The Ilmen Slavs seem to have been different from other Slavic tribes colonizing what is now Russia in that they were closely related to the Polabian Slavs in language and traditions (see old Novgorod dialect and Gostomysl for examples).
History of the Russian State from Gostomysl to Timashev (История Государства Российского от Гостомысла до Тимашева) is a parody poem in 83 verses by the Russian poet and dramatist Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, written in 1868.