text: Until the 19th century , the Primary Chronicle (the Nachal'naya Letopis') was habitually attributed to the monk Nestor. Modern investigators have not only placed his authorship in doubt, but have also sought to establish by internal evidence that the Primary Chronicle, instead of being a homogenous work, is a compilation from several chronicle texts of greater antiquity. Nestor the Chronicler is the undisputed author of the biographical work "The Narrative of the Life, Death and Miracles of the Holy and Blessed Martyrs Boris and Gleb" and a comparative study of two accounts presents no stylistic evidence that Nestor was in any way concerned with the composition or compilation of the Primary Chronicle, while the contradictions between the two narratives point rather in the opposite direction. A more likely candidate as author is Sylvester of Kiev, hegumen (abbot) of the St. Michael's Monastery in Vydubychi (a village near Kyiv), who may have compiled several sources in the year 1116. In any case, the Primary Chronicle was written approximately 250 years after the events involving Askold and Dir.
  The beginning of the Synod Scroll or "Older Edition" of the Novgorod First Chronicle is missing. The surviving text starts in the middle of a sentence in the year 1016. The lost contents of the Synod Scroll before the year 1016 are unknown, and can only be speculated about.
  The Laurentian Codex of the Primary Chronicle relates that Askold and Dir were sanctioned by Rurik to go to Constantinople (Norse Miklagård, Slavic Tsargrad). When travelling on the Dnieper, they settled in Kiev seizing power over the Polans who had been paying tribute to the Khazars.
  The murder of Askold and Dir