The city remains to the present day.
It will be perceived through what slow and vacillating steps the Russian monarchy was established.

In the earliest dawn of the kingdom, Yaroslaf divided Russia into five principalities.

To his eldest son he gave the title of Grand Prince, constituting him, by his will, chief or monarch of the whole kingdom.

His younger brothers were placed over the principalities, holding them as vassals of the grand prince at Kief, and transmitting the right of succession to their children.
Ysiaslaf, and some of his descendants, men of great energy, succeeded in holding under more or less of restraint the turbulent princes, who were simply entitled _princes_, to distinguish them from the _Grand Prince_ or monarch.

These princes had under them innumerable vassal lords, who, differing in wealth and extent of dominions, governed, with despotic sway, the serfs or peasants subject to their power.