Rus Myths: The Bogatyrs, Heroic Warriors
As Kievan Rus lands formed, stories and ballads of bogatyrs, mythical heroic warriors, became popular. A bogatyr was sometimes loosely based on a real person but involved in legendary feats, like the knight-errant myths of western Europe. One popular theme was a bogatyr slaying a dragon (often one with three or more heads, as shown in the painting on the right), which would later be used for propaganda centuries later.
There were many bogatyrs, both male and female, but three of the most popular (as shown in the painting on the left) were Ilya Muromets (based on a peasant from the village of Murom), who gained super-human strength, killed monsters, and defended Kiev; Dobrynya Nikitich (based on a war leader of Novgorod), who killed a three-headed dragon in an epic three-day battle; and Alyosha Popovich, supposedly the clever son of a priest, who defeated a dragon by trickery.
Bogatyrs remain popular in Russian culture to present times. Even the Soviets at times used bogatyr imagery. Early Red Army headgear was deliberately evocative of bogatyr helmets, in hopes of inspiring the troops, and 1930s Soviet Arctic explorers were sometimes call bogatyrs.