LODYA

[aukepalmhof]

The Slavic ship used for the navy was called a lodya, also spelled ladya (The word lodya is diminutive for the Russian word лодка (lodka), which means boat. The Russian word lodka comes from the Old Slavic root bark). The Byzantines called these ships by their Greek names, monoxiles (a similar ship had been in use in Ancient Egypt). The lodya was made from the hollowed-out trunk of one tree, usually an oak or linden tree (Barbaro of Venice, who lived in Russia in the 15th century, tells of the massive trees on a island on the Volga Rivers and the enormous lodyas made from those trees!). The lodya was often carved with a flat bottom. Several layers of planking were nailed or sometime sewn to the hull to increase the height of the ship. Oars were subsequently attached to the planking (a modern replica of the lodya, dubbed Prince Vladimir, needed 10 rowers to propel it). The entire ship was about 25 meters long and 8 meters wide at its widest point. It was able to carry about 20 tons of cargo. The lodya had only one mast that was about 3 meters tall (although the mast of some reproductions were 12 meters tall!). On the mast hung one huge square sail, which was sometimes richly ornamented. Many depictions of lodyas show the front decorated with the carved head of a dragon, an idea which the Slavs likely snitched from the Vikings. Over the rowers was a tent-like structure, designed to protect the rowers from the weather. This type of lodya was called a naboinaya lodya (набойная ладья). The entire lodya was held together with hemp rope and wooden nails.
With so little gear, the lodya was very light; it weighed between 4 to 16 tons. This enabled it to be dragged overland if rapids or shallows were in the way or if you needed the switch rivers (The Slavs would drag lodyas overland when they needed to switch between the Don and Volga rivers). The lodya was rarely longer than twenty meters; yet it could carry 40 to 60 men! The rowers numbered about 9 to 16 men, the crew numbered 20 to 35. Besides that, the lodya could still hold 20 to 40 soldiers. However, the more men the lodya carried, the less time it could spend out at sea, and its speed would also be severely cut. So lodyas usually carried about 20 men. Later on in Russian history, the dug-out trunk idea was dropped; instead, the hull was made entirely from boards. This type of ship was called a дощатые ладьи, or planked lodya. Sea-faring lodyas were often nicknamed шнеками (shnek, plural shnekami) after the Norse word shnnekar, which means snaky or a long ship.
With fast sleek ships now available to the Slavs, there was no stopping them. Slavic lodyas sailed through the Volga and Dnieper rivers and out into the Black Sea. Slavic lodyas sailed to Thessalonia in Greece, the island of Crete, and even to the southern coast of Italy! They became part of the trade route из варяг в греки (iz variag v greki, Russian for "from the Vikings to the Greeks"). This trade route, which stretched between the Baltic Sea to Constantinople, made Kiev and Novgorod into great trading centers.
These powerful and fast ships quickly found themselves useful in the navy of Kievan Rus'. The Slavs, being excellent in the art of navigation, often won in skirmishes against other bigger but slower ships. The Slavs, however, usually didn't go on a raiding rampage to neighboring countries. If they attacked those countries, it was to protect their trading rights in nations which trading policies were overly protectionist. The Slavs were reportedly to have besieged Thessalonia in 676 A.D. Apparently in the year 842, a kingdom which the Byzantines called "Ros" raided the southern coast of the Black Sea. On June 18 in the year 860 or 865 or 866, a Slavic prince, possibly Askold and Dir of Kiev, prepared a large fleet of about 200 ships and attacked Constantinople, known to the Slavs as Tsargrad, while the emperor and the army were away fighting the Abbasid Caliphate in Asia Minor. The reason? Well, no one's sure, but it was likely an answer to the bad treatment that the Slavic traders were getting at Constantinople. The Byzantines were not prepared when the Slavs suddenly sailed through the Bosporus (straits between Europe and Asia). The Slavs pillaged and ravaged the city's suburbs. They also used psychological warfare against the Byzantines. They would sail pass the city walls, raising their swords as if they were coming to kill them all! However, according to legend, after a veil of Theotokos (Orthodox version of the Virgin Mary) was placed on the sea, a storm arose on the 4th of August which caused havoc to many Slavic ships. However, another writer tells that the Byzantines made a peace treaty with the raiders. Either way, the Slavs retreated with the booty from the suburbs and left Constantinople in peace...for now.
In either 907, Veliky Knyaz (Grand Prince) Oleg created a Slavic navy in the ninth century. Oleg around up 800,00 men and 200 lodyas and set out to attack Constantinople, likely to protect the trade interests of Kievan Rus'. The Byzantines had learned the lesson from last time and placed chains across the Bosporus to stop Oleg from crossing. But Oleg wasn't daunted; he simply attached wheels to the bottom of his lodyas and used the wind to roll them across the straits and straight to the walls of Constantinople! The Byzantines agreed to a peace treaty, but then tried to poison Oleg to avoid signing it. The plan failed because Oleg refused to touch the poison food! In the end, Oleg signed a favorable peace treaty with the Byzantines in 911. The treaty allowed the Slavic merchants to come to trade in Constantinople every summer. Oleg returned from his campaign victorious; according to the Primary Chronicle, Oleg had his shield nailed to the gates of Constantinople. He captured much treasure and took it all back with him to Kievan Rus'. Part of Oleg's treaty with the Byzantines was the possibility of the Byzantines using Slavic mercenaries, which the Byzantines desperately needed for their campaigns against various Arabic caliphates.
The next tsar, Igor Rurikovich, also used the navy for his raids. In 912, his navy sailed through the land of the Jewish nation of Khazaria on their way to raid Muslim cities on the coast of the Caspian Sea, agreeing to give the Khazars half of all the spoils. But when the Khazars heard of the atrocities that the Slavs were committing while pillaging there, they became very angry, because they had friendly relations with the Muslims at the time. So they allowed the enraged Muslims to ambush and destroy the Slavic fleet when it stopped near the Khazar capital Itil in 913 on their way home. Once he recovered from such setbacks, Igor hatched another plan. Emboldened by the actions of Oleg, and tempted by the fact that the Byzantines were busy with another war with the Arab caliphates, he set out with an army of 40,000 men and 1000 lodyas to raid the Byzantines in September 941. The Slavic lodyas met the Byzantine dromons (a type of galley) on the northeastern coast of the Bosporus. But the Byzantines were able to withdraw some troops to defend the city, and, unlike last time, managed to defeat the Slavs, thanks to a secret weapon called Greek fire! Plus, the Slavs had to fend off land-based attackers as well. Igor was forced to retreat, but he didn't forget the loss. In 943 Igor prepared an even bigger army and set out again to fight the Byzantines. This time, he had cavalry to help him fend off land-based attackers. He also managed to capture the town of Byerda. As a result, he was able to get a second treaty with good trading rights for Kievan Rus' in Constantinople.
Igor's son, Sviatoslav, continued using the navy against his enemies during his campaigns from 966 until his untimely death in 972. The only difference was that he didn't use it against the Byzantines. He used it during his conquest of Khazaria. After a big sea battle with the Khazars, Sviatoslav destroyed their capital at Itil. He also used his navy to invade Volga Bulgaria on the Volga River and for his campaign in the Azov Sea. During his fateful campaign in Bulgaria, he transported about 60,000 troops on 1,200 lodyas down the Danube river. Sviatoslav managed to sack the cities of Preslav and Philippolois, but the Byzantines soon intervened with their military. They tried to battle him into submission, but Sviatoslav resisted so stubbornly that they were forced to consider a peace treaty. Sviatoslav signed the peace treaty in July 971, returned the Byzantine prisoner of war, and left Bulgaria with his remaining men. But the Byzantines still didn't trust him. While sailing home, Sviatoslav was ambushed and killed at some rapids by the ruthless Pechenegs, who were paid by the Byzantines to kill him. But Sviatoslav did have three sons. After they killed each other, the one survivor, Vladimir the Great, attacked the Pechenegs and temporarly drove them out of Rus'. In 982, when the Byzantines refused to complete the terms of a treaty, Vladimir launched a successful naval campaign against the Byzantine Empire when. After this campaign, peace was restored between Byzantium and Rus' through Vladimir marrying the Byzantine princess Anna and his converting to Christianity. During this time of peace, trade boomed, craftsmanship flourished, and stone building were built for the first time in Rus'. Yet throughout this time, no changes were made to the design of the Slavic ships. The military continued to use lodyas and common folk continued to use rafts.

By 1043, during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise, Kievan Rus' was at war again with the Byzantine Empire. Vladimir Monomakh, son of Yaroslav the Wise, sailed into the Bosporus with his fleet of lodyas. The Russians immediately had problems and became shipwrecked, either from Byzantine Greek fire or from fierce storms. When the Byzantines tried to take advantage of this, however, Kievan general Ivan Tvorimich completely routed the Byzantine navy and extracted Vladimir from the wreckage. However, the Byzantines managed to capture 6,000 Slavic soldiers at Varna on the western coast of the Black Sea; these were taken back to Constantinople, and 800 of the soldiers were blinded! When the war ended three years later, Vladimir earned a very favorable peace treaty (likely due to the Slavic capture of the Greek city of Chersones) and Vladimir married the daughter of Byzantine emperor Constantine Monomachus. During Yaroslav's reign, a Viking called Ingvar the Widefarer rounded up an army in 1041 and sailed down the Volga River and into the Caspian Sea. But when he attacked Eastern cities there, he mysteriously disappeared!

By the time Vladimir Monomakh died in 1125, his sons and grandsons began a huge civil war among themselves, which eventually would divide Rus' into separate city states. And all that civil war left no time for naval campaigns against Constantinople/ Tsargrad or any other capitals or nations. The lodyas and the navy however, were still useful for the war effort. In 1151 Iziaslav II of Kiev fought a naval battle against his uncle Yury Dolgoruky of Moscow. Iziaslav's lodyas had been upgraded; they now had decks, as well as rudders at both the bow and stern. Iziaslav won the battle, driving his uncle out of Kiev. But Iziaslav died in 1154, enabling Yury to return. Following Iziaslav's changes, no major upgrades were made to the lodya from then on. Even with the disintergration of Kievan Rus', the lodya was still used in the Slavic navy, particularly in the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality.
Although the lodya was a major part of the navy during the time of Kievan Rus', not a single one has survived to the present day. As a result, several reconstructions have appeared over the years; some of them are the SLAVIA, launched in July 2002, the RUSICH, launched in 2006, and the PRINCE VLADIMIR, launched in May 2013.
Kampuchea 1986 1r50 sg738 scott? (SG gives it as a Norman ship.)
From: http://horridhistory.weebly.com/navy-in-kievan-rus.html

[aukepalmhof]

Update on LODYA
I got some more images from my Russian contact Mr. Gennadiy on this type of ship, many thanks for that.
There was a busy transcontinental waterway running through Eastern Europe from the 9th to the 12th century. Probably established in 825–39, the trade route served as a direct link between Scandinavia and Byzantium. After crossing the Baltic and sailing up the Gulf of Finland down Estonian shores, the waterway ran from the mouth of the Neva via Lake Ladoga, up the Lovat, by overland portage to the Dvina and then to the Dnieper and further across the Black Sea to Constantinople. An alternative route from the Gulf of Riga up the Dvina and overland to the Dnieper was used as well. The waterway played an important cultural role, that of establishing a contact between the Roman-Byzantine civilization and the civilization of Scandinavian, Baltic, Finnish and Slavic peoples springing up in Northern Europe and in the interior of Eastern Europe. Lands on the banks of the Dnieper between Lyubech and the estuary of the Ros, a western tributary of the Dnieper on the borderline of wooded steppes (about 200 km north and south of present-day Kiev) constituted an area of highly productive agriculture since ancient times. The design of the first stamp is based on a 12th century English miniature, Arrival of Scandinavian Seamen, although in changed colours. A coin of Prince Volodymyr Sviatoslavovych (11th c, silver) and an ancient Slavs’ warship with a colourful sail are depicted on the second stamp. Fluorescent highlight of the coins and face value circles. The FDC features the prow of a Viking ship and drawings of historical coins. The cancel is based on the drawing of the Swedish rune stone (ab 1050) of Gripsholm, Södermanland, whose text speaks about Harald, brother of Ingvar, who died on a trip to the East.
Estonia 2003 80k sg?, scott464/465
Ukraine 2003 80 sg?, scott? Also sheets (The other stamp depict a viking longboat from around the 12th century.)
Ukraine 2003 postmark.
Afghanistan 1997 1200 afs sg?, scott?
Source: Estonia Post web-site

[Anatol]

Аmong the Slavic peoples it was foreordained that the people of Novgorod should become the innovators of sailing and shipbuilding. In contrast to the people of southern Russia the Novgoroders designed larger boats for transporting cargoes on the Baltic Sea and for waging maritime battles. In fact, the citizens of the Free City of Novgorod became known for their maritime exploits. Novgorod's bigger lodyas were built with decks and posed a far greater menace to its neighbours.
Ambazonia(Federal Republic of the Southern Cameroons) 2013;500fcfa;SG?
Source: http://www.neva.ru/EXPO96/book/chap1-2.html