Важные афоризмы для понимания русской цивилизации - Essential aphorisms to understand Russian civilization

These words are attributed the famous medieval ruler, Alexander Nevsky in Sergei Eisenstein's film of 1938. Nevsky tells these words to Teutonic knights while releasing them from captivity.

This is the last line of a poem by Fyodor Tyutchev which means that Russians made many illogical and unexpected actions that you cannot forecast. The first verse is "Умом Россию не понять", which means "Russia can’t be understood with the mind alone".

In the "Primary Chronicle" the Vikings invited a foreign prince to rule over them and Rurik accepted. It means that despite Russia's great size and its vast natural resources, no one has been able to rule Russia by giving this country an order.