Where did the Rus’ come from before settling in the area of nowadays russia and ukraine?

Answer 1

The Rus' descended from Kyi and his family, the founders of the city of Kyiv on the Dniper River (modern Kyiv, Ukraine).

Although the actual origin of Kyi is debated, here is a link of relatively detailed origin: http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/pages/K/Y/KyivanRushDA.htm

My experience with Eastern Ukrainians is that they accept that Kyi was actually of Nordic origin, preceeding the invasion of the Varangians, who are considered the foundation of Kyivan-Rus state.

Personally, I think that the early sculptures of this family look more Nordic.

Answer 2

The Rus' were groups of Slavic speaking peoples from the regions near the former Yugoslavian state. The Idea that they were originally Swedish is heavily debated. A Theory that was proposed was that these loose collections of tribes were pillaged by Swedish raiders who collect tribute from villages along the Don and Dnieper rivers, sell profits in Constantinople and return to Sweden. This process happened every couple of years. Eventually these Swedish raiders would become the first ruling class of the Rus. By becoming the ruling class, these random raids would in turn become annual taxation's.

The idea that the remote tribes could not effectively rule themselves did not sit well for national pride Russian state and was largely disputed.

Answer 3

The Rus originally came from Sweden. They had been going into that area as merchants for sometime and had set up a couple of supply posts for their trade routes down to Constantinople. When they realized that there was no real authority from the local Slavic leaders they took over that area so that they could provide security for their trade routes. The result was that many of the local villages moved into the area controlled by the Rus as that area was more secure and they could make money supplying food to the various traders that came through as well as providing laborers to haul the longboats over land from one river to another.

Answer 4

The "Russ" were a tribe kicked out of the Viking conclave and were forced to travel eastward. They navigated down the Dvina River and others into what is modern-day Kiev in the Ukraine. To this day the Norwegian word for Russia is "Rusoland".

Answer 5

The "Russia" was founded by a Viking War lord, who came to an area near St.Petersburg (I think around 900AD) with a couple of his guys and took over from the natives and gave Russia the name.
Some stories say, he was actually called for by them, like in the old west a gun slinger was called into a town to clean up.
Russia was always divided into a white Russia, which was more civilized and Western European and the "other" part. I would say that the Ukraine and western Russia is basically settled by germanic tribes, where the rest a mix with lots of Mongols in from Attila the Huns time.