Welcome to Russian History Retold, Episode 237, The Plagues and Epidemics in Russian History.

Last time, we covered Russia's poet, the famous Anna Akhmatova.

Today, as you can tell, we're going in a completely different direction.

Now, I don't think I could have come up with a time-lier episode than this one.

With the COVID-19 pandemic having ravaged our world for the past few years,

I felt the need to talk about the plagues and epidemics that affected Russia and its history

over the centuries. As some of you may know, my real-life job is in the healthcare field,

and I've sat on a board of directors of a trust that actually investigated communicable diseases.

Perfect timing for the COVID pandemic.

Now, plagues, epidemics, and pandemics have plagued humankind ever since we stopped being hunter-gatherers.

The people who inhabited the land of the Rus before the time of the invasion of the Vorrangians

were both pastoral and hunter-gatherers. This kept most communicable diseases away from them.

There is evidence that many of the people who lived at the time had actually

longer life spans than those who lived later in the cities of Kivinaros.

As stated in the book, the Journey of Man by Spencer Wells, quote,

Well, the incidence of broken bones and wounds is greater for paleolithic humans

and for their sedentary, neolithic descendants, they do not appear to have died younger.

In fact, the skeletal remains from early agricultural communities suggest that early

agriculturalists may have had a shorter lifespan than their hunter-gatherer neighbors.

This is thought to be due largely to an increase in disease.

Wells goes on further to say, quote,

most diseases can only exist in large populations where a threshold number of people remain

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