hot take: Zmey Gorynych was never a 'monster', he's literally the steppe raiders in scaly drag

Pulled this argument off an old Russian byliny thread and it reframed the whole thing for me, dropping it here. So Zmey Gorynych — the multi-headed (3 up to 12) fire-breathing dragon the bogatyr Dobrynya Nikitich keeps fighting, lives by a river, kidnaps women, breaks sworn oaths, heads grow back u……