> Basically you just had a lot of motorcycle gangs running around in the forest
Luckily however the Norse, as boat travelers, were mainly limited to the Volga and other large rivers. Outsiders were also reluctant to approach indigenous communities due to the risk of being struck with poison arrows. So, the local peoples could simply move a couple of dozen kilometers from the big river and then never encounter a Norse party in their lives.
> it also makes me appreciate the gradual changes that Christianity brought
Among the indigenous peoples of the Middle Volga, one finds a strong undercurrent of resentment of Christianity. Not only did people not like losing their traditional religion (animism for the Mari and Chuvash, for example), but the Christianity that the Russians brought was not often kind or compassionate, and it went together with serfdom that was hardly different from slavery. Some have even looked back on the era of Muslim Tatar rule as preferable, because the Tatar Khanate did not practice forced conversions of most other peoples. The Tatars were content to let most of them stay non-Muslim and move freely about the forests, because these peoples could then be used as a very lucrative source of fur taxation.
Luckily however the Norse, as boat travelers, were mainly limited to the Volga and other large rivers. Outsiders were also reluctant to approach indigenous communities due to the risk of being struck with poison arrows. So, the local peoples could simply move a couple of dozen kilometers from the big river and then never encounter a Norse party in their lives.
> it also makes me appreciate the gradual changes that Christianity brought
Among the indigenous peoples of the Middle Volga, one finds a strong undercurrent of resentment of Christianity. Not only did people not like losing their traditional religion (animism for the Mari and Chuvash, for example), but the Christianity that the Russians brought was not often kind or compassionate, and it went together with serfdom that was hardly different from slavery. Some have even looked back on the era of Muslim Tatar rule as preferable, because the Tatar Khanate did not practice forced conversions of most other peoples. The Tatars were content to let most of them stay non-Muslim and move freely about the forests, because these peoples could then be used as a very lucrative source of fur taxation.