Her husband, Igor, was murdered by the Drevlyans, an Eastern Slavic tribe. Olga took over the Kievan Rus’, but the Drevlyans didn’t want a female ruler, so they sent her a group of suitors.
Still pretty pissed about her husband’s murder, Olga had the suitors carried by her servants on a boat to the courtyard of the castle. The boat was dumped into a giant hole and the suitors were buried alive.
She told the Drevlyans that she had accepted a suitor and organized a party in a bath house. After the guests arrived, the doors were barred shut and the bath house was burned down.
After the memorial to the people who died in the bath house, a party was held and the Drevlyan guests got drunk off their ass. Olga’s royal guard proceeded to kill all 5,000 of them that night.
When they requested her forgiveness, Olga asked the Drevlyans to give her three pigeons and three sparrows from each home from their capital of Iskorosten. When they arrive, she had hot coals tied to their legs and set them back home. As the city burned to the ground from the resulting fire, the people that ran out of the city were either killed, enslaved, or extorted by Olga’s army. The entire tribe was basically wiped out in the following years.
Olga is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox church.
~ credits to the source
