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some people will sometimes talk about russia and europe as if russia wasn't part of europe. there's obviously no "natural" truth since by definition this is politics—but it's still amusing to reply that if russia is just asian, then scandinavia (plus finland) is an asian peninsula.

but anyway, the russes were west norse people, mostly swedes and geats (hi 👋) and gutes, who settled between the baltics and the black sea. the finnish name for sweden is "ruotsi", from the old Norse word róðr (meaning "rower" as in rowing-tool, like row, oar, rudder), since we used our long rowing boats to get there I guess?

so the word "rus" actually comes from an old finnic word for, like, norse boating people (vikings) and particularly the swedes from the eastern coast of svealand (swedeland).

which means that "russia" kind of means "swedish land" and "belarus" means "white swede", coming from what the finnic and slavic people called the lands where the rower-people settled.