POSAD — An area adjoining, but not within, the fortified walls of a Russian town, often a center of trade. Over the centuries, the posad often evolved into an administrative center or a town in its own right.

POZHAR — Fire, bonfire; the name of the golden mare in The Winter of the Witch, who is also the firebird. You can see the root of her name in the Russian word for firebird, zhar-ptitsa.

RUBAKHA — A long-sleeved shift, the main undergarment for nearly all medieval Russian women, the only one consistently washed.

RUS’ — The Rus’ were originally a Scandinavian people. In the ninth century C.E., at the invitation of warring Slavic and Finnic tribes, they established a ruling dynasty, the Rurikids, that eventually comprised a large swath of what are now Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russia. The territory they ruled was eventually named after them, as were the people living under their dynasty, which lasted from the ninth century to the death of Ivan IV in 1584.

RUSSIA — From the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries, there was no unified polity called Russia. Instead, the Rus’ lived under a disparate collection of rival princes (knyazey) who owed their ultimate allegiance to Mongol overlords. The word Russia did not come into common use until the seventeenth century. Thus, in the medieval context, the use of the word Russia, or the adjective Russian, refers to a swath of territory with a common culture and language, rather than a nation with a unified government. Hence the phrase “All the Russias” refers to these various states, rather than a unified whole.

SAPOGI — Short boots, generally made of multiple pieces of leather, with a rounded toe. In this era, they did not distinguish between left and right foot.

SARAFAN — A dress something like a jumper or pinafore, with shoulder straps, worn over a long-sleeved blouse. This garment actually came into common use only in the early fifteenth century; I included it in The Bear and the Nightingale slightly before its time because of how strongly this manner of dress evokes fairy-tale Russia to the Western reader.

SARAI — From the Persian word for “palace,” the capital city of the Golden Horde, originally built on the Akhtuba River and later relocated slightly to the north. Various princes of Rus’ would go to Sarai to do homage and receive patents from the Khan to rule their territories. At one point, Sarai was one of the largest cities in the medieval world, with a population of over half a million.

SERPUKHOV — Currently a town that sits about sixty miles south of Moscow. Originally founded during the reign of Dmitrii Ivanovich to protect Moscow’s southern approaches, and given to Dmitrii’s cousin Vladimir Andreevich (Olga’s husband in The Girl in the Tower). Serpukhov did not get town status until the late fourteenth century. In The Girl in the Tower and The Winter of the Witch, Olga lives with her family in Moscow despite being the Princess of Serpukhov, because Serpukhov, at this time, consists of little more than trees, a garrison, and a few huts. The Prince of Serpukhov was the only lord in Muscovy who was not a vassal, i.e., was a prince in his own right and not subordinate to Moscow.