Grumant Island belongs to the state. The islands of Svalbard - lost among the ice. And "sharp mountains" and "falling ice block

30.11.2014

“He who plows the sea enters into an alliance with happiness, the world belongs to him, and he lives without sowing, for the sea is a field of hope.” Words are like the hand of a friend. This is an inscription on the grave of an unknown sailor on one of the islands of the Grumant archipelago, which is now called Svalbard.

And the territory called Grumant was reduced to a village on the island. Grumant is the Russian name for the archipelago. Interestingly, the etymology of the word "Svalbard" is easily traced in Russian. Spitz - spitz - knitting needle (the same alternation as in the word Swen - Swede), coast - breg - berg. They "translate" the German name as sharp mountains or a sharp coast. But the word Grumant for a Russian is like a deep call. Thunder from ice blocks breaking into the sea. In Russian, there are about a hundred names of different types of ice, now, however, a little forgotten. Chka - a detached ice floe.

Is it an accident that a Russian pilot with a surname from this word, Valery Chkalov, made the world's first non-stop flight over the North Pole. Foros (now more often pronounced toros or torso, although the words "force majeure" and "force" retain "f") - a heaving ice floe or rock. Anyone who visits the Crimean Foros will immediately see that the village is named quite accurately. Grumana, or grum, is a block of ice falling into the sea. The islands have a unique climate. There are almost no microbes there, thanks to this, man-made things, buildings, biological materials are preserved not just well, but very well.

Archaeologists have found more than a hundred Russian settlements. Log cabins, things, craft items, navigational landmarks, a lot of Russian inscriptions, cult artifacts. Touching household items, among them a chessboard with carved names: Ivan Petrov, Galakha Kabachev, Vapa Panova. Maybe there would not be anything special on the chessboard, this is a favorite pastime of polar explorers and fishermen, but the date is 1556, forty years before Wilhelm Barents “discovered” the islands. There is evidence that allows scientists to trace the beginning of Russian settlements on Grumant from the 10th century.

It is strange that with such a high preservation of artifacts, no traces of the Vikings were found on the islands. But Western Europeans can be understood. For them, favored by the Gulf Stream, living conditions in Svalbard are the height of extreme. But what is it to a people whose third of the state is located above 60 degrees north latitude. Russia, the only one in the world, has landed its paratroopers on the ice of the Arctic. For a Russian who has seen the subpolar Urals and Siberia, Grumant is almost a resort. By the way, travel business quite developed on Svalbard.

The West nevertheless found one application for Svalbard, a very pragmatic one. Such a natural refrigerator. A repository of natural plant seeds, cultivated and wild, has been created on the island. Now they lie in one of the abandoned coal mines, specially converted for this purpose. The West is trying to insure itself against the consequences of genetically modified disgrace, which by hook or by crook stubbornly spreads in dependent states. It is assumed that soon this "Genetic Bank" will have a truly priceless currency.

And what about the Russians? They help the Norwegians to explore the islands. After all, Grumant is now under their protectorate. The first Norwegian fishing vessel headed for Svalbard only in 1793. Half of his crew consisted of Russian sailors. But further than the southernmost part of the archipelago, Bear Island, the Norwegians did not want to sail. I must say, the Norwegians are trying to behave prudently with the people of the ancient sailors. Any Russian can visit the islands and work on them without a Schengen or any other visa. Russians, like bears, do not need a visa. The polar bear, even on Russian symbols, wants to go to the right, wants to go to the left.

Ancient legends and chronicles told people that the path to the Far North was laid by sailors for hundreds of years. Probably, light ships of the Normans were in the waters of the "Cold Sea" about 1000 years ago. But reliable information about this has not been preserved. Russian chronicles say that hundreds of years ago, Pomors, settlers on the shores of the White Sea and the Kola Peninsula from Novgorod, walked along the harsh waters of this sea. Courageous, free from the yoke of serfdom, Novgorod peasants united in squads and went to unknown lands for precious furs, to fish and sea animals.

The tenacious hands of the boyars and the sovereign's servants did not reach the distant shores of the White Sea. Ordinary people went to the North not only from the lands of Veliky Novgorod. Peasants fled here from the central and northwestern regions countries in order to get rid of the master's oppression, unbearable extortions and debt bondage.

In the XII-XV centuries. Novgorodians explored and mastered the coast of the Kola Peninsula, the shores of the White Sea. They built strong ships and traveled far from their villages on the seas of the Arctic.

Pomors discovered the islands of Novaya Zemlya, Kolguev, Medvezhiy, Svalbard (then this archipelago was called Grumant's Land).

Often the brave coast-dwellers had to stand up to defend the lands they had mastered, which foreigners began to covet.

The Russian North has long been a lively trading place, where foreign merchants from Western Europe flocked. They bought here precious furs, fat and skins of marine animals, walrus tusks and other goods that were delivered from Western Siberia by land, through the polar Urals, and by sea.

In voyages to the east along the "Arctic Sea", Western European travelers, as a rule, used the help of Russian sailors. The first Russian pilots appeared on the Neva and Volkhov during the time of Veliky Novgorod.

They were then called ship leaders ("leaders"). In the North, in Pomorye, there was even a special horse-drawn trade and artels of ship-leaders.

Russian sailors went far into the depths of the seas. On the islands of the Arctic, researchers many times found the remains of Russian Pomeranian winter quarters and their fishing equipment. Known to explorers of the Russian North is the Pomor Ivan Starostin, who settled for many years on Grumant (Svalbard). It was mastered by the Russians on Medvezhiy Island. Foreigners even called its northern coast "the Russian coast".

Russian coast-dwellers laid the foundation for a new type of navigation - ice. They managed to explore not only the European North, but also a significant part of the Asian coast.

The study of the ships of the ancient Novgorodians and Pomors, who settled in the North, showed what abilities and ingenuity the first Russian Arctic sailors possessed.

Russian sea boat of the 16th century. could take on board 200 tons of cargo. It was a three-masted deck ship with straight sails. Smaller boats, with a deck and two masts, were usually intended for navigation on the White Sea. Pomors sailed on ships of other types. The most ancient ship is the kochmara, or koch, a three-masted deck vessel. By design, koch is very reminiscent of a lodya, only it smaller size. Pomors and simpler types of ships were built: ranshins, augers and karbas.

On some types of ships, the Pomors attached the skin to the ship's hull with the help of juniper roots. In some cases, northern shipbuilders preferred a wick to iron nails, as they were convinced by experience that it was more reliable than iron. Sheathing sewn with vice was more watertight than that fastened with iron nails. When sailing in the ice, the ship's hull loosened and leaked in places where there were nails. In addition, the nails quickly rusted and destroyed the skin. With a wooden fastening, the vice, swelling, almost did not let water through at all. Sheathing boards, sewn to the frame of the ship in a special way, held tight.

In addition to juniper, a young thin spruce up to one and a half meters high served as a material for wooden "threads". The trunks of such Christmas trees were cleaned of branches, twisted and dried. They were steamed before use. With such "threads" the lodya was sewn. The master's set of tools usually consisted of an ax, a saw, a drill, a level and a sazhen, broken into arshins and vershoks. Ships were built on the banks of the river, near the customer's house. Immediately with a pole on the sand or in a hut with chalk on the floor, the master made a drawing and made the necessary calculations. First, the frame of the vessel was built, which was then sheathed with boards outside and inside. Then they put and fastened high straight masts and laid the deck.

A large ship - a lodya - was built by an artel of carpenters in one winter.

By decree of Ivan the Terrible, the first large shipyards and even a dry dock were built at the Solovetsky Monastery for the construction of ships on the White Sea.

In ancient times, sails on Pomeranian ships were sometimes made of suede - deer skin treated with the fat of a sea animal. Sea hare skin was used for belt gear.

The boats had a flat wide bottom and a small draft, so when sailing in the ice to "unprecedented lands" they did not need special harbors in order to hide from the storm or spend the winter. Sometimes Pomors had to pull their boats onto the ice or onto the shore. With all these advantages, Pomeranian ships also had their drawbacks: they were worse than keel ships, they obeyed the helm, especially in waves.

Sailing the Arctic Ocean with its harsh climate, heaps of ice and unknown currents was a good school for sailors. Hardy and courageous, not afraid of hard frosts and strong winds, Pomors boldly embarked on long voyages along the stormy waves of the ocean on their small wooden ships.

In the daily struggle with the elements, the Pomors have studied the "Cold Sea" well. They knew that the magnitude of the ebb and flow is related to the position of the Moon in the sky, and they figuratively called the tidal phenomena "the sighs of the sea-ocean."

“His chest is wide, powerful,” they said, “when he sighs, he lifts his chest, then the water has arrived: the tide means. Exhale - the water leaves: the ebb comes. The ocean-father does not breathe often: he inhales twice, exhales twice - the day will pass.

The Pomors knew the compass, which they called the queen. They have long recognized time by the sun and stars.

The winds, depending on the direction, they also called in their own way. "Midnight", for example, was called the northeast wind; "sholonnik" - the wind blowing from the southwest; "coastal" - northwest wind; "Luncher" - southeast. Russian sailors studied not only winds, but also currents, ebbs and flows, and the state of the ice.

They knew well and used local remedies against scurvy: cloudberry, spoon grass, raw meat and warm blood of animals. Northern sailors from ancient times had handwritten maps-drawings and handwritten directions, which briefly described the sea coast, indicated profitable and safe routes and the best time for sailing ships.

The oldest handwritten sailing directions had such headings: "Charter as a Vessel to Drive", "Ship Progress of the Russian Ocean-Sea", "Progress of the Grumanlandskaya".

Sailing along the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean developed dexterity, unique methods of controlling a ship. Pomors improved their experience and passed it on from generation to generation. If, for example, the wind strongly heeled the boat, threatening to instantly capsize it, the Pomor threw a sharp ax or knife into the sail, and then the wind tore the sail to shreds, and the boat leveled off.

Northern sailors have long used blubber as a means of calming unrest. On the ships of the Pomors, there were always several barrels of seal or seal oil in stock.

In 1771, the well-known Russian academician I. I. Lepekhin wrote about it this way: “This remedy consists in blubber fat, which is poured into the sea during the splashing of the ship, or sacks filled with it are let near the ship. This tool has been known to our Pomeranians since ancient times and for many years before they were in use, rather than European departments about this tool as some important discovery were published. Northern sailors-Pomors were researchers Arctic Ocean. Fearlessly setting sail on the unknown harsh seas, they made valuable geographical discoveries.

Since the 10th century, Slavs-Russians who came here have settled on the coast of the North and Barents Seas. They mix with the local Finno-Ugric population and begin to live on the cold and inhospitable northern shores. Pomors, as the descendants of these people call themselves. They played a key role in the development north coast Russia, the development of the islands of the Arctic Ocean, were the first to come to the north of Siberia. The life of this people was inextricably linked with the sea. They fed on the sea, on the islands and on the coast they mined furs, mastered the salt industry. The Pomors dared to enter the ice-filled Kara Sea and reached the mouth of the Yenisei. On their sailing boats they visited the islands of Novaya Zemlya, reached the Svalbard archipelago, founded the city of Mangazeya in the north of eastern Siberia. The harsh living conditions also shaped the character of these "plowmen" northern seas- they are trusting, hospitable, friendly and try to live in harmony with nature.

Modern replicas of ancient Pomeranian sailing ships(kochei) made several outstanding voyages in the North, in the footsteps of ancient sailors

Sailing ships of the Pomors

The first ships of the Pomors were boats. On these sailing ships they went along the rivers and carried out coastal sailings. The sails were set on the boats, but they mostly rowed. The boats were twenty meters long and three meters wide. The type of the Old Russian boat has undergone changes over time and has been adapted for northern conditions. For long-distance voyages in the Baltic and North Seas, "overseas" boats were built, while "ordinary" boats were built for walking on the White Sea. The ships had a small draft and differed in their size. "Overseas" boats in the thirteenth-fifteenth centuries reached a length of 25, and a width of 8 meters.

The sailing weapons of the Pomeranian koches differed from the weapons of the rooks

The rooks had a solid deck, so water did not get inside the vessel. The difficult conditions of northern navigation also formed a unique type of ships - the Pomeranian koch. These ships were a further development of the boat design. They had an egg-shaped shape, and when they hit the ice, the coast-dwelling ships simply squeezed up without damaging the hull. The design of the koche was more complex than that of the rooks, and the sailing armament also differed. Researchers had to collect information about kochi bit by bit, but in this decade many fragments of ships were found. And now it can be reliably asserted that the Koches had a second lining in the area of ​​the waterline made of oak or larch. This helped when swimming in broken ice. The ship had large heavy anchors. They were used for portage, including on ice. The anchors were fixed in the ice and then, choosing the ropes, they pulled the ship up, looking for clean water. Koch had an almost sheer stern. The nose was strongly tilted. The ship's draft was small, one and a half meters, which made it easier for the ship to enter estuaries and shallow waters. The bottom was reinforced with overhead boards. The sides were sheathed with boards using staples, a huge number of them were required - several thousand. The carrying capacity of the ships reached 40 tons.

"Fram" Nansen, built on the analogy of Pomeranian koches, drifted in the ice for a long time

It was on the koches that the Cossack Semyon Dezhnev passed in 1648 across the Arctic Ocean to the extreme point of the mainland, passed the "Big Stone Nose" (now Cape Dezhnev), where several koches were broken, and the sailors entered the mouth of the Anadyr River.

Today, both the descendants of the original inhabitants of the region and the descendants of those ethnic groups who settled with the Russian settlers live in the Russian North. The overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the region are Russians. Anthropologically, the Russians of the North are taller than average, with blond hair and eye color.

Basically, local Russian residents are distinguished by all the characteristic features inherent in this ethnic group, which is largely due to the predominance of urban residents among them (more than ¾ of the entire Russian population of the North), a high level of education, and the elimination of the isolation of the region from the main territory of Russia over the 20th century. However, the Russian North is also a place where unique Russian sub-ethnos - Pomors, as well as sub-ethnic groups - Pustozers and Ust-Tsilems, have developed.

Russian Pomors

The descendants of the Novgorod ushkuins who settled on the shores of the White and Barents Seas formed a kind of sub-ethnic group of the Russian ethnos, known as the Pomors. For the first time the word "pomors" (more precisely, "pomortsy") was mentioned in 1526, but already as an established self-name, so this concept was born several centuries earlier.

The Pomors can be considered the most ancient sub-ethnos of Russia in terms of time of occurrence. The word "pomor" is sometimes mistakenly called all the inhabitants of the Russian North, although it actually means not even the inhabitants of the sea coast, but only "marine prospectors" - fishermen, sea animal hunters, sailors living in sea crafts. In a word, Pomors “live not from the field, but from the sea,” as the Pomor proverb says. This is the definition of Pomors given by the writer Nikolai Vasilievich Latkin (1832-1904) from Arkhangelsk in his article published in the famous Encyclopedic Dictionary of F. A. Brockhaus and I. A. Efron. He wrote: “Pomory is a local term that has now become universal for the industrialists of the Arkhangelsk, Mezen, Onega, Kem and Kola districts of the Arkhangelsk province, engaged in fish (mainly cod), halibut, partly shark and seal fisheries in Murman ... and in the northern part of Norway , in places permitted to our industrialists. The word "pomor" came from Pomorye ..., and from "pomors" it was also transferred to their ships, on which they deliver the products of their fishing to Arkhangelsk and St. Petersburg. So, the Pomors, as a sub-ethnos, differed from the bulk of the Russian ethnos, including northern Russians, in their traditional economic activities - fishing and marine crafts.

The life of the Pomor was indeed impossible to separate from fishing. Wheat in the North has always been imported. It is no coincidence that the Pomors had a custom to cut bread only while standing. Their rye and barley barely germinate and are suitable only for livestock feed. Therefore, fishing here is a way of life, an established way of survival for centuries.

The very way of life of the Pomors required initiative, sharpness, a combination of patience and endurance with instant reaction, independence in deeds and judgments. So Pomors became people of a special warehouse. It is significant that the very first Novgorod settlers on the shores of the Icy Sea in a surprisingly short time independently created a perfect system of marine economy in the conditions of the polar north, since they could not borrow industrial marine skills from the aboriginal population, since they were not engaged in marine fisheries. These successes of the Russians look especially impressive if we remember that they were the first and for several centuries the only polar navigators. The famous polar sailors, the Vikings, sailed mainly in those latitudes where, thanks to the Gulf Stream, the polar ice did not enter. Among the main reasons for the cessation of long-distance voyages of the Vikings from the end of the 11th century, and then the complete loss of all ties with the Scandinavian settlements in Greenland, scientists name the worsening of the climate in high latitudes, which led to the "sliding" to the south of the lower border of floating ice. Novgorodians, just in the period of the final "fading" of the Viking voyages, turn into masters of the Arctic navigation.

The stages of the development of the polar seas by the Russians look impressive: in the 12th century, the Novgorodians completely mastered the White Sea and sailed far beyond its borders; in particular, they discovered the islands of Vaigach, Kolguev, the Novaya Zemlya archipelago; in 1264, the polar Kola was founded, giving the name to the Kola Peninsula; in the XIV century, Novgorodians constantly sail to Norway, with which in 1326 Lord Veliky Novgorod signed a border agreement (this border still exists, although there were enough conflicts with Norway); In the 15th century, and possibly even earlier, Pomors regularly went to Grumant (Svalbard); in the 16th century, trade between Rus' and Western Europe began through the Frozen Sea, trading cities, prisons and monasteries were built, including Arkhangelsk, Kola, Pechenga, and others; In the 17th century, Pomors actively participated in the development of Siberia. In particular, they, moving by sea along the coast of the Arctic Ocean, reach the Kolyma and the future Bering Strait. Most of the Siberian explorers, whose biographies are more or less known, were natives of the Russian North.

The ships of the Pomors were very advanced sea vessels. The main type of fishing and transport vessel on the White Sea XIII-XVI centuries. became karbas, more precisely, its numerous varieties. As transport ships, large sea karbas were used up to 12 m long and even more, 2-2.5 m wide, with a side height of about 1.5 m. With a draft of 0.7-0.8 m, they could take on board more than 8 tons of cargo. Such karbasy apparently had one mast (later - two) with direct sailing weapons. The most common commercial vessels for coastal fishing were, apparently, small "karbas" 6-9 m long, 1.2-2.1 m wide.

Soyma was another Pomeranian vessel of the 11th-16th centuries. The length of the soyma was 5-12 m, the carrying capacity was up to 15 tons, the crew was 2-3 people.

The most famous Pomeranian ship was the boat (in the literature it is often referred to as the boat). “... In the XIII-XVI centuries. boat length reached 18-25 m, width 5-8 m, side height 2.5-3.5 m, draft 1.2-2.7 m, carrying capacity 130-200 tons. The hull was divided by bulkheads into 3 compartments with hatches in deck. In the forward compartment there was a team (25-30 people) and there was a brick oven ..., in the aft compartment there was a helmsman or captain (feeder), on average - a cargo hold. It had ... three masts ... The sail area reached 460 m2, which made it possible to pass up to 300 km per day with a fair wind .... The cracks were caulked with moss and tarred. Two anchors were raised by an ordinary gate. In the XVI century. the carrying capacity of Pomeranian boats reached 300 tons ... ".

Other Pomeranian ships include aspen and ranshina. Osinovka - a small ship of the Pomors, hollowed out of an aspen trunk with nabillov on the sides. The length was 5-7; side height - 0.5-0.8; draft - 0.3 m. Could take on board cargo up to 350 kg. It had from 2 to 4 pairs of oars, sometimes it was equipped with a mast. Ranshina (ranshina, ronchina, ronshina) - a sailing and rowing fishing vessel. It had 2-3 masts. Carrying capacity - 20-70 tons. Used in the period of the XI-XIX centuries. for the purpose of fishing for fish and sea animals in severe ice conditions. The ship had an egg-shaped underwater part of the hull. When the ice was compressed, it was squeezed out to the surface.

For long-distance sea voyages in the 16th-17th centuries, a new type of vessel was created - the koch. Semyon Dezhnev discovered the strait between Asia and America on the cochs. Koch length - 14, width - 5, draft - 1.75 m. Carrying capacity up to 30 tons. The crew consists of 20 people, the speed is up to 6 knots.

Kochi is the main type of vessel designed for sailing in the Arctic Ocean. Some of them were up to 25 meters long. According to the design, the kochi were divided into flat-bottomed and keeled ones. They differed in the strength of the building. The ships were specially adapted to the ice conditions of the Arctic: they had double wooden planking, round contours, giving them the appearance of a walnut shell. Thanks to such a body, the koch, when the ice was compressed, was pushed up.

1 Fig. Pomor ships

Sea vessels of the Pomors were distinguished by high seaworthiness. Barrow, an English navigator who visited the north of Russia in 1555-1556, noted with professional envy not only the great development of Russian northern navigation in quantitative terms, but also pointed out the high seaworthiness of Russian boats. Standing at the mouth of the Kuloya River, Barrow "every day saw how many Russian boats descended along it, the crew of which consisted of at least 24 people, reaching up to 30 on large ones." Leaving together with the Russian boats from the mouth of the Kuloi to the sea, Barrow could note that all "the boats were ahead of us", as a result of which "the Russians often lowered their sails and waited for us."

Russian navigation in the polar seas was of a grandiose nature. Only at the end of the 16th century, and only on the Murmansk coast, 7,426 Pomeranian ships were fishing at the same time, the crews of which in total exceeded 30 thousand people. The sons of Pomors from early childhood, from about 8 years old, took part in the sea fishery. It was also quite significant in the marine, usually purely male, craft, also Pomeranian women. Pomorki participated in coastal fishing with small nets, in ice fishing. But mostly women were involved in the processing of fish, especially salmon, on the Murmansk coast.

In the "Murmansk" (i.e. modern Barents) Sea in the second half of the 16th century, Russian Pomors fished for cod on a fairly significant scale, which was dried and sold to the Norwegians and the Dutch. By the end of the 16th century, they harvested up to 100-120 thousand pounds of dry and salted cod per year, about 10 thousand pounds of fat were rendered from cod liver. In addition to the Murmansk cod, Belomorka herring has traditionally been harvested off the coast of the White Sea. It was actively used by the Pomors in their own economy, including for livestock feed.

On Grumant (Svalbard), Pomors hunted fox, deer, polar bear and various sea animals, especially walrus and seal. Among the Pomors, there was even a peculiar “specialization” of the Grumanlan, that is, those who did not catch fish, but went to Grumant to spend the winter fishing. There were plenty of Grumanlan. At the end of the 18th century, up to 270 Pomeranian ships with a total crew of up to 2,200 people were constantly in the waters surrounding Spybergen. Approximately 25 Russian fishing camps were constantly located on the archipelago. Wintering on Svalbard for several years in a row was not uncommon. The famous Grumanlanin Starostin wintered in Svalbard 32 times. There he died in 1826.

2 Rice. Pomor Arctic swimming area

The Pomors also made long voyages to Matka (the Novaya Zemlya archipelago), as well as major islands Kolguev, Vaigach, etc. It is interesting that the name of the straits on Novaya Zemlya contains a purely Pomor word “ball” (probably because the first sailors had to “grope” in the fog among the rocks of the Arctic islands in search of a passage).

The Russian regular fleet was born in the north. In 1548 on Solovetsky Islands, at the monastery, there is a shipyard. In 1570, by decree of Ivan the Terrible, the construction of ships for navigation in the north and the Baltic began near Vologda. In 1693, the construction of warships began at the Solombala shipyard in Arkhangelsk (three years earlier than the date considered the official date of birth of the Russian fleet). We will not talk about further research of the polar seas due to lack of space. But, I think, the sailors Bering, Chirikov, Wrangel, Sedov, Soviet winterers and pilots had worthy predecessors.

In the polar seas, long before the creation of a regular fleet by Peter I, the Pomors often had to fight with the "Murmans" - the Norwegians, as well as with the Swedes. The annals of the 15th century tell about this in some detail. Chronicles report battles with the Norwegians, dating these events to 1396, 1411, 1419. In 1419, the Norwegians appeared at the mouth of the Northern Dvina with a detachment of 500 people, “in beads and in augers”, and ravaged Nenoksa and several other graveyards, as well as the Mikhailo-Arkhangelsk Monastery, while all the monks of the monastery were killed. The Pomors attacked the robbers and destroyed two augers, after which the surviving Norwegian ships went to sea. In 1445, the Norwegians reappeared at the mouth of the Dvina, causing great damage to the locals. Like the first time, the Norwegian campaign ended in complete failure. Suddenly attacking the enemy, the Dvinians killed a large number of Norwegians, killed three of their commanders and took prisoners, who were sent to Novgorod. The rest of the Norwegians "rushed into the ships of the runaway." In 1496, the Russians under the command of Prince Peter Ushaty also won a brilliant victory in a naval battle over the Swedes in the White Sea near the present-day Knyazha Guba.

Not only the seafaring technique of the Pomors or their economic system is of particular interest. The northern Great Russians, including the Pomors, had in strength, remoteness from the invasions from the Wild Field and the absence of serfdom, a higher level of education, they were distinguished by self-esteem, diligence and business acumen. It is no coincidence that M. V. Lomonosov came out of the Pomors. In the Russian North, many ancient customs, traditions, mores, originating in pagan antiquity, were preserved longer than anywhere else in Russia. It is no coincidence that ancient epics about Kyiv princes and heroes, long forgotten near Kiev, were recorded in the North. In the North, many architectural monuments have been preserved, and we are talking not just about ancient Russian architecture, but about a special northern Russian architectural school.

Pomors also differed in some qualities of their character. For example, Pomors from time immemorial have been famous for their endurance. A simple example is Mikhailo Lomonosov, who walked many hundreds of versts from Arkhangelsk to Moscow in winter with a wagon train. But neither he nor any of the Pomors considered this to be something unusual. Many Pomors just like that, on foot, went to fish on Murman.

Noticing that in the spring months, starting from March, the Barents Sea accumulates more fish than in summer, the coast-dwellers began to go fishing "by land", with the expectation that they would come to the camps on the eve of the fish run. Many Pomors, without waiting for the opening of navigation, while the White Sea was still covered with ice, moved on foot through Karelia and Kola Peninsula on the coast of the Barents Sea. Thus, spring (or, as they used to say, “spring”) cod fishery arose on Murman. The fishermen who went to spring fishing were called "veshnyaks". They went annually to fish for cod in Murman, on the coast of the Kola Peninsula. They had to go from Kemi alone for more than 500 miles. At the same time, veshnyaki walked or skied for two months - they went out in March, came there in May, and returned home in late autumn. And in March in those parts it is still the most winter. There is no place to sleep on most of the way. And the fishermen spent the night right on the road - made a fire and lay down on it, wrapping themselves tightly in a fur jacket with a hood. Interestingly, in 1944, the famous Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl, participating with the Soviet troops in the liberation of Norway, was surprised to see how Russian soldiers, from among the Pomors, slept right in the snow.

In 1608, a census of fishing huts was carried out on the Murmansk coast. To the west of the Kola Bay, in the "Murmansk end", 20 camps were counted, in which there were 121 huts, to the east of the Kola Bay, in the "Russian Side" - 30 camps with 75 huts.

For centuries, Pomors made long voyages to the polar seas. At the same time, they felt at home at sea. For example, in 1743 a group of Pomors crashed on Grumant (now Svalbard). For six years, until 1749, these Pomeranian Robinsons lived on a rocky island. For 6 years, only one of the 6 Pomors died of scurvy. Note that all this was perceived as an ordinary, even routine, problem, and not a feat.

In the 18th century, Pomor culture reached maturity. But already from the end of this century, however, the life and life of the Pomors seemed to be mothballed. Arkhangelsk lost its role as a “window to Europe”, and the Pomors were “bled” as a result of their migrations to Siberia and St. Petersburg, when the most determined and educated people left the North. All this led to stagnation and Pomor economy. The long-distance Arctic voyages of the Pomors were gradually reduced, and at the end of the 19th century, already in the polar seas of Russia, the Pomors' fishing began to sharply lose importance due to competition with the Norwegians. When steamships sailed the seas, the overwhelming majority of Pomors continued to sail on karbas. Sailing to Spitsbergen stopped, the number of visits by Pomors to Novaya Zemlya sharply decreased.

Moreover, even in the White Sea, foreign ships began to dominate. So, in 1894, 13 Russian and 232 foreign ships were fishing.

3 Fig. Pomor

4 Fig. pomorka

During the Soviet era, the Pomors lost many features of their culture. Industrialization has transformed the traditional lifestyle of the Pomors. It is clear that the Pomor wooden shipbuilding has disappeared, and the Pomors themselves have turned from unique “marine prospectors” into ordinary Soviet collective farmers. Pomeranian navigation as a cultural and social phenomenon disappeared, giving way to a professional one. The significance of religion has almost disappeared. In many places of residence, Pomors have become a minority in comparison with the large newcomer population. Many Pomeranian villages were declared "unpromising" and abolished, and their former inhabitants moved to the cities, losing their traditional cultural identity.

And yet the Pomors have not disappeared. The very word “Pomor” continues to sound proud and honorable, and it is not surprising that many northerners, even those who are not Pomors by origin, proudly identify themselves as Pomors. Unfortunately, the "Pomor revival" of the period of "perestroika" and Yeltsinism has become a separatist movement. It is significant that its leaders were not Pomors at all.

The "Pomor Renaissance" quickly turned onto the path of independence, while, however, without openly declaring this. But the leaders of the movement (more precisely, their foreign sponsors) have done a lot. So, a certain urban Pomor subculture is being created, which, however, relates to real Pomors in the same way as modern urban “Goths” to the ancient Germans. Dictionaries of the Pomorian Speak, an artificially composed Pomor "language", began to be published, the publication of which was financed by the American Ford Foundation and the Norwegian Barents Secretariat. For children, again, with Norwegian money, they released the free Pomeranian Skates (that’s right, with the letter “s”). The fact that all the tales were written down by scientists of the early 20th century in Pinega and places whose inhabitants were not engaged in seafaring, and, therefore, did not belong to Pomors, did not bother the publishers. To make it clear what this “saying” is, we will give an example of the translation of one official name: National Educational Center "Pomor Institute of Indigenous (Home-born) Peoples of Polunutsi" Polunushny (Siverny) Federal University. M. V. Lomonosov. In the original, this text is as follows - the scientific and educational center "Pomor Institute of Indigenous and Minorities of the North of the Northern (Arctic) Federal University."

You could laugh at this, but it's really not funny at all. After all, this is how the Ukrainian movement began a hundred and fifty years ago.

In this Pomor movement, a good goal - the revival of the culture and traditional art of a unique part of the Russian ethnos, was quickly drowned in the desire to achieve the status of a “small people” for the Pomors, which automatically meant receiving certain economic benefits from the federal authorities, as well as inciting a split within Russia to the greatest joy of foreign Russophobes. Thus, the coordinator of the so-called. Vitaly Trofimov of the International Movement for the Protection of the Rights of Peoples summed up this event as follows: “I am not a supporter of either genetic research or historical research. For me, people are of interest as a political given. If there is a group with a stable identity and it is not a role-playing game during daylight hours, then the people exist. Solid constructivism. There is a community striving for politicization. You can work... The Caucasian self-determiners are far away, but there is much to learn and, most importantly, there is also something to teach. We will create a new ethnic group."

In 2002, 6,571 people identified themselves as Pomors in the All-Russian Population Census. Considering that at that time a total of 42 thousand citizens of Russia called themselves hobbits, Scythians, Martians, the newly-minted "Pomors" found themselves in a specific company.

Russian territorial groups of Karelia

In addition to the Pomors, a number of small territorial groups of the Russian population developed in the vast expanses of the Russian North, differing both from the Pomors and from the bulk of the Russians. Depending on their place of residence, these groups had names.

Vygozery. This was the name of a small group of Russians living in the area of ​​the large Vygozero. Their way of life and culture resembled the life and culture of the neighbors of the Karelians. In the 30s of the 20th century, especially after the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal and a number of industrial enterprises, this group practically disappeared into the population of Karelia that had grown many times over.

Zaonezhane. Another, more numerous and preserved to this day, territorial group of Russians became the Zaonezhans, who live, as you might guess from the name, beyond Lake Onega, on the territory of the Zaonezhsky Peninsula with the inhabited islands adjacent to it.

Vodlozers- another group of Russians living in the region of the 4th largest lake in Karelia. This group was formed on the basis of a predominantly ancient Vepsian ethnic component, diluted with Russian immigrants from the Novgorod lands and representatives of the Nizovskaya (“Moscow”) colonization.

All these Russian groups were engaged in agriculture, a prominent place in their economy was lake fishing. Finally, for all the inhabitants of the Olonets province, famous for its dense forests, hunting for fur-bearing animals was typical. Olonchans became famous as shooters in 1812, when at a review in the presence of Emperor Alexander I, one shooter put a bullet into an apple, another - a bullet into a bullet, and the third one split them in half.

Pechora empty lakes

In the extreme northeast of the European part of Russia, the Pechora River flows, one of the largest rivers in Europe (1809 km long). Although the Novgorodians penetrated Pechora as early as the 11th century (as the Novgorod chronicles mention), but because of the remoteness, this land remained unoccupied by the Russians. The inhabitants of the region by that time were the Nenets and Enets belonging to the Samoyedic group of the Finno-Ugric language family, who were previously collectively called Samoyeds, probably from the name of one of the ethnic groups of the Enets. "Samoyeds" lived from the Mezen to the lower reaches of the Yenisei. However, the Samoyeds were not at all the indigenous inhabitants of the Pechora Territory. The Russians, having arrived here, often found traces of the habitation of an earlier people: settlements, stoves resembling caves, abandoned dwellings, etc. Previously, the mysterious tribe "Pechora" lived here, probably giving the name to the river. Pechora is mentioned in The Tale of Bygone Years. Under 1133, the annals mention "tributes of the Pechora", from which it can be concluded that "Pechora" paid tribute to Veliky Novgorod. The fact that this tribe subsequently disappears from written records means that it was conquered and assimilated by the Nenets. Under 1187 in the "Sofia Time" the word "Pechora" tribute was replaced by the word "Perm".

At the end of the 12th century, Novgorodians began to penetrate into the Pechora River basin, into the lands that were called Yugra. The Ugric peoples lived here (who at that time received the nicknames “Ugra” from the Russians, which in Europe, when written in the Latin alphabet, became known as “ugra”, thanks to which the concept of the Ugric peoples arose to designate a separate branch of the Ural language family). The direct descendants of the ancient Yugra people are the modern Khanty. Historical Yugra stretched to the north of the Arctic Ocean (a peninsula on the border of the Barents and Kara seas and is still called Yugorsky, and the strait between the mainland and the island of Vaigach is called Yugorsky Shar), its western and eastern parts were lands along the northern slopes of the Ural Mountains.

Ugra was ruled by its own princelings, there were fortified towns, and the Novgorodians ran into serious resistance. In 1187, Novgorod tribute collectors were killed in Yugra land. In 1193, the governor of Novgorod Yadrey suffered a heavy defeat from the Yugra. Nevertheless, by the beginning of the 13th century, Yugra was still annexed to Novgorod. However, submission to Novgorod was reduced only to the payment of tribute. The weakness of the Novgorod authorities was also explained by the fact that the "Ponizovites", especially the Ustyugians, in every possible way prevented the direct connection of the Yugra lands with Novgorod. So, in 1323 and 1329, the Ustyugians intercepted and robbed the Novgorod tribute collectors. In the XIV century, Yugra began to gradually migrate beyond the Urals, where the Khanty and Mansi, two Ugric ethnic groups, still live. But the Nenets (Samoyeds) began to move into the tundra.

In fact, the lands of Pechora under the Moscow authorities began to be mastered by Russians in the last years of the 15th century. At the very end of the 15th century, a small Russian population already existed on the Pechora, along with equally few natives. In the charter of Ivan III in 1485, it is noted that Perm-Vychegodsk land has 1,716 "bows", that is, adult men. The entire population was about 7 thousand people.

In 1499, beyond the Arctic Circle, on one of the peninsulas of Pustoozero, connected by a sleeve with Pechora, 25 kilometers from modern Naryan-Mar, the Pustozersk prison was built, which became the center of Pechora. In 1611, there were more than 200 households of permanent residents in Pustozersk. In 1663 the fort was burnt down by the Samoyeds, but was rebuilt. Samoyed attacks were repeated in 1688, 1712, 1714, 1720-23, 1730-31, when uprisings of tundra Samoyeds broke out, but the town continued to exist and flourish. Despite its turbulent history, Pustozersk was a center of trade with the Samoyeds of the tundra. At the same time, Pustozersk became a place of exile. It was here that he was imprisoned, and in 1682 he was burned with three like-minded people "for the great blasphemy against the royal house" the leader of the Old Believers, Archpriest Avvakum. Artamon Matveev and Prince Vasily Golitsyn, the "gallant" of Princess Sophia, were also exiled here.

At that time the town lay on the way from Russia to Siberia. In the 18th century, a more convenient southern route to Siberia through the Ural Mountains was opened, and the town on the Pechora gradually fell into decay. To this was added the shallowing of the Pechora branch, on which the city stood.

With the founding of the city of Mezen in 1780, Pustozersk lost its significance as an administrative center and became an ordinary village in the Pechora district of the Arkhangelsk province. It had no commercial and industrial significance, its population was constantly declining. If in 1843 there were four churches in Pustozersk, by the end of the century only two remained, with a population of 130 people.

Its inhabitants constituted an interesting ethnographic group - empty boats. Empty lakers differed from other Russian northerners in that they did not come from the descendants of Novgorodians or the “grassroots” “Rostovshchina”, but were descendants of Moscow service people, as well as a certain number of exiles (as evidenced by the “screaming” dialect of empty lakes), who were quite accustomed to life in tundra. Empty lakes have become proof that the Russian people are able to survive in any conditions, including the tundra.

The Russians settled along the banks of the Pechora, living by fishing and sea fishing, catching partridges and animals, as well as cattle breeding. The same occupations became the basis of the life of the Komi-Permyaks, who settled at the beginning of the 16th century. lower reaches of the Pechora. The Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III granted them fish tonies for participation in Russian ore-searching expeditions of 1491-92. on the river Tsilma, as well as in the military campaign "to Yugra" in 1499-1500. Miners found copper and silver ores, laid mines and smelting furnaces. Here, for the first time in the Moscow state, the smelting of copper, as well as silver and even gold, began, from which coins and medals were minted at the mint in Moscow.

In 1574, Permians and Russian peasants lived in the “hard-working yards” of Pustozersky Posad - 52 yards, 89 people. There were also 92 yards of quitrent peasants in the volost. By the end of the 16th century, about 2 thousand people already lived in Pustozersk.

Over time, empty lakes began to buy from Samoyeds and breed deer themselves. Reindeer herds belonging to wealthy Russian owners - several tens of thousands of heads - grazed on Kolguev Island, in the Bolshezemelskaya tundra, near Yugorsky Shar and on Vaigach. The total livestock in the 1910s was approximately 500,000. Fishing grounds (fishing grounds, reindeer pastures, hunting grounds for sea animals) were considered family lands and were inherited. In the 16th - 17th centuries, empty lakes went to Grumant (Svalbard) - their range extended so far economic activity. By the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, it covered the entire Bolshezemelskaya tundra - from Pechora to the Urals, and also included the islands of Kolguev, Matveev, Dolgiy, Vaigach and Novaya Zemlya.

Each of the peoples who settled in this vast territory - Russians, Komi and Nenets, had its own habitat: the nomadic paths of the Nenets ran in the tundra, the Russians and Komi settled along the banks of the Lower Pechora and other rivers, on the sea coast. The basis of the life of nomads was reindeer herding, Russian and settled Komi - fishing and sea fishing. For several centuries there was a "grinding in" and interpenetration of different types of economic structures, material and spiritual culture. Gradually, a humanitarian community was formed on this territory, whose members, while preserving national characteristics, borrowed from each other skills, customs, elements of a way of life, which greatly contributed to their survival in harsh natural conditions.

At the end of XIX - beginning of XX century. the main occupations of the Russian population continued to be fishing, sea fishing, hunting, and in winter time also export. Fishing provided the main income. So, in 1914, the income from it was about 90% of the inhabitants of the Pustozerskaya volost. Animal husbandry and horticulture were exclusively subsidiary in nature, and their products were for personal consumption. In peasant farms, on average, there were 2 cows, 2-4 sheep.

In the 20-30s. In the 20th century, empty lakes largely lost their cultural and economic features, and after that their identity. Putozersk in 1924 Pustozersk lost its city status. In 1928, 183 people lived in Pustozersk and there were 24 residential buildings and 37 non-residential buildings. In 1930, a collective farm was established in the village of Ustye, 5 km from Pustozersk. For many empty lakers, the Mikoyan collective farm was the main place of work. The construction of the city of Naryan-Mar, not far from Pustozersk, finally “finished off” the old Pustozersk. The last inhabitants left Pustozersk in 1962. But as a Subenic group, the empty lakes disappeared much earlier, after the specific features of their economic life had disappeared.

Pechora Ust-Tsilma

Another sub-ethnic group of Russians in the Pechora are the Ust-Tsilems, who live in the region of the same name in the Komi Republic, whose ancestors, however, arrived here earlier than the Komi themselves.

Already in 1213, chroniclers reported the presence of silver and copper ores on the Tsilma River (a tributary of the Pechora). However, the remoteness from the main centers of Rus', as well as the events caused by the Mongol-Tatar invasion, led to the fact that only in the 16th century in Rus' they again remembered the mineral wealth of Tsilma, and their economic development began.

In 1542 Ust-Tsilma was founded by Novgorodian Ivashka Dmitriev Lastka. This small prison also became one of the most interesting centers of one of the Russian northern sub-ethnic groups. The main occupation of the Slobozhans was fishing and hunting. At the first stage of the settlement of this harsh region, agriculture and cattle breeding played an insignificant role in the life of the Ust-Tsilems. Rich lands and river industries soon became the cause of contention between Ust-Tsilma and Pustozersk. In the future, this served as a serious obstacle to the rapprochement of two isolated from each other, Russian by origin, groups.

The population of the settlement grew very slowly, and in a century there were 38 households in it. But at the end of the 17th century, the persecuted Old Believers began to move to Pechora, who founded a number of sketes in the region. Residents of Ust-Tsilma did not accept Nikon's "news". The persecution of the Old Believers continued until the 50s. XIX century. In the future, the Ust-Tsilems, who sharply differed from their neighbors in their religion and housekeeping, turned into an original sub-ethnic group of Russians that has survived to this day.

In 1782, there were already 127 households and more than a thousand inhabitants in Ust-Tsilma. By this time, other small Russian villages appeared in the neighborhood, founded by settlers from Ust-Tsilma. The inhabitants of the settlement were mainly engaged in hunting and fishing, and artisans were among them. Many plowed the land and grew barley. An important role in the economy was played by animal husbandry (horses, cows, sheep, later they began to breed deer), on the basis of which the commodity production of cow meat and butter arose. Fairs were held annually in July and November. It is impossible not to be amazed that in such harsh natural conditions the Ust-Tsilems created an efficient agriculture. The village grew rich, as evidenced by the stone church.

At the end of the 19th century, there was a school, a hospital, several libraries, and a telegraph in Ust-Tsilma. The county authorities were also located here. In 1911, the village opened the first subpolar scientific institution - the Pechora Agricultural Experimental Station.

The Ust-Tsilems, like most Old Believers, tried to minimize contacts with non-Christians, and practically did not marry the “worldly”, which included the rest of the Russians, as well as Komi and Nenets. Interestingly, there were two handles on the doors of the houses of the Ust-Tsilems: one for the “true”, the other for the “worldly”.

Voluntary self-isolation contributed to the fact that the Ust-Tsilems retained many features of the culture and life of pre-Petrine Russia. The main types of Ust-Tsilma settlements were villages, villages and pochinki. The traditional dwelling consisted of five or six walls cut from larch. The women's costume was of the northern Russian type, i.e., multicolored clothing with a sundress. The folk calendar of the Ust-Tsilems was formed on a commercial basis, the most developed in it were two cycles: winter (especially Yuletide) and spring-summer. The celebration of the "hills" was distinguished by its originality, one of which was dedicated to Ivanov's day, and the other to Petrov. These days there were mass festivities in traditional costumes, which were accompanied by round dances, games, songs. On the night of July 11-12, in the so-called "Petrovshchina", there was a mutual treat of millet porridge and kindling of fires on the banks of the Pechora. In the traditional beliefs of the Ust-Tsilems, a special place was occupied by the veneration of larch, which was considered a “pure tree” with protective and healing properties. (This was the legacy of pagan Rus').

The cultural heritage of the residents of Ust-Tsilemsky Krai is great. The most important discovery of the first half of the 20th century is the discovery here of the richest ancient Russian traditions - epic and book, dating back to largest center bespopovsky persuasion - Pomeranian consent. The cultural significance of the Ust-Tsilma area of ​​folk poetry and fairy-tale tradition is evidenced by the publication in 2001 of two volumes of the Epic of the Pechora, which opened the fundamental 25-volume collection of works The Code of Russian Folklore. In the Pushkin House in St. Petersburg, more than a thousand monuments of Old Believer literature from Ust-Tsilma are stored.

During the years of the Soviet era, the Ust-Tsilems were forced to abandon their isolation. True, their business acumen benefited the Soviet government. So, in 1932, a suede factory was opened in the village. The village was the center of the Pechora shipping.

In the 30s. In the 20th century, the Ust-Tsilems again experienced a wave of persecution, during which all churches were closed. The main blow to the traditional culture of the Ust-Tsilems was urbanization and industrial construction. By the end of the 20th century, there were 262 industrial enterprises in the region, which employed the majority of local residents. The traditional crafts of the Ust-Tsilems, especially fishing, have become just a form of leisure. At the same time, many Ust-Tsilma residents left their small homeland in order to get an education or career opportunities. In turn, hundreds of thousands of migrants from all over the Soviet Union arrived in the Komi Republic. All this led to the crisis of the traditional culture of the Ust-Tsilems.

But the stubbornness of the Ust-Tsilems, who did not bend before difficulties, was also manifested in the fact that they did not disappear as an ethno-confessional group. They created the organization "Rus Pechora". Its branches are active in many cities of the Komi Republic and in Naryan-Mar.

Ust-Tsilma still attracts people with its unique traditions preserved here, the old church service, original dialect, lyrical and epic singing, old clothes, ancient icons and books, demonstrating the highest level of Russian folk culture.

The Ust-Tsilems still have a pronounced cultural specificity. It is clearly recognized by the majority of the population of the district of the same name. In addition to the creation of "Rus Pechora", on a local initiative, a number of measures have been taken in recent years to preserve the historical heritage of the Ust-Tsilems and created their own anthem, which is performed during all official events and which the Ust-Tsilems certainly sing during home feasts:

We are Russians

We are Ust-Tsilema.

We are on our own land

We're home!

In recent years, Ust-Tsilma and its peculiar Gorki holiday, widely celebrated by the local population, have become the object of close attention of the media, including central television. This also contributed to the strengthening of the local self-consciousness of the Ust-Tsilems, the reclamation of their cultural values, including the traditions of the Old Believers. And, consequently, the history of the Ust-Tsilems continues.

Saami (in the past - Lapps).

The most ancient inhabitants of the region were, apparently, the Saami, whom the Russians called the Lapps, or lop. Today, in Russia, the Saami inhabit several villages in the Lovozersky district. Murmansk region. Most of the Saami live in the north of Finland, Norway and Sweden. The lands inhabited by the Saami are called Lapland in Scandinavia, because the Saami were previously called the word "Paws".

Previously, the Lapps lived on a vast territory up to the southern shore of Lake Ladoga. It is no coincidence that the Novgorod chroniclers called the region in the lower reaches of the Volkhov River "Lopsky churchyards", but on the contrary Staraya Ladoga, on the opposite bank of the Volkhov is the village of Lopino. But, as mentioned above, the Lapps were gradually pushed back by the Karelians and Russians far to the north. As a result, by the 16th century, the Lapps remained in the interior of the Kola Peninsula. The Russians clearly distinguished the “goblin”, that is, the forest lod, from the sea.

According to the language, the Saami are part of the Finno-Ugric group of the Uralic languages. As is often the case with non-written languages ​​of ethnic groups that do not have statehood and are scattered over long distances, the Sami language has a huge number of different dialects. In the Saami language, 55 (!) dialects have been identified, which are combined into three groups.

In racial and anthropological terms, the Saami constitute a special Laponoid small race, which is transitional between Mongoloids and Caucasians. However, it is possible that the racial type of the Saami arose during the formation of the races. The Saami often have light skin and whitish eyes, while maintaining many of the features inherent in the Mongoloids.

In the Mesolithic era (X-V millennium BC), Laponoids lived in the area between the Ob and Pechora. The Saami people, most likely, come from the Finno-Ugric population that came to the lands of Scandinavia in the early Neolithic era (after the retreat of the ice cover at the end of the last ice age), penetrating into Eastern Karelia, Finland and the Baltic states starting from the 4th millennium BC. e. Presumably in the 1500-1000s. to i. e. the separation of the proto-Sami from a single community of carriers of the base language begins, when the ancestors of the Baltic Finns, under the Baltic and later German influence, began to move to a settled way of life of farmers and pastoralists.

From Southern Finland and Karelia, the Saami migrated further and further north, fleeing the spreading colonization of the Suomi Finns and Karelians. Following the migrating herds of wild reindeer, the ancestors of the Saami during the 1st millennium AD. e., gradually reached the coast of the Arctic Ocean and reached the territories of their current residence. At the same time, they began to switch to the breeding of domesticated reindeer, turning into a people of reindeer herders.

The Kola Lapps already in 1216 paid tribute to the Novgorodians. In the 11th century, several Russian settlements already existed on the Tersky coast (the southern, White Sea part of the Kola Peninsula), and in 1264, the Russian settlement Kola arose on the Kola coast of the Barents Sea, which gave the name to the peninsula, which contributed to the strong cultural Russification of the Lapps. In 1550, the Trifon-Pechenga Monastery was established in their lands, and the Christianization of the Lapps began. However, the Saami still retain remnants of paganism in everyday life. At the end of the 18th century, Lapps, subjects Russian Empire, there were 1,359 people.

In the Russian Empire, the Sami belonged to the peasant class. Basically, the Lapps were engaged in reindeer herding, having almost no contact with the outside world. True, many Lapps were hired to fish for hire from the Solovetsky monks. Some Lapps worked as auxiliary workers in the shipyards near the Pomors. In the XIX - early XX centuries. The Saami led a semi-nomadic lifestyle, making short seasonal migrations. For some of the Kola Saami, lake and river fishing played a leading role, for others, sea fishing. At the end of XVIII - beginning of XX centuries. about 70% of the adult Sami population was engaged in cod fishing. Among the Eastern Sami, reindeer husbandry played a significant role, supplemented by salmon fishing. All Sami hunted large (moose, wolf) and small animals, birds. By the end of the XIX century. their economic situation worsened due to the loss of traditional lands, which were appropriated by clever adventurers who poured into the North. Alcoholism and various infectious diseases became widespread among the Lapps. By 1914, there were only 1,700 Lapps submitted to the Russian Empire.

Under Soviet rule, 9 national village councils were formed on the Kola Peninsula. According to the 1926 census, there were 1,706 Saami people, that is, the number of the ethnic group has not changed much since 1914. All of them led a semi-nomadic lifestyle, there were only 12% literate. In the 1920s the transition of the Saami to settled life begins, the creation of collective farms. From the beginning of the 1930s in the Soviet Union, the Sami script was created, first on a Latin basis, later translated into Cyrillic. However, the large-scale industrialization of the Kola Peninsula, the construction of roads, ports, military facilities, led to the destruction of the traditional habitat of the Saami and undermined their traditional culture. Among the Sami, drunkenness has again become widespread, and the suicide rate has skyrocketed. The natural increase of the Sami became insignificant, moreover, children from mixed marriages usually did not identify themselves as Sami. Many Saami, having lost their native language, began to identify themselves as Russians or Karelians. As a result, if according to the 1979 census, out of 1565 Saami of the Murmansk region, 933 people (59.6%) spoke their native language, then according to the 1989 census, out of 1615 Saami - 814 people (50.4%). The number of city dwellers is increasing. According to the 1989 census, they accounted for 39.1% of the Saami in the RSFSR.

Karely

Karelians live in their own republic of Karelia, populating mainly the western part of the republic. Interestingly, the Karelians are not the indigenous inhabitants of Karelia. In the North, they settled at the same time and together with the Russians.

In anthropological terms, the Karelians belong to the northern Caucasians, which are characterized by the highest degree of depigmentation (whiteness) of hair, eyes and skin in the world. Their features - a very high frequency of blond hair (together with blond up to 50-60%), and especially light eyes (up to 55-75% gray and blue) - are also characteristic of a significant part of the modern population. True, among the Karelians, a group of Lapps assimilated by them, living in the Segozero region, stands out, having some features of the laponoid group of the Ural type.

Ancestors of the Karelians in the 1st millennium AD occupied the territory to the north and northwest of Lake Ladoga, including the region of the Saimaa Lakes. By the beginning of the II millennium AD. a tribal association “Korela” was formed here with the center in the city of Korela (now the city of Priozersk, Leningrad Region). For the first time in Russian chronicles, the Karelians are mentioned in 1143, although the Russians had known them for several centuries by this time.

From the 11th century part of the Korela begins to move along with the Novgorodians to the Isthmus of Olonets (between the Onega and Ladoga lakes), where they interact with individual groups of villages. As a result of this interaction, the South Karelian ethnographic groups of Livviks and Ludiks are formed. From the same time, the development of the territories of modern Central and Northern Karelia began, where the ancestors of the Karelians met with the Saami. Part of the Saami was assimilated, the rest were pushed aside by the 18th century. to the Kola Peninsula.

In the XII century. Karelians are drawn into the orbit of influence of the Novgorod state. In the XIII century (approximately in 1227, according to the chronicles) they accept Orthodoxy. At the turn of the XII-XIII centuries, a birch-bark letter with a text in Karelian, made in Cyrillic, found in Veliky Novgorod, dates back. In 1478, after Novgorod land was annexed to Moscow, the Karelian territory became part of the Russian state. The fact that for many centuries the Karelians lived as part of Rus', professed Orthodoxy, led to the strongest Russian cultural influence on the Karelians.

However, until the 17th century, the main part of the Karelians lived on Karelian Isthmus. When in 1617, according to the Peace of Stolbov, the lands of the Karelians were ceded to Sweden, a significant part of the Karelians left their historical homeland, moving to Russia of the same faith. According to Swedish sources, only 1,524 families, or 10 thousand people, left the Korelsky district in 1627-35. However, an even more massive exodus of Karelians to Russia occurred in the second half of the 17th century. The process of resettlement continued until 1697.

Karelians mainly settled near Tver, in the Ryazan region (near Medyn). In general, the Karelians are a rare example of a people who almost completely left their historical homeland. In their historical homeland, the Karelian Isthmus, only 5% of the Karelians remained, gradually assimilated by the Finns-Suomi.

Part of the Karelians settled in the lands devastated by the Time of Troubles around Tver, forming a group of Tver Karelians, part settled along the Chagoda River, forming the Tikhvin Karelians (now these are the Boksitogorsk and Podporozhye districts of the Leningrad region). The Karelians who settled in the Ryazan region were completely assimilated by the end of the 19th century. The bulk of the Karelians moved to the close and already partly inhabited lands between the Ladoga and Onega lakes and the White Sea. Since then and forever this region has become Karelia. Strictly speaking, the majority of Karelians did not move to Karelia, but, being already completely Russified, the Karelians outside Karelia quickly lost their ethnic identity, merging into the Russian ethnic group, close in life, culture and religion.

In the era of Peter's transformations, Karelia is also experiencing rapid development. There are Olonets and Petrovsky factories, the sawmill industry develops, mining of granite begins, resorts appear. During the reign of Catherine II, the Alexander Cannon Factory, about two dozen state-owned and private metallurgical and sawmill factories were built in Karelia. An indicator of the importance of Karelia was the creation of a special Olonets province, occupying most lands of modern Karelia.

However, Karelia developed in less favorable conditions than many regions of Russia. In the XIX - early XX centuries. Karelia was "sub-capital Siberia" and "the land of fearless birds."

During the revolution, the Bolsheviks in 1920 created the Karelian Labor Commune, which three years later became the Karelian Soviet Autonomous Republic. It should be noted that the republic included areas with a predominance of Russian and Vepsian populations. The Karelians themselves were an ethnic minority. In general, in 1939, all Finnish ethnic groups in Karelia (Karelians, Veps, Finns-Suomi) together accounted for 27% of the population. In 1933 Karelians of Karelia numbered 109 thousand people. At the same time, the Tver Karelians, who at that time numbered about 155 thousand people, outnumbered the Karelians of Karelia.

In the Soviet era, large-scale construction of industrial enterprises began on the territory of Karelia. The population of the republic has grown significantly due to visitors from all over the Soviet Union.

In 1940, after the Soviet-Finnish war, when part of the territories that had seceded from Finland was annexed to Karelia (despite the fact that the Finnish population of these lands had been evacuated by the Finnish authorities even before the war, so the USSR received empty territories), Karelian- Finnish Union Republic. The word "Finnish" in this case was explained not only by the generally recognized fact of the relationship of the Karelians with the Finns - Suomi, but also by such a circumstance as the arrival in the 20s. to Karelia about 2 thousand "Red Finns" - political emigrants from Finland, where the revolution of 1918 ended in defeat. Expecting that the Finnish proletarians would again rise up against the power of the bourgeoisie, the Bolsheviks created "Red Finland" on the lands of the former Olonets province, in which the Karelians themselves, not to mention the emigrants - Finns, were an ethnic minority. In the early 1930s, during the years of the great economic crisis, several thousand more Finnish emigrants arrived in Karelia from Finland, who formed the ruling elite of the Karelian ASSR. In 1939, there were 8,000 Finnish emigrants (slightly more than 1.5% of the republic's population), which did not prevent the Kremlin from making these emigrants a "titular nation." In 1940, the allied “Karelo-Finnish” Republic was proclaimed, practically without the Finns. In this regard, at that time there was a joke that "there are only two Finns in the Karelian-Finnish Republic: FINinspektor and FINkelstein, but in general they are one and the same person."

A chimerical pseudo-state formation was created when the main local population(Russian and Karelian peasants) were removed from power and self-government, and emigrant revolutionaries began to lead them. Finnish and Russian were adopted as official languages. In 1933, more than half of the 500 secondary schools in Karelia taught in Finnish. IN educational institutions Russians were forced to study Finnish. Karelian was recognized as “wrong”, the Karelians themselves were called “a nation that does not have its own written language”, and they were also forced to learn and communicate with each other in Finnish. True, this was partly due to the fact that the Karelians themselves do not have a single literary language, since they speak three mutually incomprehensible dialects. In the early 1930s, there was even an official term "Karelian-Finnish language", which meant the language of the Finns-Suomi, related, but unlike the Karelian language.

During the Great Patriotic War, part of Karelia was occupied by Finnish troops. Much to the surprise of the Finns, who expected that their kindred Karelians would meet the "Finnish brothers" as liberators, a guerrilla war broke out in Karelia against the invaders. In 1944, Finnish troops were driven out of the territory of the republic.

After the Great Patriotic War, local authorities became concerned about the almost complete absence of Finns in "their" republic, and Ingrian Finns deported from the Leningrad Region began to be sent to Karelia. A curious, but generally typical for the USSR, situation was created when in their homeland in the vicinity northern capital Russia, the remaining Finns were forbidden to speak mother tongue while simultaneously imposing the Finnish language on Russians and Karelians in neighboring Karelia. However, the number of Finns in Karelia, most of whom were Ingrians, was still small - by 1959 there were 27 thousand of them, or 4% of the inhabitants of the republic. In the future, the number of Finns is steadily declining as a result of assimilation and return to their historical small homeland in the Leningrad region. In 2002, there were 14 thousand Finns in Karelia (2% of the population).

The KFSSR was clearly an artificial entity, and was abolished in 1956.

As part of the USSR, Karelia occupied a prominent place in forestry, the extraction of certain types of minerals. The population of the republic increased dramatically due to immigrants from all over the country. In 1959, the republic had 651 thousand inhabitants, that is, three times more than in 1920. In the future, population growth continued, and by 1989, 790 thousand inhabitants already lived in Karelia.

But the number of Karelians continued to decline during the Soviet era. From 109 thousand inhabitants of the republic in 1933 to 78 thousand in 1989 - such is the reduction of the Karelian ethnos. In the post-Soviet era, the process of reducing Karelians continued, and the 2002 census stated that 65 thousand Karelians remained in Karelia (9% of the total population). This is explained by urbanization (in 1989, 62% of Karelians lived in cities), which contributed to the assimilation of the Russian-speaking urban culture, the assimilation of some Karelians by Russians, and also depopulation. ¾ of all marriages in the city, and half in the village, concluded by a groom or bride of Karelian nationality, were interethnic. In the capital of Karelia, the city of Petrozavodsk, the Karelian population is only 5.3%. More than half of Russian Karelians (51.1%) consider Russian as their native language, only 62.2% are fluent in Karelian. The age structure of the Karelian population is unfavorable. According to the 1989 census, more than 20% of Karelians were over 60 years of age. Thus, for the Karelian ethnos, the demographic situation remains the most important problem.

Vepsians

Modern Vepsians are the descendants of the already repeatedly mentioned “all” people. Once it occupied the vast territory of the Russian North. Under the name "you" this people is mentioned in the VI century by the Gothic historian Jordanes. The Arab scholar of the 10th century, Ibn Fadlan, called them "Visu". The Russians called them Chud (by the way, this is how the Vepsians were called until 1917), chukhars, or, unlike other Finnish tribes, just the whole.

Historically, the Vepsians have been associated with the Russian state since its formation. In Russian chronicles, "all" is mentioned in connection with the events of 859 and 862, the time when the Varangians were called to Rus'. Later (882 AD) in the "Tale of Bygone Years" there is another mention of the ethnonym "all". Together with the Varangians, Chud, Slovenes, Merya and Krivichi, she took part in the campaign of Prince Oleg, who conquered Smolensk and Lyubech and took the throne of Kiev. She lived all in the Obonezh Pyatina of Veliky Novgorod, later - as part of the Moscow state. Together with the Slavs, she accepted Christianity, although, however, remnants of paganism remained in these parts for several centuries, as evidenced by the numerous lives of local saints who fought with the pagans. But one of the most respected saints ancient Rus', Alexander Svirsky (1448-1533), was, apparently, a Vepsian. In church tradition, Alexander Svirsky is considered the only Russian saint who saw the Trinity. In social terms, the Vepsians belonged to the state peasants, like almost all the inhabitants of the North. Many Vepsians worked at the Olonets factories and the Lodeynopol shipyard. Vepsians were among the very first builders of St. Petersburg.

By the time the Slavs made contact with the whole more than a millennium ago, the ancestors of the Veps occupied the territory between the Ladoga, Onega and White lakes. In the future, the whole settled in different directions, often merging with other ethnic groups. So, for example, in the XII-XV centuries, some Veps, who penetrated into the regions north of the Svir River, merged with the Karelians. The easternmost of the Vepsians joined the Komi. However, most of the villages that lived along the Sheksna River and White Lake became Russified. As a result, the ethnic territory of the Veps was significantly reduced. Today, the Veps live in the south of Karelia, in the northeast of the Leningrad region and a small area in the west of the Vologda region.

The number of Vepsians is also decreasing. According to Academician Koeppen, in 1835, 15,617 Veps lived in Russia at that time, including 8,550 in the Olonets province, and 7,067 in Novgorod. According to the 1897 census, the number of Veps was 25.6 thousand people. , including 7.3 thousand lived in Eastern Karelia, north of the Svir River. In 1897, the Vepsians made up 7.2% of the population of the Tikhvin district and 2.3% of the population of the Belozersky district of the Novgorod province.

After the October Revolution, Vepsian national districts, as well as Vepsian soviets and collective farms, were created in places where the people were densely populated. In the early 1930s, the introduction of the teaching of the Vepsian language and a number of subjects in this language in elementary school began, textbooks of the Vepsian language appeared. The total number of Vepsians in the 20-30s. numbered 32 thousand people. In the late 1930s, due to the deterioration of relations with Finland, all forms of national self-government of the Veps were abolished. Some of the Veps public figures were repressed, the autonomous Veps region was transformed into a regular one. administrative region. Later, the Veps migrated to Leningrad and other large cities of the country, which only intensified the gradual assimilation of the ethnic group. In 1959, according to the census, there were 16 thousand Vepsians, in 1979 - 8 thousand. True, there are actually more Vepsians, since many Vepsians living in cities consider themselves Russians. In 2002, there were 8,240 Vepsians.

One of the reasons for the assimilation of the Veps is that this small ethnic group lives scattered, interspersed with others. Finally, the Veps themselves from different regions they speak differently. The Vepsian language belongs to the northern group of the Baltic-Finnish branch of the Finno-Ugric language family, it is closest to the Karelian, Izhora, and Finnish languages. The Vepsian language is relatively homogeneous in its structure, although there are dialectal differences. Scientists distinguish three dialects. The Veps language is included in 2009 by UNESCO in the Atlas of Endangered Languages ​​of the World as "highly endangered".

Komi (Zyryans)

Among the indigenous ethnic groups of the Russian North is the Komi (earlier the name Zyryans was adopted). The self-name of the ethnic group is Komi-mort (Komi people) and Komi-Voityr (Komi people). Komi live mainly in their own republic (in which in 1989 they accounted for 26% of the total population), as well as in the Russian regions of the Russian North (Arkhangelsk and Murmansk). Komi belong to the Permian group of the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic language family. The relatives of the Komi are the Udmurts and Komi-Permyaks, who in old times constituted one ethnic group.

In anthropological terms, the Komi (like other Permian ethnic groups) belong to the sublaponoid racial type. It is characterized by brachycephaly (short head), mixed pigmentation of the hair and eyes (i.e., black hair, gray and brown eyes predominate), a wide nose bridge, poor beard growth, and a medium-broad face with a tendency to flattening. In general, the Komi are representatives of a transitional race from Caucasians and Mongoloids.

The ancestors of the Komi (then they were also the ancestors of all Perm ethnic groups) developed in the 2nd millennium BC. e. near upper Volga. Later, the ancestors of this ethnic group spread to the north, to the Kama region. In the I millennium before. n. e. future Komi ended up on the territory modern Republic Komi.

In the IV-VIII centuries. AD On the territory of the modern settlement of the Komi, the Vanvizda culture is known, the carriers of which spoke the Finno-Permian languages. Later, in the basins of the Vym and Vychegda rivers, as a result of the continued influx of Finnish tribes from the Trans-Kama region, an ethnic group was formed, which the Russian chroniclers called Perm Vychegda. The region where the Komi-Permyaks settled was called the Great Perm by the ancient chroniclers.

In the Vychegda valley, the right tributary of the Northern Dvina, an archaeological Vym culture (IX-XIV centuries) was formed, correlated with the chronicle Vychegda Permian.

The population of Perm Vychegda had stable trade and cultural ties with the Volga Bulgaria and Russia.

Since the 12th century, Vychegodskaya Perm has been under the rule of Veliky Novgorod and the Rostov-Suzdal princes. Fortified settlements appear, which become important administrative-political and craft-trading centers. One of these centers was the Pozheg settlement on the Vym River, which arose at the end of the 12th century and existed until the 14th century. The settlement was located in a naturally fortified place, on three sides it had additional earthen fortifications in the form of ramparts and ditches. Ground dwellings and semi-dugouts, industrial and outbuildings were found in the settlement. During the excavations, numerous data were obtained on the occupation of the population by agriculture and animal husbandry, blacksmithing, jewelry, woodworking, bone-carving crafts, and trade. To repel the attacks, the inhabitants of the settlement had a large supply of weapons.

The Pozheg settlement arose as a stronghold of tribute collectors and warriors. Gradually, the settlement turns into an important trade, craft and military administrative center. His death was probably the result of the struggle between Veliky Novgorod and Moscow.

In 1366, as the Vychegodsko-Vymskaya chronicle reported, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich of Moscow (the future Donskoy) forced Novgorod to give him Perm and Pechora, as well as part of the Dvina land. But this is not about joining these lands to the Moscow principality, but, most likely, about transferring to the Moscow prince the right to collect part of the tribute. Finally, the lands of the current Komi Republic became part of the Muscovite kingdom only in the reign of Ivan III, when the power of local princes was eliminated, and Russian administration was extended to the entire region.

As a result of Russian colonization, there is a powerful influence of the culture of the Eastern Slavs. However, there were also borrowings of the Slavs from the Zyrians. Probably, the word "dumplings" was borrowed by Russians precisely from the Zyryan words "pelnian" ("bread ear").

In 1379-1380. in the region began the missionary activity of Stephen of Perm, whose mother was a Zyryanka, thanks to which the future saint knew the Komi language from childhood. He baptized the Chud pagans who lived along the Northern Dvina and Vychegda, founded the first temples and monasteries in the region. For the success of his sermons, Stefan created the Permian (that is, Old Komi) alphabet of 24 letters. As a model, Stefan used the letters of the Greek and Slavic alphabets, as well as the Chud "passes" (signs depicted on various objects). Part of Perm, however, met with hostility the spread of Christianity. Not wanting to be baptized, part of the pagans from Vychegda migrated further to the northeast. Already in the "Life of Stephen of Perm" the baptized Chud was called "zyryans". Since the 16th century, the exonym "Zyryans" has been assigned to the ethnic group, replacing the earlier term "Perm", although the self-name "Komi" was still in use, but only between the Zyryans themselves.

However, despite the fact that most of the Zyryans were baptized, pagan rites existed among them for a long time. The “pure” pagans also survived for a long time. At the beginning of the 16th century, Sigismund Herberstein noted that "to this day, everywhere in the forests, very many of them remain idolaters." In the 17th century, the Komi were involved in a church schism, and since that time, the Old Believers have spread among some of their groups (especially among the Komi-Zyryans living along the rivers Vashka, Mezen and Pechora).

In the XV-XVI centuries. under the pressure of the ongoing Russian colonization of the North, the Komi ethnic array moved eastward. The Komi population disappeared in the lower reaches of the Vashka, on the Pinega, the lower Vychegda, the Viledi, the Yarenga, and the lower Luza. This disappearance is explained both by the migration to the east of the main part of the Komi, and by the Russification of the remaining ones. But from that time until the beginning of the twentieth century. there was a continuous expansion of the ethnic territory of the Komi. In the XVI-XVII centuries. Komi settled the upper Vychegda, and in the XVIII-XIX centuries. - Pechora and Izhma. Thus, the Komi-Zyryans basically occupied the territory of the current Komi Republic, leaving the lands of the Northern Dvina basin.

Many Zyrians took an active part in the development of Siberia. Komi hunters and merchants have long known the roads leading beyond the Stone Belt. They were guides in the detachment of Yermak, from whose campaign the annexation of Siberia began, and in a number of other detachments of Russian service people, who were heading in the late 16th - early 17th centuries. on the Ob and Irtysh, along the coast of the Arctic Ocean (to Mangazeya), were among the first inhabitants of many Siberian cities that arose at the end of the 16th-17th centuries. (Tyumen, Tobolsk, Pelym, Surgut, Berezov, Verkhoturye, etc.), participated in the development of the Lena, Amur, Kamchatka, Novosibirsk and Aleutian Islands basins, in the famous campaign of S. I. Dezhnev and F. A. Popov around Chukotka. Natives of the Komi Territory F. A. Chukichev and D. M. Zyryan (judging by their surnames, they were definitely Komi-Zyryans) led the development of Indigirka, Kolyma and Penzhina.

In the process of interaction with the surrounding ethnic groups, the Komi included assimilated groups of Vesi (Veps), Russians, Samoyeds (Nenets) and Voguls (Mansi). This was reflected in the anthropological appearance and individual components of the Komi culture, led to the formation of 10 separate ethno-local groups within the Komi, as well as the mestizo ethnos of the Izhemtsy.

In the harsh northern conditions, the economy of the Komi-Zyryans had its own features. Until the 18th century, the basis of the Zyryan economy was hunting and fishing. The Zyryans actively hunted sable. Fishing along the Vychegda, Vym, especially on the Pechora, has acquired a large-scale character. Pechora salmon and other valuable varieties of fish were sent to Kholmogory, Mezen and Arkhangelsk, and from there some went abroad.

But by the 18th century, when the number of fur-bearing animals had significantly thinned out (which led to the resettlement of many Zyryan hunters to Siberia), and fish from the Caspian Sea began to successfully compete with fish from the northern seas, the Zyryans began to finally switch to agriculture and cattle breeding, which had previously were of secondary importance. In the northernmost areas of settlement, the Zyryans switched to reindeer herding, in which they were very successful. At the end of the 19th century, with the development of the pulp and paper industry, many Zyrians became lumberjacks and timber raftsmen.

The Zyryans lived in small villages. Although cities gradually developed in the region, there were few townspeople among the Zyrians. The only city in which the Zyryans made up the absolute majority of the population was Ust-Sysolsk, which arose in the 16th century, and only in 1780 received the status of a city. However, until the Soviet era, Ust-Sysolsk was just a large village, numbering in 1910 a little more than 5 thousand inhabitants.

Demography testifies to the development of the region. In the middle of the 16th century, 10-12 thousand Komi lived in the European North-East. In 1678 - 1679 there were approximately 19.3 thousand inhabitants in the region, of which 17.3 - 17.6 thousand Komi and 1.7 - 2 thousand Russians.

In 1725, there were approximately 40 thousand inhabitants in the region (38-39 thousand Komi and 2.5 thousand Russians), in 1745 - 42-42.5 thousand, in 1763 - 48.5-49 thousand, and by 1782 the population increased to 58.0 - 59.0 thousand (51.5-52 thousand Komi and 3.5-4 thousand Russians). In 1795, 58-59 thousand people lived in the region, of which (54.0 - 54.5 thousand Komi and 4.0 - 4.5 thousand Russians. Russians lived in Ust-Tsilma and emerged in the neighborhood with in the XVIII century villages, in Ust-Vymy, Loima, settlements near Seregovsky and appeared in the XVIII century at Sysol Nyuvchimsky, Kazhimsky and Nyuchpasssky factories.In 1811, there were 59.3 - 60.5 thousand in the region, in 1835 - 83-84 thousand people, and by 1858-1860 the population increased to 97-100 thousand Komi and 10-13 thousand Russians In 1897, there were about 142 thousand Komi and 14-16 thousand Russians Approximately 12 thousand Komi lived in other regions, more than 9 thousand of them - in Siberia.In 1917-1918 about 190 thousand Komi and about 20 thousand Russians lived in the Komi region.

The region was poor and backward, often used by the authorities of the Russian Empire as a place of exile. But the development of the region, although slow, still continued. By 1913, 2 power plants were built, coal deposits and oil sources were explored.

The Komi-Zyryans showed a desire for education, which made them one of the most educated peoples of the Russian Empire. As the prominent sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, himself half Komi, noted in 1911 in the book “Zyryans”, “the Zyryans are the third people in terms of literacy in Russia: the Germans come first, the Jews second and then the Zyryans.” Although the alphabet of Stephen of Perm was forgotten over time, in the 18th-19th centuries there were various graphic systems based on Cyrillic for the Zyryan language. In the 19th century, more than 100 translations and original books in the Zyryan language were published. Only in 1918, V. A. Molodtsov developed a standard alphabet based on Russian graphics.

During the years of the revolution and the Civil War, the territory of the region was the scene of hostilities. On August 22, 1921, the autonomous Soviet Republic of Komi was proclaimed. It should be noted that, as in the case of Karelia and many other Soviet autonomies, initially, in addition to the Komi ethnic regions, there were also regions with a predominance of the Russian population in the republic. However, the Komi were the majority in the republic. So, in 1929 it had 234.7 thousand inhabitants, about 10% of whom were Russians.

In 1930, Ust-Sysolsk was renamed Syktyvkar, which, in fact, means in the Komi language "the city on Sysol". A university and a number of other universities were opened in Syktyvkar.

Since that time, the "old-mode" name of the ethnos "Zyryans" disappears, replaced by the ethnonym "Komi". In the republic in Soviet times, industry was rapidly developing, in particular, oil, coal, pulp and paper, furniture. There has been a significant urbanization of the region. The population of Syktyvkar in 1939 numbered 25 thousand inhabitants, and in 1989 - 232 thousand. In the Soviet era, such cities as Vorkuta, Ukhta, Inta, Sosnogorsk, Pechora arose. The urban population greatly outnumbered the villagers. Thus, in 1993, the townspeople in the republic amounted to 933.7 thousand people, the rural population - 312 thousand people.

The population of the republic grew significantly due to the arrived population, among which there were many prisoners. As a result, the Komi themselves became a national minority in their own republic. However, unlike many other Finnish peoples, the Komi continued to grow in numbers. In 1926, there were 195 thousand Komi in the territory of the autonomy, in 1959 - 245 thousand, in 1970 - 276 thousand, in 1979 - 281 thousand, in 1989 - 291 thousand people. Taking into account the Komi living outside the republic, the total number of the ethnic group in 1989 was 336.3 thousand people.

The collapse of the USSR and the crisis in the political, economic, social and cultural life of Russia brought the republic and its indigenous ethnic group into a difficult situation. The population of the republic, which numbered 1,248.9 thousand inhabitants in 1990, decreased to 974.6 thousand in 2007, and in 2010, 901,600 people live in the republic, of which almost 694 thousand are urban population. The population as of January 1, 2011 amounted to 899.7 thousand people, of which 693.2 thousand people (77%) are urban residents and 206.5 thousand people (23%) are rural residents. In 2010, the population of the republic decreased by 8.8 thousand people, or by 1%.

The Komi ethnic group is also experiencing a demographic crisis, decreasing both in absolute and relative numbers. Only for 1989-2002. the number of the ethnic group decreased from 336 to 293 thousand people. Of the 293 thousand Komi in Russia, 256 thousand live in the republic itself.

Thus, although the Komi are more numerous than most Finno-Ugric ethnic groups historical Russia, their further fate as an ethnic group remains problematic.

Izhemtsy

Interesting people live in the Izhemsky district of the Komi Republic. Actually, no Izhma ethnic group officially exists, and all Izhemians are classified as Komi, whose language they speak, but this is just such a case when the actual existence of the ethnic group, due to political and bureaucratic reasons, is not reflected in official statistics. The Izhma people have a strong ethnic identity. More than 16 thousand people during the 2002 census identified themselves as Komi-Izhma.

As an ethnic group, the Izhemtsy appeared right before the eyes of researchers. The ethnic group of Izhemtsy (Izvatas) began to take shape at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries at the junction of the territories inhabited by three peoples: Komi-Zyryans, Russian Ust-Tsilems-Old Believers and Samoyeds (Nenets). Between 1568 and 1575, Izhma Sloboda was founded on the Izhma River, a tributary of the Pechora. According to legend, its founders were Komi settlers from the villages on the Upper Mezen of the Glotova Sloboda and the Russians of the Ust-Tsilemskaya Sloboda. For a long time, Izhemskaya Sloboda remained the only Komi settlement on the Lower Pechora; only at the end of the 18th century did new settlements appear around it. Samoyed neighbors also began to join the local population. The mixture of these three peoples led to the emergence of this ethnic group. But the dominant role was played by the Komi people, therefore, in the Izhma language there are more Komi words than Russian and Nenets. As he wrote in the 18th century famous traveler Lepekhin, “Izhma is inhabited by a people of three tribes. The first settlers were Zyryans. The Izhemtsy lived near the Izhma River and in other places in the Yarensky district. Then many Russian families joined them, and some of the Samoyeds who adopted holy baptism. All these inhabitants speak Zyryansk. As a result of long-term interethnic mixing and ethnocultural mutual influence, the Izhma people developed peculiar features in the anthropological type, a special Izhma dialect of the Komi language arose with significant borrowings from the Russian and Nenets languages, and changes occurred in the traditional economic complex.

Initially, the leading economic activities of the Izhma people were hunting and fishing, while cattle breeding and agriculture acted as auxiliary industries. In the 18th-19th centuries, while maintaining the former occupations, reindeer breeding became the leading branch of the economy. Reindeer breeding was the main factor in the intensive expansion of the ethnic territory of the Izhemtsy.

By the beginning of the 19th century, the Izhemtsy had mastered the entire middle Pechora, the Kolva and Usa basins, founded settlements in the Bolshezemelskaya tundra, on the Kola Peninsula and in the lower reaches of the Ob River. According to the 1897 census, the Komi population of the Pechora Territory (that is, the Izhemtsy) numbered 22 thousand people, about 10 thousand people lived outside the region.

The Izhma people always treated the South Komi with a certain sense of superiority. This was understandable: people on Izhma lived richer, because they were distinguished by entrepreneurship and business acumen. But not only these qualities allowed them to deploy throughout the north of the European part of Russia and beyond. Ural ridge. The craving for literacy, the constant thirst "to be no worse than others", knowledge of the surrounding nature, independence, perseverance, natural cunning, in the end - these qualities are characteristic of the Izhma. Having adopted reindeer breeding from the Nenets, the Izhma people turned it into a commodity production in a relatively short period. They mastered and developed a completely unique model of reindeer breeding, combining in their culture the nomadic skills of the Nenets, the everyday culture of Russians, while preserving the ethnic culture - the Komi-Zyryans. The basis for this was given by the experience of the Izhma people, who abandoned their permanent nomadic life and learned how to drive herds to winter period to their villages.

The constantly growing number of deer herds drove the Izhma to the east and west of the North in search of new pastures. Reindeer husbandry played a huge, if not decisive, role in the formation of the ethnic group, but fishing and hunting, cattle breeding in the ethnic homeland also remained the occupation of the Izhma people.

The final formation of the Izhma ethnos can be attributed to the middle of the 19th century. Izhma merchants build schools and churches in their villages, which still amaze with their simple sophistication and grandeur, power stations and suede factories, because it is suede that comes into fashion and brings huge profits.

The fact of the desire of the population for education deserves attention. The first school in the countryside in the Komi region was opened in Izhma in 1828 at the expense of ordinary peasants.

The revolution and the civil war caused great damage to the Izhma people. The Izhma reindeer breeding system was actually destroyed by measures taken by the state in the 1920s. The Izhma people themselves were declared to be related to the Komi. However, the cultural and economic development of the region continued. In the 20-30s. in the Izhma region, there were three secondary schools. The organizers of all these educational institutions were representatives of the local population.

In general, the Izhma region has retained some features that sharply distinguish it from other regions of the Russian North, where the newcomer population significantly outnumbered the local natives. More than 80% of the indigenous population lives on the present territory of the Izhma region. This fact contributes to the preservation of the traditional way of life, traditional culture and attitude of people living in close relationship with nature. For example, the local population stood up for the protection of their rights to a clean environment and against illegal oil refineries in places of traditional use of natural resources by the population. The case went to court with the leadership of the Komi Republic and the Izhemtsy won. In addition, the Izhemtsy in demographic terms are in a more advantageous position than many small ethnic groups of the North. According to the 1989 census, 27.8 thousand Komi lived in the Izhma and Usinsky districts of the Komi ASSR, and about 18 thousand more descendants of people from Izhma live in Western Siberia and the European North. In our time, there are a number of public organizations of the Izhemtsy, which aim, firstly, to achieve recognition of the Izhemtsy as an independent ethnic group, and secondly, to develop the culture and economy of this people.

Nenets (Samoyeds)

In the north-east of the region, the Nenets, who were previously called Samoyeds, live.

It is interesting that the Nenets are the "titular" nationality of three subjects at once Russian Federation- Nenets Autonomous Okrug Arkhangelsk region, the Yamalo-Nenets Okrug of the Tyumen Region and the Taimyr Dolgano-Nenets Autonomous Okrug of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

The total number in 2002 was 41 thousand people. Most of the Nenets live in Siberia. In the European part of Russia, the Nenets live in the Nenets Autonomous District of the Arkhangelsk Region. However, in this autonomy in 2002, the Nenets numbering 7,754 people made up only 18.7% of the population of the district

Nevertheless, taking into account the historical circumstance that the ancestors of the Nenets came into contact with the Russians in the era of the development of Pomorye by the Novgorodians, an essay on the Nenets is necessary precisely in the section on the Russian North.

The Nenets belong to the Samoyedic group of the Uralic language family. It is interesting that actually from their old name "Samoyeds" the name of the group is formed.

In anthropological terms, the Nenets belong to the Ural contact small race, whose representatives are characterized by a combination of anthropological features inherent in both Caucasoids and Mongoloids. In connection with the wide settlement, the Nenets are anthropologically divided into a number of groups, demonstrating the main trend of decreasing the share of Mongoloidness from east to west.

According to the 1926 census, there were 16.4 thousand Samoyeds, in 1959 - 23.0 thousand, in 1970 - 28.7 thousand, in 1979 - 29.4 thousand, in 1989 - 34.4 thousand, finally, in 2002 their number exceeded 40 thousand people. But, we repeat, the majority of the Nenets live in the north of Western Siberia. In the Russian North, the Nenets live between east coast White Sea and Ural Mountains. In the European part of Russia, the Nenets have 3 main habitats, which are usually called "tundras" - Bolshezemelskaya (from the Pechora River to the spurs of the Urals), Malozemelskaya (between the Timan Ridge and Pechora), and Kanino-Timanskaya tundra (on the Kanin Peninsula and further east to the Timan Ridge).

If in Siberia part of the Nenets live in the taiga, then among the Nenets of the Russian North, tundra reindeer herders absolutely predominate. The Nenets lead a nomadic lifestyle, carrying out annual migrations with reindeer herds according to the system: summer - northern tundra, winter - forest tundra. material culture Nenets adapted to a nomadic way of life. All human needs are provided by products of domestic reindeer breeding. Fishing, waterfowl hunting, and fur trade are of seasonal economic importance.

As already mentioned, the Nenets were not the first inhabitants of the tundra of northern Europe. Russian chroniclers mentioned the Pechora tribe, which gave the name to the river. In the legends of the Nenets, a certain people "Sirt" is mentioned, who previously lived in the lands of the Pechora basin and the Subpolar Urals, engaged in sea fishing. Sirte, according to Nenets legends, were nomadic hunters of the tundra and the sea coast, hunted wild deer, fish and sea animals, spoke a language different from Nenets, and were very small in stature. But Sirtya did not know reindeer breeding. Interestingly, in the end, the Sirtya disappeared underground forever (a striking resemblance to Russian legends about a self-buried monster).

The Samoyed ethnic groups, which include the Nenets (Samoyeds), developed in the Sayan Highlands of Siberia. Under the pressure of the nomadic Turkic tribes, the ancestors of the Samoyeds began to move into the tundra zone. By about the 13th century, after almost a thousand years of migration, the Samoyeds occupied the modern ethnic territory. Probably, the natives of the European tundra, who were not engaged in reindeer herding, and because of this, were significantly inferior to the newcomers numerically, were assimilated by the Nenets.

The Russians called the Nenets Samoyeds, and only in the 30s. In the 20th century, they were politically correct called Nenets (according to the ethnonym Nenets, which meant “man”). Then the Nenets alphabet was created.

Religiously, the majority of the Nenets remained pagan animists, although back in the 1820s. Attempts were made to baptize the Samoyeds, accompanied by the destruction of their pagan idols. However, the Samoyeds learned Christianity very superficially, remaining, in essence, pagans.

Today, a number of Nenets continue to lead a nomadic lifestyle, moving with their herds of deer through traditional places of migration. Part of the Nenets lives settled in reindeer-breeding and fishing collective farms. Finally, everything a large number of Nenets settled in the cities where they work in the service sector, gradually losing their ethnic specificity.

These are the people of the Russian North. Isn't it true that a country in which such people, modest in appearance, not inclined to stick out themselves, but retaining the true Lomonosov craving for knowledge, the endurance and perseverance of the Pomors, the strength of the faith of the Solovetsky brethren, will always be invincible. Descendants of ancient aboriginal ethnic groups, great-great-grandchildren of the Novgorod ushkuins, grandchildren of Soviet engineers and Soviet prisoners, modern northerners have the qualities that created Russia. And, I think, the Russian North and its people will still show the country and the world new great achievements.

Baltic-Finnish peoples of Russia. M., Nauka, 2003, p. 218

Bylykh S.K. History of the peoples of the Volga-Ural region. Izhevsk, 2006, p.47

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For many centuries, Russia remained almost completely cut off from the seas: the country had only one outlet to the northern White Sea. But the harsh natural conditions did not interfere with the brave sailors -...

For many centuries, Russia remained almost completely cut off from the seas: the country had only one outlet to the northern White Sea. But the harsh natural conditions did not prevent the brave sailors - Russian Pomors - from making daring journeys to distant subpolar islands and lands. Back in the XII century. the first Russian people appeared on the shores of the White Sea - the Novgorodians.

The forests of this northern region were rich in fur-bearing animals, and the sea abounded in fish and marine animals. Walruses were considered especially valuable prey - skins, meat, and fangs were used. But in addition to fishing, Novgorodians were driven, of course, by the eternal human desire to explore unexplored lands.

Pomors hunted polar bears, seals, walruses, deer, whales, fished, collected eider down

Gradually, Russian villages began to be built on the coast near the dwellings of the indigenous people, Karelians and Sami, whose inhabitants were later called Pomors - “living by the sea”, and the whole region was called the Pomor Coast. From the 12th to the 15th centuries the coast of the White Sea was a colony of Veliky Novgorod, although freedom-loving people from other Russian lands also came here. Over time, Pomors became not only hunters, fishermen and sea animals, but also skilled shipbuilders.

Pomors went to sea on wooden boats, karbas, shnyaks, but the best ships were kochi, specially designed for long voyages and not afraid of ice. The design of these small sailing boats has been improved over the centuries.

The wooden hull of the koch had a special rounded shape that successfully withstood ice compression, and simple straight sails allowed the Pomeranian ship to tack downwind and against it no worse than multi-masted frigates. Over the centuries, Pomeranian sailors have accumulated vast experience in sailing both in clear water and among ice. They knew the compass, which they called the "womb". Handwritten directions and maps were passed from father to son.

Usually kochi were single-masted, but sometimes Pomors built ships with two masts

The Pomors made their first voyages along the coast. In the sailing directions, they recorded bays and other noticeable places suitable for parking, information about currents and winds, and the state of ice. In the end, rounding the Kola Peninsula, Russian sailors reached the northern shores of Scandinavia. Quite far from them, even to the north, lay the islands of the Spitsbergen archipelago, but even here in the second half of the 15th century. Pomors scouted out the way, daring to swim among the ice. On the rocky shores of Svalbard, cut by fjords and mostly covered with glaciers, they often stayed for the winter, waiting for favorable conditions to return to their homeland with commercial prey. The Pomors themselves called Svalbard Grumant. Already in the XX century. archaeologists have found traces of Pomor houses and wooden objects on these polar islands, on which the names of pioneer Pomors are carved.

Leaving Cape Kanin Nos behind, the Pomeranian Kochi left the White Sea for the Barents Sea. By the 16th century Pomeranian feeders knew Novaya Zemlya, beyond which the Kara Sea began, they discovered the Yamal Peninsula and the Gulf of Ob. Thus, it was the Pomor sailors who became the first explorers of the Arctic Ocean. And their shipbuilding experience was useful later to many. For example, the first ships that passed in the middle of the XVII century. the strait between Asia and America was the Kochi. Some Russian explorers of that time were also from Pomorye, but the story of these brave people and their discoveries is yet to come.