When everything gets quiet , I think of him . <| sep |> The rise of the Mergovinians and Frankish France resulted directly from the Battle of Soissons , where Rome definitively lost control over Gallia . Therefore , France directly went from being a Roman province at least nominally to being an Independent entity with efforts to gain territory it once held , ruled by Salian Franks that asimilated to the dominant culture . VladimirSuzdal likewise was a territory under The Kievan Rus , until their collapse and splintering and eventually being conquered by the Mongols . If France ' s conquering by foreign people makes depicting it as a successor to the Roman Empire impossible , then Vladimir ' s conquest by the Mongols and Later Golden Horde likewise refutes its claims as a continuance of the Kievan Rus . Moreover , since VladimirSuzdal is recognized as the cradle of Russian culture , and it was not settled by Slavs until the 12 th century , then it is a bit silly to claim Russia having a direct history stretching back to the 9 th century , especially when this area was at that time the cultural center of the Merya people .