The time of the creation of Great Russia was a turning point not only in domestic, but throughout world history. In the fires of civil strife, the once brilliant Kievan Rus died. In the agony of the bloody massacre, the great steppe empire, the Golden Horde, fell apart and writhed. The most cultural, most glorious empire of the Middle Ages, Byzantium, was dying painfully from its own diseases. And suddenly something new, completely different, began to rise from the general chaos, from the mess of helpless small principalities. Russia.