IN THIS CHAPTER we shall deal with Pallteskia, Móramar, Rostofa, Súrdalar, and Smaleskia which can be certainly identified as Polotsk, Murom, Rostov, Suzdal’, and Smolensk, as well as with Sýrnes, Gaðar, Álaborg, and Danparstaðir that have various contradictory identifications.

The most complete list of Old Russian towns in Old Norse literature is found in the Icelandic geographical treatise Hversu lǫnd liggja í verǫldinni (Hb 1892– 96, 153– 56) which an Icelander Haukr Erlendsson incorporated into his compilation of Old Icelandic texts, Hauksbók, written in 1302– 1310 (see Sverrir Jakobsson 2007). However, the pages with this text are written not by Haukr himself, but by a Norwegian scribe (Hb 1892– 96, xv). Elena Melnikova suggests that these pages had been written earlier and independently of Hauksbók and dates this treatise to the end of the thirteenth to the beginning of the fourteenth century (Melnikova 1986, 59– 60), while the list of towns seems to be much older, and below I will argue that it might be dated to the last third of the tenth century. The list is as follows: “I þui riki er þat er Ruzcia heitir. þat kollum ver Garðariki. þar ero þessir hofuð garðar. Moramar. Rostofa. Surdalar. Holmgarðr. Syrnes. Gaðar. Palteskia. Koenugarðr” (“In that state there is a part called Ruzcia, we call it Garðaríki. There are these capital towns: Móramar, Rostofa, Súrdalar, Hólmgarðr, Sýrnes, Gaðar, Palteskia, Koenugarðr”) (Hb 1892– 96, 155).

The word combination hǫfuð garðar used in the text might be translated as “capital towns” only in the context of Old Rus’. In medieval Swedish sources the term huvud gård was used for the designation of “the main court” with the same meaning as that of curia and mansio of Swedish documents in Latin (see Svanidze 1984, 75). The toponyms Hólmgarðr and Kænugarðr have been discussed in previous chapters. Now we shall concentrate on all the rest, beginning with Pallteskja as a designation of an important station on the “route from the Varangians to the Greeks.”