Environmental settlement factors for Kiev:
1)high right bank of Dnieper
2)important strategic location from Baltic to Constantinople
3)trade in furs, amber, honey, salt, slaves to Byzantium,
4)return trade textiles, fruit, wine, gold
5)Kiev situated near forest -
steppe boundary
6)Slavs first hunters, trappers, apiarists, then shifting cultivation
7)cereal growing on steppes
8)location good for conquest,
9)confederation of loose, linear city-state principalities
10)penetration of Eastern Orthodox Christianity from Constantinople was important ÒglueÓ
11) St. Vladimir converted to
Christianity in 988 AD