Among the Russians: Book by Colin Thubron

In Among the Russians journalist Colin Thubron, a master of the English language, describes areas and people of the western Soviet Union that he observed during his 10,000 mile auto journey in 1980. Images from his lens are clearly and poetically painted. I am enjoying this read, but I do have reservations about the way Thubron clumps things of significance only to Russians or "Mother Russia" as opposed to other ethnic groups or states.
In the last chapter he quotes Kiev (not Kyiv) as being the 'Mother of all Russian cities,' and goes on to write, "From the ninth to the twelfth centuries it was the heart of a Russia which flowered in the sunlight of Byzantium, standing where the Dnieper headwaters gathered the Viking traffic before flooding south united to the Black Sea." Of course he is writing about the state of Kyivan Rus', but he fails to draw any distinction between the Eastern Slavic tribes inhabiting the region at this time in history. They were not just Russians. I am not an expert on Kyivan Rus', Russia, or the Soviet Union, but I believe Thubron does readers an injustice by over-simplfying parts of his book. Even non-experts can and should understand that Rus' and Russia are not synonyms.

For more information about Kyivan Rus' read this article at the Encyclopedia of Ukraine web site.