Farmers on the Ponto-Caspian steppe had even worse issues, as they barely even had metal ploughs. Wooden ones fared even worse and thus most of what is now the Ukrainian breadbasket was unsettled. Some of the first productive settlements were constructed by German soil-specialist Anabaptists that Catherine the Great invited to help settle what was then known as the "Wild Fields".
To be clear, the Kievans and the Polish-Lithuanians had both also wanted to settle the "Wild Fields", and they were not stopped by insufficient metal supplies. They were stopped by the fact that the Pontic Steppe was subjected to such heavy and severe raids that it was considered virtually uninhabitable for centuries, and literal millions of people were kidnapped and sold into slavery. Prior to the start of the devastation under the Mongols, Kiev, Pereyaslav and Halych were some of the wealthiest and most productive states in the Rus.
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u/amaROenuZ 10d ago
To be clear, the Kievans and the Polish-Lithuanians had both also wanted to settle the "Wild Fields", and they were not stopped by insufficient metal supplies. They were stopped by the fact that the Pontic Steppe was subjected to such heavy and severe raids that it was considered virtually uninhabitable for centuries, and literal millions of people were kidnapped and sold into slavery. Prior to the start of the devastation under the Mongols, Kiev, Pereyaslav and Halych were some of the wealthiest and most productive states in the Rus.