What was going on in Russia during the First Crusade?

On November 27, 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II called on Christians to travel to the East and liberate Jerusalem from Muslim rule: "Begin your journey to the Holy Sepulchre, wrest this land from this impious people."

The First Crusade began in 1096 and ended three years later with the capture of Jerusalem. A number of crusader states emerged in the captured territories of Asia Minor and Palestine, some of which lasted until the end of the 13th century.

At this time, Svyatopolk Izyaslavich, the Grand Prince of Kiev, ruled in Old Russia and parts of this vast state were governed by his relatives from the Rurik dynasty. In 1094, an internecine war broke out between the princes over the redistribution of territories in the east of the country.

Shortly after the reconciliation at the Congress of Lyubech in 1097, hostilities broke out again, this time in the west of the Old Russian state. They ended by 1100.

In addition to inter-princely feuds, Old Russia was weakened by constant pressure from the Polovtsians. These Turkic-speaking nomads from the Black Sea steppes would regularly raid the state's southern borders.

Sometimes, princes used the Polovtsians as mercenaries in their fights against rivals and, sometimes, even entered into dynastic marriages with their nobility. For example, in 1094, Svyatopolk Izyaslavich married Elena, daughter of Polovtsian Khan Tugorkan.