In this book, the author seeks to show the beginning of the history of Kievan Rus, one of the largest states of medieval Europe, and its further transformation into a system of principalities of the era of feudal fragmentation. Chronologically, the book covers the time from the 9th to the beginning of the 13th century. The presentation is based on annals, foreign evidence, legal codes and ancient literature, archaeological data are involved. The book consists of separate essays, which in their totality should give an idea of ​ ​ the village, city and castle of feudal Russia, about the wars with the Polovtsy and about the political history of Russian lands for the first five centuries of the existence of the feudal state.