Mr. Green, Mr. Green, why'd you take Russian? Well, because I had this big crush on a Russian major. But anyway, I'm sure I'll still mispronounce everything. So today we're going to talk about persistent stereotypes about Russia and how Russia came to take its current shape, a turn of events we owe largely to the Mongols. But before we talk about the Mongol conquest of Russia, let's discuss exactly what got conquered. So before there was a Russian empire or even a Russian kingdom, there was the Kievan Rus. We know Kiev was a powerful city-state, but who exactly founded it is a subject of debate.