The whole of southern Russia was abandoned to barbaric destruction.

Nestor gives a graphic sketch of the misery which prevailed: "One saw everywhere," he writes, "villages in flames; churches, houses, granaries were reduced to heaps of ashes; and the unfortunate citizens were either expiring beneath the blows of their enemies, or were awaiting death with terror.

Prisoners, half naked, were dragged in chains to the most distant and savage regions.

As they toiled along, they said, weeping, one to another, '_I am from such a village, and I from such a village_.

No horses or cattle were to be seen upon our plains.