History of Russia

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In Central Asia there is a vast table-land surrounded by lofty, sheltering mountains, watered by noble The early rivers, and so fertile that it might well be called home of the Garden of Eden. Perhaps this was the cradle Aryans of the human race.

The people who dwelt there in earliest times tilled the soil, tended their flocks and herds, fished in the wide streams, worshipped the heaven and "our mother the dank earth," and, living quiet and happy lives, increased and multiplied until at last there was no more room for them all. Then the young men, taking their families and their goods, joined themselves into little bands and turned their faces toward the south and the west and the north.

Some settled on the lands between the Indus and the Ganges; some reached the beautiful islands of the Mediterranean, and peopled the sunny vales of Greece and the balmy shores of Italy; others, more adventurous, wandered across the never-ending plains into the cold, wind-swept regions of Russia and the rocky coasts of Scandinavia.

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