When reading this book, the distant past of the Slavic peoples suddenly turns out to be unexpectedly close. For some reason, those distant centuries do not seem at all like deep antiquity. Perhaps this is because much in the early medieval history of the eastern, western and southern Slavs was deposited in legends and traditions, fairy tales and epics, already well known to the reader, especially the young one.Where and when was the first mention of the Slavs ? What is common between the myth of Hyperborea and the wonderful island Buyan? Who is Baba Yaga really? Which of the princes of the Eastern Slavs is fictional, and which is real? Why did foreign eyewitnesses consider the Slavs wild and dark?