The Banking Vault on Instagram: "Deep within the labyrinth of Byzantine history lies one of the strangest and most fascinating military institutions ever created: the Varangian Guard, an elite body of axe-wielding warriors who stood as the personal protectors of the emperors in Constantinople. What makes them so peculiar isn’t simply their ferocity or discipline, but the improbable cultural collision that produced them—men from the cold frontiers of Scandinavia and the forests of Kievan Rus serv