Posted by Expedition Vittfarne on April 09, 2004 at 04:06:30:
Vikings sailing back to Ukraine heading for the Caspian Sea
The expedition will start in the Old Swedish-Village (Ed. note: Swe. Gammalsvenskby, present-day Ru. Kakhovka (Kherson). The old Swedish-village is a village where the inhabitants, whose ancestors emigrated from the Baltic Island of Dagö, still speak Swedish.) in the south of Ukraine in spring 2004. Here the scientific expedition that brought the Viking boat Aifur from Sigtuna, Sweden to the estuary of the Dnjepr via river systems in the late Sovjet during the seasons of 1994 and 1996, was broken off. Our journey can be seen as a continuation of this expedition.
The journey starts out from the Dnjepr River, passes the Crimean peninsula and along the Russian and Abchazian coast to the mouth of the Rioni River at the Georgian port of Poti. Via Rioni and its tributaries we will proceed to the village of Zuare where the traverse over the water divider will take place. The boat will then be launched in the Kura River that flows out into the Caspian Sea at the coast of Azerbajdzjan. The final destination is Baku, the capital of Azerbajdzjan.
In 1036, Ingvar den Vittfarne (Ingvar, The One Who Travelled Far) a Viking chief, led a fleet from what is now known as Sweden to the Caspian Sea . He navigated the Russian waterways to the Black Sea and from there, most probably continued down the Georgian river Rioni. After hauling his boats across land, he is believed to have continued his journey via the Mtkvari River in Georgia, which is known as Kur in Azerbaijan south eastward to the Caspian. It is believed that Vittfarne even reached as far as Gara Bugaz located in present-day Turkmenistan.
However, on his return voyage, Ingvar and many of the men who accompanied him are believed to have become ill and died. Only a few men survived to tell the story. This fated expedition is mentioned on at least 26 of the 1,000 runic stones known to exist in Sweden. The tragedy is also referred to in an Icelandic saga.
Read more:
www.vittfarne.com