Kuyaba
Kuyaba was one of the three centers of the Rus or Saqaliba described in a lost book by Abu Zayd al-Balkhi and mentioned in works by some of his followers.
The two other centers were Slawiya and Arthaniya .
Soviet historians such as Boris Grekov and Boris Rybakov hypothesized that "Kuyaba" was a mispronunciation of "Kiev". They theorized that Kuyaba had been a union of Slavic tribes in the middle course of the Dnieper River centered on Kiev.
Kuyaba, Slawiya, and Artaniya later merged to form the state of Kievan Rus', believed to include modern Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. This explanation has been adopted by modern Ukrainian historiography.
