Monastery of the Catacombs were delivered up to be plundered, 1240.

Volhynia and Galicia still remained, but their princes could not
defend them, and Russia found herself, with the exception of Novgorod
and the northwest country, under the Tartar yoke. The princes had fled
or were dead: hundreds of thousands of Russians were dragged into
captivity. Men saw the wives of boyars, "who had never known work, who
a short time ago had been clothed in rich garments, adorned with
jewels and collars of gold, surrounded with slaves, now reduced to be
themselves the slaves of barbarians and their wives, turning the wheel
of the mill and preparing their coarse food."

If we look for the causes which rendered the defeat of the brave
Russian nation so complete, we may, with Karamsin, indicate the
following: 1. Though the Tartars were not more advanced, from a
military point of view, than the Russians, who had made war in Greece
and in the West against the most warlike and civilized people of
Europe, yet they had an enormous superiority of numbers. Batu probably
had with him five hundred thousand warriors. 2. This immense army
moved like one man; it could successively annihilate the droujinas of
the princes, or the militia of the towns, which only presented
themselves successively to its blows. The Tartars had found Russia
divided against herself. 3. Even though Russia had wished to form a
confederation, the sudden irruptions of an army entirely composed of
horsemen did not leave her time. 4. In the tribes ruled by Batu, every
man was a soldier; in Russia the nobles and citizens alone bore arms:
the peasants, who formed the bulk of the population, allowed
themselves to be stabbed or bound without resistance. 5. It was not by
a weak nation that Russia was conquered. The Tartar-Mongols, under
Genghis Khan, had filled the East with the glory of their name, and