Born Then1237–1242
Life during the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus'
Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.
What it meant for ordinary people
Batu Khan's armies destroyed Ryazan, Vladimir and Kiev between 1237 and 1240, then raided Poland and Hungary in 1241. The Rus' principalities became tributaries of the Golden Horde for about two centuries. Towns were rebuilt, but tribute and later Mongol raids weighed on ordinary farmers.
Deaths: unknown; perhaps several hundred thousand; Kiev and Ryazan were destroyed.
How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from our model, estimated from the sources.
Around the same time
- Indian Ocean slave trade 700–1799
- Song dynasty commercial revolution 960–1270
- The Crusades 1096–1291
- Thule migration across the Arctic 1200–1300
- Rise of Great Zimbabwe 1200–1450
- Mongol conquest of the Jin 1211–1234
- Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire 1219–1223
- Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' 1237–1242
- Polynesian settlement of New Zealand 1250–1300
- Mongol sack of Baghdad 1258