In contrast to the official version, based on the Varangian vocation, a non-politicized and non-ideologized author’s version of ancient pre-Kievan Rus in the 9th–10th centuries and options for the location of three groups of Rus according to Arab authors are given. The version is based on data from European and Arab chronicles of that time, data from archaeology, climatology, hydrology, mining, linguistics and history relating to the specified time period. Based on these data, the existence of southern Rus' before the emergence of the Principality of Kyiv is convincingly shown.