>>512287632
Pycь (Rus) comes from "riverbed", i.e. [ruslo]
culture of people settling on the shores of rivers or lakes

aglomeration around a river was basically a city-state,
that was much later compacted into more fortified and towns, unified under a milita by sarmatian raids to steal slaves

land roads to Rus where built by Khan Tochtamysch in 14 century
before that Rus were mostly using water or ice to travel

Moscow was located close to the point of land intercommunication between Volga riverbed, Don riverbed and Dnepr riverbed

not just riverbeds, but their upper parts, from where goods were being delivered for free (i mean fuel cost) by gravity

in Rzech Pospolita (Poland supposed predecesor), 'Rzech' also means "river"
and in Russian "rech" and "river" is roughly the same word


so it was it's own riverbed-city-state-aglomerations civilization, who united to protect against slav traders, or were occupied by slav traders

eventually giving the knight-horse-riding-horder-roaming&condottiere-ganged europe example of the civilization, where military is protecting the cities, not ransacking them
since Russian milita could not rob everyone buttnaked and then expect to survive the next 10 winters

which was the go to way of living for them in warm winter regions, especially prevalent since hordes and condotierres were of a different race, preceiving native europeans as semi-sentient kind of cattle