In 2014 Russian TV channel Culture aired a documentary, looking through the depth of time, trying to decipher who are Scythians, Sarmatians, Slavs and Russians, if they are one and the same people. The conclusion was mostly positive – yes, they are. The authors looked at the data from the chronicles, archaeology, linguistics and genetics, weighing arguments both for and against.

The film’s conclusion is open, and in a typical Russian way advocating peace and cooperation of all peoples, whoever their ancestors may be.

I want to add one material to better illustrate the point, made at 24:04, and citing Lavrentij Chronicles. I have the copies of those texts, and present the excerpt below with the words “Great Scythia” highlighted.

In the year 6415 Oleg went against Greece, having left Igor in Kiev; taking the multitude of Varjags, Slovens, Chudis, Krivichis, Merjus, Poljans, Severjan (Northerners), Drevljans (elder ones), Radimichis, Horvats (Croats), Dulebs, Tiverce, who are known as Tolkovny (Tolmachi – interpreters): and together they are called the Great Scythia (Velikaja Skuf’). And together with all of these Oleg went astride horses and in the ships, and the ships were counting 2000. And when they arrived at Czargrad, and Greece…

One notable thing, besides the mention of the Scythians as a collective name of the Slav people, is the date: year 6415. That is a separate topic of the Russia calendar, that was discarded by Peter I, and which lead to shortening and subsequent rewriting of the Russian history to suit the needs of the influentially growing Germanic aristocracy that was slowly taking over Russia’s political life at that time. I am going to publish a separate article about it soon.

Addendum: a 1531 map of Orontius Finaeus (Oronce Finé) came to my attention:

Leaving aside the fact that it shows the coastline of Antarctica, uncovered by ice – probably from before the quite recent Flood time, when that continent’s coastline was accessible, we can look at the following part of Eurasia and see…

Scytia – mentioned twice, as well as Tartaria, Russia, and Bulgaria – the latter where it was supposed to start, along the Volga (Volgari-Bolgari) river bank, East from the Crimean meridian.

And now, on to the documentary…

The formatted subtitle file in ASS format can be downloaded separately. Full text of the script is below the video frame.

Yes, Scythians Are Us! at Rumble

In 2001, in the village of Kostjonka in Vornezh oblast, archaeologists found a fragment of a figure –
a head of a person, carved from a mammoth tusk by an ancient master.
Such finds happen from time to time, awakening interest only among those interested in archaeology.
However, the nuclear-carbon dating showed the age of the figure: between 33000 and 38000 years.
Paleomagnetic measurements gave a more precise reading: the Kostjonka find is 42000 years old.
This was a true world sensation.
Never before were such ancient human depictions found anywhere in the world.
From this fact one can draw the conclusion – it was here, in Russia, that the Homo Sapience civilisation took root.
YES, SCYTHIANS ARE US!
In the times long gone people lived here,
they built dwellings, hunted mammoth, created tools from bone and stone,
as wells as statuettes like these.
A small figurine of a pregnant woman, created by an unknown artist,
is the first in a long row of the immortal works of art.
The human history has not yet started,
the deathly breath of the ice was still felt,
and tens of thousands of years are yet to pass before Mesopotamia is populated,
before the human voices are to be heard on the shores on Nile, Huan He and Ganges,
before the walls of Athens and Rome would rise,
while on the Don-river there is already a proto-city with a population of 300 people.
Maybe it is from here that people would set off to conquer and populate the planet?
[Anatolij Kljosov: Professor, Doctor of Chemistry]
For some reason, in the academic historic science, there is a custom to explicitly devalue the significance of Slavs, of Russians.
As the result one has a complete undervaluation of the history of the Russian people.
Take, for example, the term “Slav”, and ask any historian when Slavs appeared.
He’d reply, around tear 500AC, 1500 years ago.
That’s when the Slavic group of _languages_ appears.
A group of languages, which got transposed into the historic category, while it’s a linguistic one.
Didn’t they father and mother before that?
Well, they’d reply, they were not yest Slavs. But that’s their opinion.
That’s how you called it and that naming fossilised.
In reality those people and their ancestors lived there for thousands of years.
The history of the appearence of the Russian people is dark and mysterious.
The acknowledged chronicle texts tell about the events, starting from the 9th century.
But tell nothing of what happened before that.
Let us again open the “Tale of the Times” and read:
The German philosopher Hegel described the Russian people among all the Slav peoples as “non-historic”.
The Russian philosopher Chaadaev postulated that Russia has no history,
that Russia belongs to a non-organised, non-historic type of cultural phenomena.
However, here is how the poet Osip Maldenstam would reply to them in the 20th century:
“Such a highly-organised, such an organic language is not just a doorway the the history, but the history herself.”
Even Pushkin wrote that “The Tale of Igor’s Army” lists so many languages that were in use then,
[Jurij Yahontov: Professor, Doctor of Technical Sciences]
but so as to write such an ingenious work, one had to know all those languages, which is unrealistic.
This means that it most probably was written in a common Slavic language.
It also appears that at the time when Rurik was invited (to rule The Novgorod Republic), they spoke a common Slavic language –
everyone understood each other.
It appears that before Oleg, that is before the Rurik dynasty, there were some kinds of Slavic states.
[Andreij Burovskij: Professor, Doctor of Historical Science]
At least 3 or 4 are mentioned.
Some think that on the Central Dnepr there was a so-called Russian Khaganat,
that is some state was created with the help of Khazars.
And even without it, at least 3 are mentioned and are recognisable.
The Arabic sources of the 7th-8th centuries speak of Artania, Kujavia and Slavia.
The location of Artania is still being looked for.
But most definitely, Kujavia is Kiev, Kievan Rus,
while Slavia is most probably the surroundings of the Ilmenskj Slovens –
that is the surroundings of the modern Great Novgorod.
Russian language, Russian culture, the Russian way of life, the Russian state, the great Russian contribution to the world civilisation.
Could all this have sprung out of a void?
If yes, then Russia is resembling a building without the first floors, a building suspended in thin air.
The further we descend into the haze of time, the more puzzles and strange coincidences start to appear.
It is customary to think that Slavs were the ancestors of the Russians.
The first detailed and historically correct information about them is dated by the middle of the first century.
However, by that time, the Slavs are already the most numerous nation in Europe. How can this be?
Where were they hiding before that from the eye of the inquisitive neighbours?
Sarmats lived on these territories before the Slavs.
And before them – Scythians.
Both mysteriously vanished from the Eurasian steppes.
On the same land, one and the same play with abrupt appearing and mysterious disappearing
was played out with three different peoples.
Historians have long ago noticed this historical paradox.
“A nation cannot vanish like fog and move about like checkers.”
Egor Klassen, a Russian scientist, tried to convince his colleges and the reading audience.
When they say that Sarmatians destroyed Scythians. Whom did they destroy? Slaughtered millions of people? I don’t believe that.
Hundreds of thousands? Little probable.
The elites, the most symbolic people were eliminated.
While the mass of those, who were called Scythians, became a part of Sarmatians.
This wasn’t so much a vanishing mystery, as a mystery of their abandoning of a large territory.
Two reasons are usually pointed out: ecological changes, and the second is
[Vladimir Malyshev: Fellow of Science of Archaeology at the Russian Academy]
the inflow of the Sarmatians, which, according to the old sources, resulted in Sarmatians massacring the whole population of Scythians.
However, as is known, there were no genocides in that epoch.
The practise of genocide is a much later phenomenon.
Total extermination did not happen.
Most probably people simply left and abandoned that territory.
The history knows many case when nations and their names live different lives.
In the ancient times, a name of a nation was often short-lived.
It could be connected to the geographic location, and would change as the nation moved to another place.
An accurate nickname, given by the neighbours, would reflect the characteristics and the trade of a people.
But time would change a people, and the nickname would become outdated.
Could the same have happened to the Scythians?
Could have they lost this name, which was given to them by the Greek, and attain a different name?
Could have the descendants of Scythians be hiding under the name of Slavs?
Most of the Russian, and later, Soviet historians responded negatively to this question.
Lomonosov, however, was convinced that this is exactly what happened.
“Among the ancient ancestors of the present Russian people,
Scythians comprise not the least part.”, wrote the great Russian scientist.
Historian Tatishev argued that the worth Scyth is a deformed by the Greek Russian word Skit,
as the root in the modern Russian “skitalec” – “wanderer”.
The romantic idea of the kinship of Russians and Scythians
had literally enthralled our society at the beginning of the 20th century.
Alexander Block exclaimed: “Yes, Scythians are us!”
This poetic image is probably
[Ekaterina Devlet: Professor, Doctor of History]
both a world-view and a poetic attempt
to find in the distant history, though not that distant as history goes,
an understanding for the events that went on in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.
The famous Russian historian and archaeologist Ivan Zabelin founded the theory of Scythians as the forebears of the Slavs.
He pointed out the identity between the Scythian tribes and the Slavs.
The same earth tilling in the Middle Dnepr, the same trade with Greece,
the same sea raids on the shores of the Little Asia.
Zabelin turned to the language spoken by the Scythians.
To the language, that has only a few geographic and tribal names left from it.
Zabelin stated that Borisfen is a mutated by the Greek name of Berezina.
That’s how Dnepr was called in the old times.
Istr – Danube. Parata – prud (pond). He viewed them as undoubtedly Slavic names.
His opponents countered that that is nothing but guesswork.
There was, however, one Scythian word, which was Slavic without a shadow of a doubt.
Herodotus called them for “Scythians”, but at the same time we mentioned their own name for themselves – Skoloty.
The root of the word is “kolo”.
Dahl’s dictionary, in addition to the meanings “radius, wheel”, also defines it as “wheeled wagon, cart”.
Based on this, one can decipher the word “skoloty” as “people of a certain area”,
or it can be interpreted differently: “people on the carts”.
Either way, “skoloty” is a undoubtedly a Slavic – even Russian – word.
Zabelin’s arguments became forgotten with time.
They became pushed out by other theories.
Slowly the opinion that the language of the Black Sea Scythians,
was belonging to the Iranian group of the Indo-European language family too hold.
After the Scything kingdom disintegrated,
at the end of the III – beginning of the IV century, and the Scythians moved almost entirely into Crimea and lower Dbepr,
[Vladimir Malashev: Science fellow of Archaeology of the Russian Academy]
where they lived until the middle of the III century, while the Slavic cultures begin to form only at about this time,
while mostly in the V century, then the distance between the classic Scythia,
the Black Sea Scythia at its height, and the early Slavic cultures is about 1000 years.
Which continuity can one speak of?
The same thing is with the language.
Even though Scythian as one of the Iranian languages,
and Russian language belong to the Indo-European languages, but they are of different groups.
All Slavic tribes consisted of three tribal unions.
[Jurij Yahontov: Professor, Doctor of Technical Sciences]
This is coming from historic documents.
Those were: Ross, Scyth and Sarmat.
Thus all these tribes were Slavic tribes.
The question of the language belonging of Scythians is very important.
As anthropologists confirmed that one and the same population lived for over 5000 years
on the Eastern-European plains, this is a very central question.
Scythians. It is hard to find in the depths of ages another such people that would hold so many secrets.
Where did they come from? How and where to did they disappear? Which language did they speak?
Did they have a state, and how was it organised?
Disputes will be going on for a long time still.
A golden vessel was found in Kuljab burial mound (Kurgan),
[Kirill Firsov: Head antiquarian of archaeology of the State historical Museum]
depicting one of the myths of the origins of Scythians,
and it depicts Scythians in their typical clothing.
History’s Father, Herodotus describes several myths of the Scythian origins.
One of them is depicted on this vessel from Kulabe and tells that Hercules is the forefather of the Scythians.
During his travels over the Northern Black Sea, he got sons from the half-woman half-snake – Echidna
When he left those places, he left his sons a bow with a bowstring.
He took off the bowstring and said – tat who will be able to set it back, will continue the Scythian kin.
The first son started to set the bowstring, and it backfired at his tooth.
That vessel shows how Scythians sit abound an inspect his tooth.
The second sone tried his luch, and the bowstring hit him in the foot. He’s depicted bandaging his foot.
And only the thirds son managed to string the bow.
And he it shows that he became the forbearer of the Scythians. That’s one of the legends.
Historian Phukidit tells that not only the European kingdoms could not match Scythians on the field of battle,
but even Asia has no people, who could stand against Scythians in a one-on-one battle,
as long as all Scythians stand united.
But they don’t hold their own compared to other peoples, when it comes to common sense and understanding of the everyday life.
Scythian military deeds are well-known. Persian king Darij I, who by 500BC conquered
the whole of the Near Asia, could not conquer them.
Philip of Macedonia, having beaten the Scythian vanguard in Frakia (France) in 339BC,
did not dare to push forward into the Scythian heartlands,
where only death and no loot would be awaiting the Macedonians.
And in 331BC, at the walls of Ulvia, Scythians beat the army of Zaperion, a governor of Frakia.
Possessing an immense military power, they had no interest in destroying such same settlements, in which they themselves lived –
[Vera Kovalevskaja: Doctor of History]
half-earth houses without any luxury items.
Therefore their aspirations were directed towards Near East, where they destroyed
richly decorated houses, and more importantly, they always conquered and destroyed treasuries and temples.
Battle bow is a Scythian object of pride.
It was crafted from hard tree sorts, tendrils and horn plates.
It had an incredible range.
One can read on a stone stella, discovered in the Greek colony of Olvia, that some Onaxogor
performed a record-breaking shot from a Scythian bow – the arrow covered a distance of 520 meters.
Here there was a find of is an iron helmet from the 4th century.
[Leonid Jablonskij: Doctor of History]
This is the compulsory short sword, called Akinak, which is fastened to the baldric.
A baldric buckle, which was situated at the crossing of the shoulder and waist belts.
This is a quiver with arrows.
Not even a quiver, but a so-called saadak – a travel bag, which incorporates a quiver.
In addition it could hold the bow, it had pockets for various knick-knacks that a warrior may need:
such as a knife and a sharpening stone could be fitted there.
According to specialists, Scythian armament was on par with that of a medeival knight.
For long range: bow with arrows, and a sling.
For middle range: throwing spears and darts.
For short range: sword, axe, dagger.
Protective gear: armour, helmet, leg-covers, shields.
Swords were made from high-alloying steel – they already possessed the skill of making such hardened steel.
Scythians are nomads. Slavs are farmers. Thus Scythians cannot be the predecessors of the Slavs.
This is the essence of the theory of the opponents of Scythian-Slavic kinship.
Indeed, both the ancient Greek and the modern authors call Scythians for nomads.
But is this such a flawless definition?
Herodotus mentions strange Scythians – ploughmen and farmers.
Such battles ranged in scientific circles because of that!
Who are they. They were often called for Slavs.
Ploughing Scythians? Who are they – people living behind Scythians in the forest-steppe land?
They are poorly-known, an Iranian-language people.
Two tribal unions are known from Nestor’s chronicles: Uglichi and Tiberian – they spoke Iranian languages.
Possibly their ancestors were those Scythian-ploughmen.
Places that have compact Scythian settlements, townships,
probably had some kind of a settled life.
There were workshops, etc.
But the nomad Scythians did not do that.
Another thing that Herodotus pointed out, was that among the Scythian gods,
the most celebrated were Geistia – the goddess of the home hearth, and Geia – the patron of agriculture.
There were also Scythian metallurgists.
They produced iron from ore, transformed it into steel, using various techniques of forging, hardening, carburizing, welding.
The people of Eurasia learnt about the new metal from Scythians.
They copied from the Scythians the craft of iron processing.
We are probably seeing a uniquely-organised civilisation.
Each of the tribes were doing its own craft, but together they were bound by unseen strong bonds,
they comprised a united Scythian World.
Excuse me, what about the Siberian Scythians?
Many heard of the Siberian Scythians, of the Central- and Middle-Asia Scythians.
It was a belt of Scythian states – or proto-states, counties – that stretched from Danube to the Central Asia.
Who heard of the Scythians of the Huan He river delta? They existed too.
For the longest time, the scientists studying the ancient world set a demarcation line between “civilisation” and “barbarians”.
Greeks and Romans were placed on one side of it.
Scythians and other “unlearned bloodthirsty people” on the other.
But here is what’s curious: in everything that the Greeks were telling about the Scythians,
one can clearly feel fear, amazement, and an undoubted respect.
Herodotus considered Scythians to be the inventors of the nomad lifestyle, and praised it as the most convenient.
The eldest Greek poet Hesiod wrote about Scythians in the 8th century BC.
He postulated that the best known ancient hero of Greece, Heracles,
was presented with his bow by a Scythian named Tevtar, who also taught Heracles how to shoot from the bow.
Legends of Scythians can be found in the eldest myths.
They attribute the inventions of agriculture and copper melting are attributed to the Scythians.
Greek myths speak of a Scythian Anaharsis.
The Greek name him as the foremost sages of the world.
Iphor(?) attributes him with the invention of such useful things as a double-sided anchor, bellows, and the pottery ring.
Another Scythian, Taksaris, was elevated to the demi-god hero status by the Areopag of Athens, for stopping a plague epidemic in Athens.
A sacrificial alter was placed in his honour, and a decree
that a white horse should be sacrificed in his honour annually.
Herodotus ends his description of the Scythians with the following words:
“We know of no other such intellectually distinguished peoples, but the Scythian people.”
“The Scythian people were the wisest of all living on the other side of Pont.”
So who are Scythians after all?
Enemies of civilisation and destroyers of cultures?
Or a progressive people, who enriched the humanity with inventions and innovations?
Scythian civilisation probably had a half-nomad level of development.
That did not let them to transition into a higher civilisation form:
With a permanent territory, with stability in food production, with emergence of a clerical and warrior cast.
Maybe that already emerged in a form of chieftain.
If we are to take the quality of their works – for example, the legendary Scythian gold – it is very high.
We see clearly that they had high level of craftsmanship.
We now know next to nothing of Scythian tales, legends, their written history.
But if we were to uncover that oral dimension, it would have been very interesting –
after all, it’s not a coincidence that Greeks held Scythians in high regard.
Nomadic Scythians were first and foremost stockbreeders, used animal produce, rode in carts.
They moved from place to place, and thus their objects were distributed so far and wide.
The military objects were also similar in this wide area because they were moving about fast and were fast spreading those new inventions.
And the most efficient types of armour were spread first.
Okinak proved to be efficient and thus it became widespread.
This bridle was the most modern for that time, and thus it quickly became widespread.
And this animalistic (ornamental) style was liked by all that thus became widespread.
Let us again open the “Tale of Times”
And in peace they lived: Poljane, Drevljane (Woodlanders), Severjane (Northerners), Rodimichi, Vjatichi and Horvaty (Croats).
Doleby lived on the high plains, where Volenjany (Free ones) live,
while Ulichi and Tivercy lived along Dnestr and Danube.
There were many of them and they lived along Dnestr until the very Sea,
and their cities stand until this day, and the Greek called them The Great Scythia.
And here, the same, under year 907:
Oleg want against the Greek, leaving Igor in Kiev, and taking with him many Varjags, and Slovens (Slavs),
and Chudi, and Krivichi, and Merju, and Drevljane, and Rodimiche, and Poljane, and Severjane, and Vjatichi, and Horvaty, and Duleby,
and Tivercy, known as Tolmachi, and they were all called by the Greek for The Great Scythia.
The compiler of the first Byzantine Encyclopaedia Anna Komnina does indeed call the Rus people of the 11th century as Scythians.
And Konstantin Bagrjanorodnyj calls Russians for Tauric-Scythians.
The Byzantine writers – Patriarch Fotij, Georgij Amartol and other – who wrote about the Russian attacks on Czar-city,
never call them by the name of Slavs.
When defining the people, who besieged Czar-city, they call them “Ross, the people of the Scythian origin”.
At the same time geographer Ravenskij, when listing the European countries, calls Scythia for the homeland of the Slavs.
Confirming this, in the Lev Diakon’s history, Russians are called Scythians 63 times.
Mazurinsk Chronicles (1678-1682) say “the newcomers, Scythians, who cometh to be called Slavs”.
Nikon’s Chronicles say openly: “Slovenic language as spoken on Danube has come from Scythians.”
What more proof is needed that Scythians are Slavs?!
Thus Scythian language is the Slav language, the common Slav language.
A vase, found in the mound Kuljaba, near Kerch, holds several scenes depicting of the everyday life of the Scythians.
If we compare these images with the Russian lithographic prints (Lubok),
we will be struck not only by a commonality in styles, but also an amazing outward similarity of the faces and characters.
Greek chroniclers, who knew Scythians wrote that they were handsome, well-built people.
Scythians, depicted in the Scythian mounds are of European look.
Depiction of the Scythians on these vessels were of a genealogical mythology, and not of a mundane character of say, pulling a tooth.
But in general, they were very much looking like a typical Russian man, bearded and with unruly hair,
and with a definitely European face.
There were no Asian depictions at all.
Studying in detail the everyday life of Scythians and Slavs, we come across striking similarities at every turn.
Both Scythians and ancient Slavs worshipped the forces of Nature.
Their principal deity was a great female goddess, called Tabitia. She was the goddess of fire and of the living things.
Later with the Slavs she became goddess Zhiva (Zhizn’ – life).
Neither Scythians not Slavs built temples. Both made sacrifices to their gods, and held the god of war in high regard.
They didn’t need priests, but they honoured soothsayers, healers, sages, sorcerers.
There were no atheists in the ancient times.
Scythians worshipped the long sword.
With the combative lifestyle, that was understandable.
Scythians held both short and long swords in their okinaki.
A long sword was 1 to 1,10 meters.
That could be such a splendid meter-long sword with a beautiful golden hilt.
Such a sword would be glittering in the sun at a mound top.
Burial rituals of the Scythians and Slav-Rus people are strikingly similar.
Scythians would strangle one of the Czar’s wives and would bury her with the Czar.
The same fate was in store for the czar’s servants – winer, stableman, and others.
Ancient Slavs did exactly the same.
Scythians built an earth mound above the Czar’s grave, and a year later they would hold commemoration on top of it,
and a new sacrifice would be made – 50 horsemen.
The ancient Slavs also held a commemorative service for their departed on a burial mound.
Both Scythians and ancient Slavs would honour their horses that were killed in battle.
The custom to put a sword beside a newborn son and to sit him on a horse when he reaches 3 years were also in common.
Archaeologists state a complete identity between the first Slav burials and the Scythian burials.
A complete identity. Everything is in common, including construction of the mounds.
Maybe some changes came later with the adoption of Christianity, when bodies were not cremated, but buried.
But the first burials were identical.
Each burial, however many we uncover, adds some new knowledge,
as each burial contains new finds, yet unknown to us.
For example: we for the first time discovered a wicker box, filled to the brim with big black beetles.
We are yet to determine the species of these beetles.
In addition we found for the first time gold-plated steel needles for application of tattoos,
as well as stone palettes for mixing of the pigments.
The tattoos themselves are not preserved, but they had such tradition, and the tattoos were made in colour.
Archaeologists will probably never say with 100% certainty what such a burial means,
but is we are to talk about the Scythian burials, then their splendour, the selection of the accompanying inventory, as we say,
a huge number of various military items,
a typical for many mounds accompanying burials of horses and people,
the timespan, over which the mound complexes, such as Arzhan-2, were formed,
all this speaks of a great might, of a special status, and of a colossal potential possessed by the nobility of that time.
Are we Scythians or not?
Ancient writers hint at our kinship.
Linguistics mixes up things and doubts.
Anthropology answers in the affirmative.
The striking sameness in the appearance, character, temperament,
continuity of the material culture adds votes for this theory.
However, the 21st century gave scientists a completely new set of tools to study ancient history.
These are mathematical studies of the history, and statistical modelling of the large-scale historical process,
and of course – modern genetics.
A new scientific branch appeared – DNA genealogy,
which can give a precise, mathematically proven answer to a question of who we are and where do we come from.
Its main premise is that the male Y-chromosome is transferred only from father to son, and women do not affect it.
In other words, unlike the genes that shuffle with every generation thanks to an almost equal input from mother and father,
the Y-chromosome is transferred between generations almost unchanged.
The “almost” comes from the fact that mutations occur in it at a specific average rate.
According to scientists, DNA-genealogy allows to identify in each person a marker of his ancient lineage.
This marker is called SNP and defines the haplogroup to which a person belongs.
If there are 10 mutations between us, that’s one thing, if there is only 1 – another case, and if 1000 mutations, yet something else.
Thus we can compare any group of people and calculate when their common ancestor lived.
[Anatolij Kljosov: Professor, Doctor of Chemistry]
Let’s say that Rjurik was the common ancestor of his descendant group.
Then we can calculate when he lived.
We can find an answer to the question when lived the common ancestor of all Russians.
For how many thousand years ago he lived.
Or when lived the common ancestor of Russians and Poles.
Or of Russians and Spaniards, etc.
Those who possess haplogroup R1a1 constitute now 70% of all the male population of Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia.
While in the ancient Russian settlements that number is up to 80%.
R1a1 is the biological marker of the Russian ethnos.
This collection of nucleotides is that Russianness from the genetics perspective.
Scientists, who conducted the research say that the Russian people in the genetically contemorary form,
appeared in the European part of the modern Russia about 4500 years ago.
The boy with the mutation R1a1 became the forefather of all the contemporary men,
who have this haplogroup in their DNA.
They are all his biological descendants or, as they said before, of the same bloodline.
And among them their are the kin that comprises one people – Russian.
As for Scythians-Sarmatians, when they started digging and analysed the DNA, it turned out,
cutting to the chase, that Aryans, Scythians, Slavs are one and the same people.
This is a thunderous news! This is not present in the literature yet – only a few articles having been written so far.
They are all R1a.
Aryans are R1a, as they came to India, we know it from their DNA.
Scythians are those, who stayed on this whole vast stretch from Danube to Mongolia,
and to Altai – they wandered across this huge band,
they are too R1a, at least that what we could study.
Slavs too R1a. In any case this is the same genealogical line.
Maybe some time will pass and the specialists in DNA genealogy will give a conclusive answer
about the kinship of the Scythians, Slavs and the modern Russians.
And it may well turn out that the people of the stone age, who left traces on this Earth 50,000 years ago,
are indeed our distant ancestors.
At may turn out that we are of the same bloodline with Aryans, and with Scythians and Sarmatians, in general being the oldest people of Earth.
But a different outcome is possible.
Maybe science will advance and prove fallacy of trying to find ancestors in the Y-chromosome.
The the ancestry field will remain unfilled in the peoples biography.
Each people contributed to the history of the world civilisation. Each people has something to be proud of.
We are all different, but our difference makes the world multicoloured and bright.
And however insurmountable the inter-national conflicts may seem today, however sharp the contradictions are,
a time will nesesserilly come, when people will realise that they comprise a united community of peoples.
People of Earth. Humanity, which has one common past, and one common future.

As a postscript: The R1a1 haplogroup is also something what yours truly belongs to. At the time when Icelandic DecodeMe project was operational, I ordered decoding of my own DNA profile, and the R1a1 belonging was an expected outcome that got verified.

Below is the information that DecodeMe project presented, but as you now know, the percentage for the R1a1 haplogroup in the Greater Russia is 70%, and not 40-50%% as Wikipedia would want one to believe.

UPDATE 09.09.2022: Moved defunct YouTube information to the bottom for historic reference:

Sadly, four years, later I got this message in the inbox:

After a manual review, a copyright owner has claimed some material in your video.
As a result, your video has been blocked, and can no longer be played on YouTube.
Video title: Yes, Scythians Are Us! (EngSubs)
Copyrighted content: Да, скифы – мы! Документальный фильм @Телеканал Культура
Claimed by: All-Russia State Television and Radio Company

Please head to the untranslated version, uploaded by VGTRK here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gp9D4EdEXc

The film can be downloaded for off-line viewing using some of the tools on the Internet, and then watched with the subtitles that are available separately above.