The Chronicle begins by describing how Shem, Ham, and Japhet shared the earth between them after the flood, and gives a detailed list of the countries and peoples of the ancient world.
It then states that, after the building of the Tower of Babel, God dispersed all the peoples into seventy-two tribes (or languages), the northern and western lands falling to the tribe of Japhet.

Nestor derives the Slavonians from Japhet--describes their life, first on the banks of the Danube, then their colonization to the northeast as far as the River Ilmen (the ancient Novgorod), the Oka, in central Russia, and the tributaries of the Dniepr, delineating the manners and customs of the different Slavonic tribes, and bringing the narrative down to the year 1110, in the form of brief, complete stories.

The style of the Chronicle is simple and direct.

For example, he relates how, in the year 945, the Drevlyans (or forest-folk) slew Igor, prince of Kieff, and his band of warriors, who were not numerous.
Then said the Drevlyans, "Here we have slain the Russian Prince; let us now take his wife, Olga, for our Prince Malo; and we will take also Svyatoslaff (his son), and will deal with him as we see fit"; and the Drevlyans dispatched their best men, twenty in number, in a boat, to Olga, and they landed their boat near Boritcheff, and Olga was told that the Drevlyans had arrived, and Olga summoned them to her.

"Good guests are come, I hear"; and the Drevlyans said: "We are come, Princess." And Olga said to them, "Tell me, why are ye come hither ?" Said the Drevlyans: "The land of the Drevlyans hath sent us," saying thus: "We have slain thy husband, for thy husband was like unto a wolf, he was ever preying and robbing; but our own princes are good.