In the year 986 Vladimir hosted Jewish Khazars from the lower Volga, followed by papal emissaries from Germany who regaled the prince with tales of the power and grandeur of the Church of Rome. Greek scholars representing Byzantine Orthodox traditions took issue with the primacy of the pope before “Bulgars of the Mohammedan faith” arrived from the steppeland of the lower Don River and told the prince of the wondrous fulfillment of all carnal desires in the Islamic afterlife. “Vladimir listened to them,” according to the Chronicle, “for he was fond of women and indulgence, regarding which he heard with pleasure.” The Muslim Bulgars then described the rite of circumcision and the necessary abstinence from pork and wine. Furrowing his brow, Vladimir uttered a rhyme destined to be retold through the ages: “Rusi est’ vesel’e piti, ne mozhem bez togo byti.” “Drinking,” said he, “is the joy of the Russes. We cannot exist without it.”

The following year, in the water of the Dnieper River, Vladimir and the subjects of Kievan Rus’ were baptized into the church of Constantinople, and the Russians have been Orthodox Christians ever since.

From Mark Lawrence Schrad's Vodka Politics: Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret History of the Russian State (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2014) p. 77