Askold and Dir Askold ( " Haskuldr " in Old East Norse and " Höskuldr " in Old West Norse ) and Dir ( " Dyri " in both dialects of Old Norse ) are semi - legendary rulers of Kiev who , according to the " Primary Chronicle " , were two of Rurik ' s voivode s in the 870s . That chronicle implies that they were neither his relatives nor of noble blood . Biography . The " Primary Chronicle " relates that Askold and Dir were sanctioned by Rurik to go to Constantinople ( Norse " Miklagård " , Slavic " Tsargrad " ) . When travelling on the Dnieper , they saw a settlement on a mountain and asked to whom it belonged . They were told that it was Kiev and had been built by three brothers named Kyi , Schek and Khoriv , who were the ancestors of the inhabitants , who were now paying tribute to the Khazars . Askold and Dir settled in the town and gathered a large number of fellow Varangians and began to rule the town and the land of the eastern Polans . According to the " Saga of Ragnar and his Sons " , Askold was the son of Hvitserk , and the grandson of Ragnar Lodbrok , a semi - legendary king of Sweden ( ca . 770 - 785 ) . Hvitserk was a contemporary of Rurik , and was said to have waged a war of conquest in Eastern Europe . The only foreign source to mention one of the co - rulers is the Arab historian Al - Masudi . According to him , " king al - Dir [ Dayr ] was the first among the kings of the " Saqaliba " ( is arabic for Slavs ) . " Although some scholars have tried to prove that " al - Dir " refers to a Slavic ruler and Dir ' s contemporary , this speculation is questionable and it is at least equally probable that " al - Dir " and Dir were the same person . It seems that in Old East Slavic it was originally " askold Dir " and not " Askold i Dir " as it is known from the Primary Chronicle . The word " askold " or " oskold " is derived from Old Norse " óskyldr " meaning " strange " , so there was probably a ruler of Kiev called Dir by the Slavs and the Varangians called him something like " " óskyldr Dyri " " — " stranger Dir " . The Russian Varangians later forgot the meaning of " óskyldr " so Nestor wrote about two rulers of Kiev — about Askold and Dir . The Rus ' attack on Constantinople in June 860 took the Greeks by surprise , " like a thunderbolt from heaven , " as it was put by Patriarch Photios in his famous oration written for the occasion . Although the Slavonic chronicles tend to associate this expedition with the names of Askold and Dir ( and to date it to 866 ) , the connection remains tenuous . Despite Photius ' own assertion that he sent a bishop to the land of Rus ' which became Christianized and friendly to Byzantium , most historians discard the idea of Askold ' s subsequent conversion as apocryphal . When Rurik died he was succeeded by Oleg who was of his kin ( as it is believed by some historians ) and in whose care was Rurik ' s son Igor . Oleg attacked and conquered Kiev around 882 . According to the Primary Chronicle he tricked and killed Askold and Dir using an elaborate scheme . Vasily Tatischev , Boris Rybakov and some other Russian and Ukrainian historians interpreted the 882 coup d ' état in Kiev as the reaction of the pagan Varangians to Askold ' s baptism . Tatischev went so far as to style Askold " the first Russian martyr " . A Kievan legend identifies Askold ' s burial mound with Uhorska Hill , where Olga of Kiev later built two churches , devoted to Saint Nicholas and to Saint Irene . Today this place on the steep bank of the Dnieper is marked by a monument called Askold ' s Grave .