Vsevolod the Big Nest

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Vsevolod III Yuryevich, or Vsevolod the Big Nest (Russian: Все́волод III Ю́рьевич Большо́е Гнездо́) (1154–1212), was the Grand Prince of Vladimir during whose long reign (1177–1212) the city reached a zenith of its glory.

Vsevolod's Christian name was Dmitry, so he dedicated his palace church to St. Demetrius, his patron saint.

Vsevolod was the tenth or eleventh son of Yury Dolgoruky, who founded the town Dmitrov to commemorate the site of his birth. Karamzin was the first to speculate that Vsevolod's mother Helene was a Greek princess, for after her husband's death she took Vsevolod with her to Constantinople. It was at the chivalric court of the Komnenoi that he spent his youth. On his return from Byzantium to Rus in 1170, Vsevolod supposedly visited Tbilisi, as a local chronicle records that that year the Georgian king entertained his nephew from Constantinople and married him to his relative, an Ossetian princess.

In 1173, Vsevolod was briefly installed on the Kievan throne and taken prisoner by two Smolensk princes who captured the town. Ransomed a year later, he took his brother Mikhalko's side in his struggle against the powerful boyars of Rostov and Suzdal. Upon Mikhalko's death, Vsevolod succeeded him in Vladimir. He promptly subjugated the boyars and systematically raided the Volga peoples, notably Volga Bulgaria. He installed his puppets on the throne of Novgorod and married his daughters to princes of Chernigov and Kiev. Even the sovereigns of far-away Halych had to acknowledge his suzerainty.

Vsevolod showed little mercy to those who disobeyed his word. In 1180 and 1187, he punished the princes of Ryazan by ousting them from their lands. In 1207, he burnt to the ground both Ryazan and Belgorod. His military fame spread quickly. The Tale of Igor's Campaign, thought to be written during Vsevolod's reign, addresses him thus: Great prince Vsevolod! Don't you think of flying here from afar to safeguard the paternal golden throne of Kiev? For you can with your oars scatter in drops the Volga, and with your helmets scoop dry the Don.

But Kievan matters concerned Vsevolod little in the latter part of his reign. He concentrated on making his own capital, Vladimir, the most glorious city of Rus. His Ossetian wife, Maria Shvarnovna, who devoted herself to the works of piety and founded several convents, was glorified by the Russian church as a saint. By her Vsevolod had no less than twelve children, thus earning for himself the sobriquet Big Nest. Four of them — Konstantin, George, Yaroslav and Sviatoslav — succeeded him as Grand Dukes of Vladimir. He died on April 12, 1212 and was buried at the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir.