These people came from countless surrounding nations and started the makings of the enormous and diverse country that Russia is today. Along with copious amounts of flat terrain, Kievan Rus had many forests that helped foster the growth of an agricultural society in Kievan Rus. However, like most things in Russia's history these forests did have their down side. They were often raided by nomadic horsemen that lived in the grasslands to south. .
Although Kievan Rus was not especially unique with regards to the land itself, its location was key to its development as a country. Kievan Rus is a more centralized version of Russia in two ways. Before Kievan Rus expanded into much larger territory, in the time period of 927-1054 AD, it was centralized geographically, meaning all the cities and suburbs were grouped together in a small area. When Kievan Rus expanded, for the most part it expanded into the east into barren and often useless territory. Not only was Kievan Rus centralized geographically, but it was also centralized politically and socially. Because Kievan Rus was not that large and because all the people lived in close contact, their needs and desires were more uniform than they are in present day Russia. The rulers had far less trouble making decisions than they would have had the country been larger. .
In the Kievan Rus period, most of the country's land was in what is now Western Russia, so most of their influence came from Europe. European influence caused major changes in Kievan Rus's history. In 980 AD Vladimir I made Orthodox Christianity the official relgion of Kievan Rus. This strong connection between church and state would play a large role in Russia's future by creating a lot of support for future rulers. It also created a cohesive state of mind amongst the people because they now all had something in common.
Being surrounded by many other countries was good for making decisions to keep the whole country happy and for making allies, but if Kievan Rus made enemies, they were open to attacks coming from all sides.
