Back in the year 987, Vladimir of Kyiv (Moscow was still a fuckin' forest), had a big decision to make. As legend goes, he decided to pick a religion, sending envoys to the Western and Eastern Christian churches, and even the Jews. (Muslims were out, because they don't drink alcohol. Eastern Europe hasn't really changed much in a millennium.) Eastern Christianity won (he probably liked the fancy hats), setting the course of history for the entire region. But we're not here to talk about that, or even about the alternative history when Ukraine and Russia become Jewish. We're gonna talk about Vladimir's mom.

Vladimir's dad was Prince Sviatoslav of Kyiv, but his mother was not a princess herself. She was Malusha, the housekeeper. (Those up on the story of Jacob's OTHER wives are nodding their head on this shared past of Jewish and Slavic history.) And Malusha... well, nobody exactly knows who Malusha was. It was 1000 years ago, after all. (But you can guess what's coming, right?)

Right! Malusha's father was Malk of Lyubech (now a town in northern Ukraine), who supposedly assassinated Sviatoslav's father Igor. Some believe that he was a Khazar Jew. ("Malk" often being a Jewish root.) Others think it's not Lyubech, but Lubeck (now a town on the Baltic in Germany). So who the hell knows.

Alas, we're not buying the Jewish rumor. If he actually had a Jewish mother, isn't it obvious what religion Vladimir would have chosen?