Coat of arms
The reigns of Vladimir the Great (980–1015) and his son Yaroslav I the Wise (1019–1054) constitute the Golden Age of Kiev, which saw the acceptance of Christianity and the creation of the first East Slavic written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda. The early leaders of Rus' were most likely a Scandinavian warrior-elite that ruled a majority of Slavic subjects.[3] Scandinavians gradually intermarried and merged with the Slavic population&_160;— the third known ruler of Rus', Sviatoslav I, Rurik's grandson, already has a Slavic name. Michael Psellus asserts that Scandinavians continued to remain in control until at least the mid-11th century.[4] The state's power gradually fell due to the decline of Constantinople, the drying up of trade routes, and the subsequent Mongol invasion of Rus'.
In the early ninth the northern tribes of Rus' people became loosely organized under the Rus' Khaganate according to several non-Russian historians. That political entity may be regarded as a predecessor state to the Kievan Rus'.[5] According to the Primary Chronicle, the earliest chronicle of Kievan Rus', a Varangian (Viking) named Rurik first established himself in Novgorod, located in modern Russia (he was selected as common ruler by several Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes) in about 860 before moving south and extending his authority to Kiev, the capital of modern day Ukraine. The chronicle cites him as the progenitor of the Rurik Dynasty. The Primary Chronicle says
