Russia: From the Rus of Kyiv to the last Tsars

In 1913, the Romanovs celebrated three hundred years on the throne of the largest continuous empire in the world. A thousand years earlier, there was no Russia at all — only forests, rivers and traders from the north. This is the story of how a handful of river towns became an empire stretching from the Baltic to the Pacific: Viking traders and the Rus of Kyiv, the Mongol yoke, Moscow as the "Third Rome", Ivan the Terrible, the Time of Troubles, the march to the Pacific, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, 1812, the Crimean War and the great reforms — up to the eve of the First World War. Every story ends with a question: what came next? What Came Next? tells the history of the world — from the first cities to the modern age — through animated maps, historical paintings and clear narration. Each video picks up where the last one left off. 🔔 Subscribe and find out what came next. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ Chapters 0:00 Russia in 1913 0:27 I · The Rus of Kyiv 3:04 II · The Mongol Yoke 4:35 III · The Third Rome 6:36 IV · Ivan the Terrible 8:39 V · The Time of Troubles 10:26 VI · To the Pacific 11:50 VII · Peter the Great 13:55 VIII · Catherine the Great 15:50 IX · 1812 17:30 X · Crimea and Reform 19:05 XI · To the Edge of the Map 20:09 XII · Nicholas II 21:47 What came next… ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📜 Image credits Paintings and photographs from Wikimedia Commons, shown with light color adjustments: • The Calling of the Varangians — Viktor Vasnetsov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • The Baptism of Prince Vladimir — Viktor Vasnetsov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • Dmitry Donskoy in the Battle of Kulikovo — Adolphe Yvon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • Ivan III of Russia — H.F. Helmolt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • St Basil's Cathedral, Moscow — Юрий Д.К., CC BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), via Wikimedia Commons • Ivan the Terrible — Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan — Ilya Repin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • Yermak's Conquest of Siberia — Vasily Surikov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • The Appeal of Minin — Konstantin Makovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • Michael I of Russia — Anonymous, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • Peter I — Godfrey Kneller, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • The Battle of Poltava — Pierre-Denis Martin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • Catherine II — Johann Baptist von Lampi the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries — Jacques-Louis David, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • The Battle of Borodino — Musée de l'Histoire de France, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • Alexander II — Konstantin Makovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • Reading of the Manifesto (Liberation of the Peasants) — Boris Kustodiev, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • Nicholas II — Ernst von Liphart, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • The 9th of January 1905 — Vladimir Makovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons • The Russian Imperial Family, 1913 — Boasson and Eggler St. Petersburg Nevsky 24., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 🗺️ Map data Coastlines, lakes and rivers: Natural Earth (public domain). Historical borders based on historical-basemaps by André Ourednik, corrected by hand for this video. 🎙️ Narration is AI-generated. Maps and animations are original work by What Came Next?. #History #WhatCameNext #Russia #RussianEmpire #Romanov