Rus' people
It was at this point in history the area of Kiev grew and expanded. The Kievan state lasted about a hundred years, until about 972. Between 839 and 1043 the Balto Slavs combined with the South Slavic peoples to form a new society. The name Rus came to mean those combined peoples. In 860 the Byzantine Patriarch Photios I described a people who were almost certainly Rani accompanied by Slavs. The leaders of the Rus had Balto Slavic names even into the tenth century. In 911 the Rus who signed a treaty with the Greeks all had Balto Slavic names. But in the treaty of 945 there were some South Slavonic names.