Note 1076 — Chapter XIV · —Plains, Steppes And Deserts

Among these tribes no young man commanded respect in his community till he had participated in a baranta or cattle-raising.1076 For centuries the nomadic hordes of the Russian steppes systematically pillaged the peaceful agricultural Slavs, who were threatening to encroach upon their pasture lands. The sudden, swift descent and swift retreat of the mounted marauders with the booty into the pathless grasslands, whither pursuit was dangerous, their tendency to rob and conquer but never to colonize, involved Russia in a long struggle, which ceased only with the extension of Muscovite dominion over the steppes.1077