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The next mention about the Kiev sanctuary in Primary Chronicie comes from the year 980, when VIadimir the Great, having conąuered Kiev and assumed the supreme power in Ruthenia, erected new idols. This act is interpreted as an attempt at reforming the pagan religion of Ruthenia by a specific codiflcation of the pantheon (Gieysztor, 1982, p. 56-58; Rybakov, 1987, p. 412-454; differently Łowmiański, 1979, p. 119). The chronicie reads: “Vladimir began to rule in Kiev alone, and on the hill” behind the manor he “set up idols: the wooden Perun with a silver head and golden moustache, Khors, Daźbog and Stribog, and Simargl and MokoS. And they madę sacrifices to them, calling them gods and led their sons and daughters to sacrifice them to the devils and they defiled the soil with their offerings. And the Russian land, and the hill, were defiled with blood. But the most gracious God did not want the sinners to die. In the same place there is St Vasiliy’s church now, of which we shall later speak” (PSRL, vol. 1, 1926, p. 76).

Humań sacrifices are morę explicitly described in Primary Chronicie under the year 983 in connection with the martyrdom of two Varangians. After a victorious campaign against the Jatvings, Vladimir “with his people madę offerings to the idols. And the elders and boyars said: ‘Let us cast lots for a youth and a maiden, the one who will be chosen will be killed for the glory of gods’. There was a certain Varangian, whose house stood where now the church of the Holy Mother of God, built [later] by Vladimir, stands. This Varangian had come from among the Greeks and retained Christian faith. And he had a son of beautiful face and soul, this one was chosen by lot, because of devilish malice. Because the cursed devil hated him (...) and tried to destroy him, and incited the people. And they, sent by the devil, came and said: ‘Your son has been chosen by the gods, so we want to sacrifice him’. And the Varangian said: ‘These are not gods but wood, now it is here and tomorrow it will rot; they do not eat or drink or speak, but have been madę of wood by humans. (...) I shall not give my son to the demons’. And they went away and repeated it to the people. And those took their weapons, attacked him and destroyed his manor. And nobody knows where they were buried. Because these were unenlightened people and pa-gans. The devil rejoiced in this, ignorant of his end that was so close” (PSRL, vol. 1, 1926, p. 82-83).

Several years later, in 988, Vladimir, according to the chronicie, was baptized in Korsun. When he came back to Kiev, “he ordered to puli down the idols: some were cut into pieces, some bumt. And he ordered to tie Perun to a horse’s taił and drag him from the mountain through Borychevo to the Stream; twelve men were ordered to beat him with sticks, not because the wood could feel it, but to deride the demon who had been deluding the people with this image (...). When he was being dragged through the Stream to the Dnepr, the unfaithful people cried over him, because they had not received the holy baptism yet. And having dragged him [to the shore], they threw him to the Dnepr. And Vladimir sent people, telling them: ‘If he comes ashore anywhere push him away, until he passes the rapids, and then leave him alone’. And they fulfilled his orders. When they let him go and it passed the rapids, the wind threw him to a sandbank, sińce then called Perun Sandbank.” In place of the sanctuary Vladimir “built the church of St Vasiliy on the hill where the idol Perun and others had stood, where the prince and the people used to make sacrifices” (PSRL, vol. 1, 1926,

p. 116-118).

Both sanctuaries, the older one mentioned in 945, and the new one, founded in 980, were situated on the Kiev Mountain, at the western bank of the Dnepr. The second one was later substituted by St Vasiliy’s Orthodox church. Interestingly enough, the chronicie stresses that the new place of cult was built outside the manor. E.V. Anichkov (1914, p. 308-328) tried to find a deep motivation for that fact in Vladimir’s religious reform; in his opinion it meant that the religion practiced by the prince and his suitę became the official religion of Ruthenia when the cult centre had been moved outside the prince’s residence. If we accept this hypothesis, we should assume that the first sanctuary had lain in the immediate surroundings of the prince’s seat. According to Primary Chronicie, however, Igor, in order to swear the oath, “went [with the Emperor’s envoys] to the hill,” certainly from his residence, so in 944 the statuę of Perun did not stand within its area.

Thus, we have to search for an alternative explanation of the puzzling detali. According to Saga Olafs Konnungs Tryggvasonar written by the monk Gunnlaug (ch. 57), Olaf visited Prince Vladimir’s court in Kiev. If this piece of information, drawn from the orał tradition two and a half century later, is true, it may have happened only between 980 and 988. The Saga records that Vladimir was so enchanted by the young Olaf, who had already become a Christian, that he treated him as his own son. The only source of disagreement was religion: “There was only one thing which the konung [Vladimir] did not like about him [Olaf], he never wanted to worship the statues of pagan gods, he was always reluctant about all kinds of sacrifices; he always accompanied the konung when he went to the hof but never entered it with him and he stayed in the yard as tong as the konung was engaged in sacrifices.” Vladimir admonished Olaf not to draw gods’ ire on himself, but Olaf openly ąuestioned their existence and tried to propagate Christianity.

The tradition concerning Olafs visit in Kiev, and especially the mention about his missionary attempts, do not appear reliable, if around 983 the two Varangians died as martyrs there. On the other hand, the Scandinavians were in very close relations with Ruthenia and must have had good information about this country, so not all the details from the Saga should be considered fantasies. The idols and sacrifices in the Kiev sanctuary, mentioned by Gunnlaug, are known also from Primary Chronicie. A ąuestion arises, however, what was the hof in which Yladimir madę offerings. It may