An Iranic word for ‘river’ was danu, which is the root of both Don and Danube. Dniester comes from *Danu nazdya, ‘river to the front’, and Dnieper from *Danu apara, ‘river to the rear’. These names were the legacy of the Scythians who inhabited those parts in the Iron Age (leaving a burial mound in Alexey Nikitin’s natal village) and who spoke languages not unlike the Pashto of modern Afghanistan.
