Russia has always seemed to have a rough and uneasy history littered with civil wars, coups, and ever-present change. Starting at a point in early Russian history, princes throughout Russia, or Kievan Rus as it was called at the time, would consistently feud with one another over power. From about 1054, when the current ruler of Kievan Rus, Yaroslav passed away leaving the country in even bigger turmoil than before. This plunged Kievan Rus into almost 200 years of civil war, laying waste to most of Russia. There only lay a few periods of stability sprinkled throughout these 200 years. The civil wars in Russia ultimately led to their downfall because they were already divided and so the enemy from the East need only conquer. Even before the siege and onslaught began, the people of Kiev had a chance to stop the Mongol invasion. When the Mongol army approached a clan on the eastern Kievan Rus border, the clan asked the princes for assistance. The Mongols insisted that they were not there to conquer, however the group of princes decided otherwise and murdered the Mongolian representatives. This caused an army of 200,000 to march on Kievan Rus and ultimately led to the conquering of the already divided Russia. Over the next almost 250 years, Russia's politics and religion would be severely impacted and take on revolutionary changes, equaled by almost no other period in Russian history. .
The Mongols had many effects on the politics of Kievan Rus, both directly and indirectly impacting Russian policy and legislative tendencies. The first major effect on Russian politics, and perhaps the most counterintuitive, was the implementation of a semi-democratic government. In almost every Russian city, a local congress-like body made up of all male citizens called a veche, was used in order to legislate laws. The veche was responsible for things such as law making and deciding the fates of the local princes.
