Welcome to the Russian rulers podcast. I'm your host Mark Schaus.

Episode number six, The Rise of Moscow.

Alexander Nefsky was dead and Yarara Slov of Trier, his son, was in charge or nominally at the

will of the Mongol masters.

Grumblings began almost immediately due to his overzealous crushing of the mere hint of rebellion by his people.

The cities of Lydemere-Novgorod, under one prince, were beginning to snipe at each other, feeling uncomfortable being allied.

This was especially true with the always independent-minded Novgorodians.

Jaroslav saw the writing on the wall. The people of Novgorod were chafing under the rule of someone they did not see as one of their own.

He tried hard to ingratiate himself with the people, as he did not want to lose this truly

important and lucrative tax base. But try as he could it was to no avail. The

leaders of the people of Novgorod wanted Yaroslav out.

In 1269, the leaders of Novgorod sent an emissary to the seat of power of the golden

horde and pled their case.

The person who was to do this was none other than Basil,

Gowerslov's own younger brother.

Basil came to the Khan with a large load of money, no doubt provided to him by the wealthy merchants of Novgorod, which he used to bribe

him and his advisors.

The bribes, while not entirely successful in removing Yaroslav, caused his power to diminish greatly as the Khan weakened

the rule of the prince he himself had put on the throne.

The bribery of the Khan of the Mongols made a totally apparent to all of Russia that no prince was anything more than a puppet of the real and total power that was the golden horde.

The people had little to no respect for the princes anymore.

Instead, they felt total disgust for these pretendurous to power. At this point,

...