Since even humor writers like M. Zadornov began to talk about Prince Rurik, it means that in ancient Russian history there is no more “fashionable”, controversial, mysterious and dubious figure. If not only the myths of the “Normanists” are disputed, but also the chronicles that begin the countdown of Russian statehood with the “calling of Rurik”, the question is quite appropriate: DID HE EVEN exist? Why did overcoming an ordinary dynastic crisis suddenly become the “assembly point” of our civilization? Who had more rights to the Ladoga throne - Rurik or his nephew Vadim? How was an ordinary “dispute between the Slavs among themselves” inflated to the scale of “founding a state”? Why do chroniclers attribute to “Prince Falcon” acts committed many years after his death? Is it because there was no Rurik at all? Why is the myth about the “calling of the Varangians” so dangerous? And where did the Russian Land actually come from? A new historical investigation from the author of the best-selling books “There Was No Yoke!” and “The Baptism of Rus' - a blessing or a curse?” answers all these questions.