RURIK AND HIS DESCENDANTS The Russian Slavs were an agricultural, not a warlike, people.

They fought bravely, but naked to the waist, and with no idea of military organization, so were of course no match for the Turks, well skilled in the arts of war, nor for the armed bands of Scandinavian merchants, who made their territory a highway by which to reach the Greek provinces.
All the Slav asked was to be permitted to gather his harvests, and dwell in his wooden towns and villages in peace.

But this he could not do.

Not only was he under tribute to the Khazarui (a powerful tribe of mingled Finnish and Turkish blood), and harried by the Turks, in the South; overrun by the Finns and Lithuanians in the North; but in his imperfect political condition he was broken up into minute divisions, canton incessantly at war with canton, and there could be no peace.
The roving bands of Scandinavian traders and freebooters were alternately his persecutors and protectors.

After burning his villages for some fancied offense, and appropriating his cattle and corn, they would sell their service for the protection of Kief, Novgorod, and Pskof as freely as they did the same thing to Constantinople and the Greek cities.