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  • Both Moscow and [Kiev], the modern and the ancient capitals, were reduced to ashes [by the Tartars]; a temporary ruin, less fatal than the deep, and perhaps indelible, mark, which a servitude of two hundred years has imprinted on the character of the Russians.

    Edward Gibbon (2008). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.15, Cosimo, Inc.