In the monograph of the candidate of geographical sciences V.I. Paranin, a fundamentally new interpretation of the origin of the Old Russian state is given - for the first time its emergence is considered as a result of political and economic processes of an international scale. On the basis of linguistic, toponymic, anthropological, archaeological and folklore data, the local rather than foreign origin of Russia, which was part of the circle of Baltic-Finnish peoples who from time immemorial lived in the north of Eastern Europe, is also proved for the first time. The book is designed not only for specialists, but also for a wide range of readers interested in the problems of history.