Though a saint in both the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, Olga of Kiev gives the impression of being as unsaintly as one woman could possibly be.
She’s one of the most vicious and vengeful rulers in the history of the Kievan Rus’ – the principality that would eventually give birth to modern Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, stretching at its height from the Baltic Sea in the North to the Black Sea in the South.
Born sometime around 903 CE in Pskov, Russia, she goes unnoticed till her husbands death. With her husband’s death Olga becomes more than a wife and mother, and without sacrificing either of those duties, takes centre stage. Like all rising empires, Kievan Rus’ had grown at the expense of its neighbours and one tribe had suffered greatly. The relationship between the Drevlians and Kievan Rus’ was complex – they had joined the Rus’ in military campaigns against the Byzantine Empire and paid tribute to Igor’s predecessors, but stopped in 912 when the previous prince died and instead paid this glorified protection money to a local warlord.
Igor’s attempted to restore his privileges in 945 with a trip to their capital of Iskorosten (now Korosten in Northern Ukraine). During this visit – the Drevlians murdered the prince in a grisly display.
“They had bent down two birch trees to the prince’s feet and tied them to his legs, then they let the trees straighten again, thus tearing the prince’s body apart.”
With their son, the three-year old Svyatoslav, too young to take over the throne of Kiev, Olga stepped up to rule as regent in his stead.

The Drevians would soon know her well, but for now they thought they were dealing with just another demure noblewoman who could be easily cowed and arrange to marry her to their own Prince Mal. Not only would they be free from paying tribute to the Kievan Rus’ – they would rule the Kievan Rus’.
The Drevians sent 20 of their best men to try and persuade Olga to marry the living symbol of her husband’s murderer. Telling them to wait in their boat, she had a ditch dug and next morning had the emissaries buried alive. Rather than just leave it at this, she sent word back to Prince Mal that she would accept his proposal, but only if the Drevians sent a party to escort her back to their territory. Her would-be suitor obliged, sending a party of their chieftains to collect her. Extending a suitably grand welcome, she invited the visitors to wash up in her bath house and then locked the doors, and burned the entire company alive.

Astoundingly this wasn’t the end of the saga. With the whole of the Drevian ruling class exterminated, Olga hatched a plan to do away with the rest of them. She announced hat she would be soon arriving at the Drevian capital of Iskorosten and asked for them to arrange a funeral feast where they could mourn over her husband’s death in the very city where he was executed. Despite the Drevians not having heard from either of the missions they’d dispatched to Olga’s court, they set about preparing the feast and after drinking themselves insensible on mead, Olga’s soldiers put 5,000 of them to the sword.
Even this orgy of bloodletting wasn’t enough to satiate her need for vengeance and Olga gathered an army to wipe out her foes for good. The surviving Drevians begged for mercy and offered to pay in honey and furs to escape her anger, she seemed to soften, although at this point you’d think they would know better… “Give me three pigeons,” she said, and three sparrows from each house. I do not desire to impose a heavy tribute, like my husband, but I require only this small gift from you, for you are impoverished by the siege.”

Now Olga gave to each soldier in her army a pigeon or a sparrow, and ordered them to attach by thread to each pigeon and sparrow a piece of sulfur bound with small pieces of cloth. When night fell, Olga instructed her soldiers release the pigeons and the sparrows. The birds flew to their nests, the pigeons to their cotes, and the sparrows under the eaves. As a result the burning embers the birds were carrying set fire to the cotes, coops, porches, and the haymows. History describes it as follows:
“There was not a house that was not consumed, and it was impossible to extinguish the flames, because all the houses caught on fire at once. The people fled from the city, and Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them. Thus she took the city and burned it, and captured the elders of the city. Some of the other captives she killed, while some she gave as slaves to her followers. The remaining she left to pay tribute.”
You may ask why, after all this carnage is Olga of Kiev still venerated as a saint over a thousand years after her death. She was the first ruler of the Kievan Rus’ to adopt Christianity and Olga’s efforts to covert the rest of her people earned her the title Isapóstolos: “Equal to the Apostles.”