In the 6th and 8th centuries, the first settlements of Slavs appeared on the banks of the Dnieper within the region. During the period of Kievan Rus' (9-12 centuries AD) the Dnieper River was one of the main trade routes of medieval Eastern Europe called "From the Varangians to the Greeks", which connected the Baltic countries with the Crimea and the capital of Byzantium, Constantinople. The Dnieper also served as a major route for transporting the army of Kyiv princes on their way to the Byzantine coastal cities in the early 9th and late 9th centuries.