Rioni River
Around 1036, Varangians appeared near the village of Bashi on the Rioni River, to establish a permanent settlement of Vikings in Georgia. "The Georgian Chronicles" described them as 3,000 men who had traveled from Scandinavia through present-day Russia, rowing down the Dnieper River and across the Black Sea. King Bagrat IV welcomed them to Georgia and accepted some of them into the Georgian army; several hundred Vikings fought on Bagrat's side at the Battle of Sasireti in 1047.