In 750 the Caliphate moved its centre from Syria to Iraq. There were excellent rivers for transport and communications in Eastern Europe. The Nordic expansion to the east with the Gotlanders as merchants and the Svear as warriors had begun earlier. Before the year 800 this influence was limited to the Baltic coastal states.
From the first part of the 9th century the find material bears evidence of long-distance connections between the Baltic Sea area and the countries north of the Caspian Sea. The pattern from the Bronze Age seems to be repeated here
From what we know from before, we can equate Rus and Gotlandic merchants. However Rus warriors would usually be Svear
The Gotlandic element shows a strong impact on the Varangians in the East. These Varangians emerged not only as slave hunters, but were primarily known as merchants. It has even been said that the ruler in Kiev was a great merchant, who ran the trade with the products, which he received as tax from his subordinates. The Varangians settled down inside the East Slavic area, forcing their subordinates to feed them and obtain merchant goods
According to Davidan the activity of the Varangians in Rus was mainly linked to the proto urban centers of Western Europe and those that emerged along the Volga river trail. The prototype was Paviken. According to Davidson, Kiev is a striking parallel to Grobina regarding the description Professor Nerman has made on the development there. Kiev was founded in the 9th century and was later one of the hubs of Gotlandic trade with Constantinople. Other centres were Staraja Ladoga (Aldeigjuborg) at Lake Ladoga, the "Rurik fort" at Novgorod, Gnezdovo at Smolensk and Timerevo in Yaroslavl. Typical of these is that they are located on waterways, and that craft and trade is well developed, and the material culture is international
If one only takes into account the contemporary, authentic sources, it is a clear-cut border that runs between the West Nordic and East Nordic language area and in the south continues along the Elbe line. West of this line, there are no Varangians, east of it, there are no Vikings. One of the few apparent exceptions is a Viking word on a rune stone in Uppland, but Askeberg shows that the inscription speaks of a Norwegian immigrant there
Askeberg's discovery has unfortunately not been noticed. Still in 1958 M. Canard in his meritorious translation of Ibn Fadlan is talking about "Swedish Vikings" in Eastern Europe. That is an impossible statement. However Askeberg had no knowledge of the oriental sources and was therefore unable to extend the evidence with the Arabic use of the language. The Arabs acknowledge in their own way strikingly Askebergs main thesis. They consistently use different names for the Western Vikings and Eastern Europe's Varangians. In the east they have essentially two names for them: Warang and Rus (with long u), in the west in the Spanish-Arabic authors writings only a single name, Madjùs
This linguistic usage tells us already a lot. In Eastern Europe, the Arabs have thus had time to peacefully get acquainted with the Scandinavians, and from them make two Scandinavian words. Warang's is the Old Norse Vaeringi, Rús is in one way or another connected with Roslagen and Rospigg. In the west, however, they have not had a clue about the Vikings' language, and therefore in their perplexity seized back on an old word for the pagans, that from the Quran familiar word madjù, "magician". It fits pretty good with the fact that we in the west mostly have to do with sudden passing military assaults, which did not allow any linguistic contact. The only exception would be a travel book by Al-Ghazal. In Eastern Europe, however, the people from the Baltic Sea area and Arabs met frequently and had the opportunity to exchange not only goods but also ideas. In a way, this is of course evident from Ibn Fadlan's travel journal
