the first half of the tenth century." Some western historians (e.g. Kevin Alan Brook) speculate that the city was founded by Khazars or Magyars. Brook posits that Kyiv is a Turkic place name (Küi = riverbank + ev = settlement). However, the Primary Chronicle (a main source of information about the early history of the area) mentions Slavic Kievans telling Askold and Dir that they lived without a local ruler and paid tribute to the Khazars - an event attributed to the 9th century. Brook believes that during the 8th and 9th centuries the city functioned as an outpost of the Khazar empire. A hill-fortress, called Sambat (Old Turkic for "high place") was built to defend the area. Whatever the precise circumstances and date of its foundation, the city constituted a nodal point on important ancient trade routes, standing as it does near the confluence of the Dnipro and Desna river systems. The Dnipro came to serve as the standard route between Scandinavia and the Byzantine Empire, while the Desna gave the area water-borne access (via portages) to the Don and Oka-Volga basins. According to the Hustyn Chronicle, Askold and Dir (Haskuldr and Dyri) ruled the Rus' Khaganate at least in 842. They were Varangian princes, probably of Swedish origin, but not Rurikids. According to the Annals of St. Bertin (Annales Bertiniani) for the year 839, Louis the Pious, the Holy Roman Emperor, came to the conclusion that the people called Rhos (qui se, id est gentem suum, Rhos vocari dicebant) belonged to the gens of the Swedes (eos gentis esse Sueonum). According to the Primary Chronicle, Oleg of Novgorod (Helgi of Holmgard) conquered the city in 882. He was a relative of Rurik, a Varangian pagan chieftain. The date given for Oleg's conquest of the town in the Primary Chronicle is uncertain, and some historians, such as Omeljan Pritsak and Constantine Zuckerman, dispute this account and maintain that Khazar rule continued until as late as the 920s (documentary evidence exists to support this assertion — see the Kyivan Letter and the Schechter Letter). From Oleg's seizure of the city until 1169, Kyiv functioned as the capital of Kievan Rus', which was ruled by the Varangian Rurikid dynasty which gradually became Slavicized. The Grand Princes had traditional primacy over the other rulers of the land and the Kyivan princehood was a valuable prize in an intra-dynastic system. In 968 the