fled from his brother Yaropolk to Sweden, ruled by Erik the Victorious, where he gathered an invasion force that he used to conquer Kievan Rus. Vladimir was initially a pagan who is reported by the Primary Chronicle to have worshiped Perun and Veles, and this is probably a Slavic translation of the corresponding Norse gods Thor and Freyr, who beside Odin were the two most important gods to the Swedes. However, in 988, he converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church, whereas the Norse in Scandinavia remained Norse pagans or converted to the Catholic Church. After this, the Norse influence decreased considerably both in character and in size, and in the 11th c. the Norse are mentioned as Varangian mercenaries and employees serving the princely family. Elena A. Melnikova at the Russian Academy of Sciences notes that in Russian historiography, the assimilation of the Norse Rus is presented as a very rapid affair, based on studies of material culture. However, material objects are not as strong an indicator of ethnic identity as the language spoken in a society. Usually, the only non-archaeological claim to rapid assimilation is the appearance of three Slavic names in the princely family, i.e. Svjatoslav, Predslava, and Volodislav, for the first time in the treaty with Byzantium of 944. Another reason for assuming a rapid assimilation is given by Yaroslav Shchapov, who writes that as a consequence of the Rusadoption of Byzantine (Eastern) rather than Roman Christianity, as well as the assimilation of Byzantine culture, "writing, literature and law in the national language" spread much earlier than in Western countries. Melnikova comments that the disappearance of Norse funeral traditions c. 1000, is better explained with Christianization and the introduction of Christian burial rites, a view described with some reservations by archaeologist Przemysław Urbańczyk of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnology at the Polish Academy of Sciences. So the lack of Norse burials from c. 1000 is not a good indicator of assimilation into Slavic culture, and shows instead that the Rus had turned Orthodox Christian. Also the use of material objects is more connected to change in fashion and to change of social status than it is to ethnical change. She also notes that no systematic studies of the various elements that manifest ethnic identity in relation to the Rus has been done to support the theory of rapid assimilation, in spite of the fact that "[t]he