Dmitry Alekseevich Machinsky (1937-2012) - a prominent Russian historian and archaeologist, a long-term employee of the Hermitage, a soulful interpreter of Russian history and literature. All his multifaceted activities of the scientist were subordinate to the main task - the study of the historical context of the isolation of the Slavic community, the peculiarities of the formation of the ethnosocium "Rus" and the processes that led to the formation of the first Russian state. The field of his research was all the most striking phenomena of the prehistory of Russia, from the Maykop culture and monuments of the Khakass-Minusinsk depression (IV-III millennium BC. e.), including the Scythian era, the early colonization period of the development of the Northern Black Sea region by the Greeks and the Greco-Scythian contacts, before the barbaric world of Europe in the first centuries of the new era. D. A. Machinsky perceived these processes as the germination of the future "tree of Russia." D. A. Machinsky was going to combine his most important articles into a book. In this edition of the works, an attempt is made to fulfill this intention.