via newa, wolchow and lowat instead of going through riga and directly into and up the western dvina river?? political-military reasons?? thank you? --HilmarHansWerner (talk) 10:41, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Interests of the German Merchants?
could somebody give me clues if there existed a provable interest of the germans, particularly the german merchants from the rich south, who, as far as I know, were behind the financing of the activities of the teutonic knights to establish prussia (i.e. a trade bridge head to the baltic sea), in pushing north-eastwards to get into touch with the viking-trade-system with its links to the near and the far east via the silk-road? did they want to open up an alternative to going through the (expensive) spheres of influence of venice and genoa? was that a (substantial) motive of the german settlement-movement called "colonization of the east"? thanx! --HilmarHansWerner (talk) 10:41, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Map of contemporary politics....
...sorry, but these map shows contemporary politics and not just the described route from the chronicles through Kiev and Novgorod which brought the East Slavs the religion, alphabet, traditions.

The purple route from the first map shows the original route which is described here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/d/dd/20090308155934%21Varangian_routes.png

but a more accurate map is here without all these politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Route_from_the_Varangians_to_the_Greeks.png (18.283, 57.633, Visby (Gotland) 17.717, 59.617, Sigtuna 32.300, 59.983, Staraya Ladoga 31.267, 58.533, Novgorod 28.800, 55.483, Polatsk 32.050, 54.783, Smolensk 31.300, 51.500, Chernihiv 30.500, 50.583, Vyshhorod [hidden: overlaps Kiev] 30.523, 50.450, Kiev 29.000, 41.000, Constantinople)

The route began in Scandinavian trading centers such as Birka, Hedeby, and Gotland, crossed the Baltic Sea, entered the Gulf of Finland, and followed the Neva River into Lake Ladoga. Then it followed the Volkhov River upstream past the towns of Staraya Ladoga and Velikiy Novgorod, crossed Lake Ilmen, and continued up the Lovat River, the Kunya River and possibly the Seryozha River [ru]. From there, a portage led to the Toropa River [ru] and downstream to the Western Dvina River. From the Western Dvina, the ships went upstream along the Kasplya River and were portaged again to the Katyn River, a tributary of the Dnieper. Along the Dnieper, the route crossed several major rapids and passed through Kiev. After entering the Black Sea, it followed its west coast to Constantinople

This article and map is just politics and nothing more. From a culturally standpoint these map is very bad and it even looks, sorry to say that, like manipulation--85.212.189.130 (talk) 01:13, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Austrvegr
Redirects here but is nowhere mentioned. Srnec (talk) 23:08, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

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 * Varangians at Black Sea.jpg