Christianity on the Route from the Varangians to the Greeks before the Baptism of Rus': Archeological Evidence

As a subject of research, I would like to raise the issue of the spread of Christianity on the territory of the "way from the Varangians to the Greeks". The relevance of this work is determined by several factors: first, the research will be carried out from the perspective of an interdisciplinary approach (written sources of Byzantine, Russian, Scandinavian, and European origin will be compared with material data-archaeological finds); secondly, as far as I know, at the moment there is no generalizing work on the Christianization of the tribes and peoples who inhabited the territory of the "way from the Varangians to the Greeks". The available works usually cover a specific archaeological site/territory of a particular state. The novelty of this work is due to its relevance. It attempts an interdisciplinary approach to the question of the Christianization of Russia - materials from written sources will be analyzed in the light of these archaeological finds. The chronological scope of my work virtually cover the period from the beginning of the "Viking age" in Europe before the baptism of the Ancient Russian state, followed by state propagation and planting of Christian religion in the various East Slavic tribes, and later in the Scandinavian countries. The goal of my future work is to comprehensively and systematically study the scattered data on Christian finds throughout the "way from the Varangians to the Greeks", to establish to what extent the data from written and other non-material sources correlate with the archaeological data on the distribution of Christian antiquities. The main objects of research will be archaeological finds from the territories of the ancient Russian state and the Scandinavian countries. Written sources about the Christianization of Russia of various origins will be considered by me as auxiliary and generalizing materials. My work will have several intermediate tasks: 1) to study the formation and functioning of the "way from the Varangians to the Greeks"; 2) to consider and compare various written sources of their origin and compare them with each other; 3) to consider the most important archaeological finds of Christian origin on the territory of the "way from the Varangians to the Greeks", 4) to address the issue of the non-material influence of Christian culture on the East Slavic and Scandinavian peoples, through the funeral rite and changes in worldview.