A.D. 1203. A.M. 6711. Rurik with the sons of Oleg and the heathen Polovets people, with Kontsyak and Danila Byakovits captured Kiev, on January 1, St Vasil's Day; and whomever their hands reached, whether monk or nun, priest or priest's wife, these they led off to the heathen; and all foreign merchants and foreigners of every country shut themselves up in the churches, and they granted them their lives; but their merchandise they divided with them by halves; but everything in the monasteries and in all the churches, all valuables and ornaments and ikons the pagans tore off and carried away into own land; and they set fire to the town . Then, too, the Russian [princes] Rurik, Roman, Mstislav and many others [Princes] went against the Polovets people. And then the winter was very cruel; and they took much plunder and drove away their herds. The same year Roman sent Vyacheslav ordering him to have Rurik shorn [a monk]. The same year the sons of Oleg defeated the Lithuanians, and did to death seven hundred and a thousand of them. The same year Miroshka; [Mayor] of Novgorod died, he was shorn in St. Georgi's, and then they gave the [Mayor]-ship to Mikhalko Stepanits. The same year for our sins all the horses died in Novgorod and in the villages so that it was not possible to go anywhere for the stench.