Ainu in the Kuriles. The mystery of the Ainu, the natives of Japan. The oldest population of the Japanese archipelago

There is one ancient people on earth that has been simply ignored for centuries, and more than once was subjected to persecution and genocide in Japan due to the fact that by its existence it simply breaks the established official false history of both Japan and Russia.

Now, there is reason to believe that not only in Japan, but also on the territory of Russia, there is a part of this ancient indigenous people. According to the preliminary data of the latest population census, held in October 2010, there are more than 100 Ainu people in our country. The fact itself is unusual, because until recently it was believed that the Ainu live only in Japan. This was suspected, but on the eve of the population census, employees of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences noticed that, despite the absence of Russian peoples in the official list, some of our fellow citizens stubbornly continue to consider themselves Ainami and have good reasons for this.

As studies have shown - the Ainu, or the KAMCHADAL KURILTS - did not disappear anywhere, they simply did not want to recognize them for many years. But even Stepan Krasheninnikov, an explorer of Siberia and Kamchatka (XVIII century), described them as Kamchadal smokers. The very name "Ainu" comes from their word for "man", or "worthy man", and is associated with military operations. And according to one of the representatives of this nationality in an interview with the well-known journalist M. Dolgikh, the Ainu fought the Japanese for 650 years. It turns out that this is the only people left to this day, who from ancient times held back the occupation, resisted the aggressor - now the Japanese, who were, in fact, Koreans with perhaps a certain percentage of the Chinese population who moved to the islands and formed another state.

It has been scientifically established that already about 7 thousand years ago the Ainu inhabited the north of the Japanese archipelago, the Kuriles and part of Sakhalin and, according to some sources, part of Kamchatka and even the lower reaches of the Amur. The Japanese who came from the south gradually assimilated and forced out the Ainu to the north of the archipelago - to Hokkaido and the southern Kuriles.
Hokaido now hosts the largest concentrations of Ainu families.

According to experts, in Japan, the Ainu were considered "barbarians", "savages" and social marginals. The hieroglyph used to designate the Ainu means "barbarian", "savage", now the Japanese call them "hairy Ainu" for which the Ainu of the Japanese do not like.
And here the policy of the Japanese against the Ainu is very well traced, since the Ainu lived on the islands even before the Japanese and had a culture many times, or even orders of magnitude higher than that of the ancient Mongoloid settlers.
But the topic of the Ainu's dislike for the Japanese probably exists not only because of the ridiculous nicknames addressed to them, but also probably because the Ainu, let me remind you, have been subjected to genocide and persecution by the Japanese for centuries.

At the end of the XIX century. about one and a half thousand Ainu lived in Russia. After the Second World War, they were partly evicted, partly left on their own along with the Japanese population, others remained, returning, so to speak, from their hard and protracted service for centuries. This part mixed with the Russian population of the Far East.

In appearance, representatives of the Ainu people very little resemble their closest neighbors - the Japanese, Nivkhs and Itelmens.
Ainu is the White Race.

According to the Kamchadal Kurils themselves, all the names of the islands of the southern ridge were given by the Ainu tribes who once inhabited these territories. By the way, it is wrong to think that the names of the Kuriles, Kuril Lake, etc. arose from hot springs or volcanic activity.
It's just that the Kurils, or Kurilians, live here, and "Kuru" in Ainu means the People.

It should be noted that this version destroys the already flimsy basis of the Japanese claims to our Kuril Islands. Even if the name of the ridge comes from our Ainu. This was confirmed during the expedition to about. Matua. There is an Ainu bay, where the oldest Ainu site was discovered.
Therefore, according to experts, it is very strange to say that the Ainu have never been in the Kuriles, Sakhalin, Kamchatka, as the Japanese are doing now, assuring everyone that the Ainu live only in Japan (after all, archeology says otherwise), so they, the Japanese, allegedly need to give the Kuril Islands. This is pure untruth. There are Ainu in Russia - the indigenous White People, who have a direct right to consider these islands their ancestral lands.

American anthropologist S. Lauryn Brace, from Michigan State University in Horizons of Science, No. 65, September-October 1989. writes: "The typical Ainu is easily distinguished from the Japanese: he has lighter skin, thicker body hair, beards, which is unusual for Mongoloids, and a more protruding nose."

Brace studied about 1,100 Japanese, Ainu, and other tombs and concluded that the upper class samurai in Japan were actually descendants of the Ainu, and not the Yayoi (Mongoloids), the ancestors of most modern Japanese.

The history of the Ainu estates resembles the history of the higher castes in India, where the highest percentage of the White man haplogroup R1a1

Brace further writes: “... this explains why the facial features of the representatives of the ruling class are so often different from modern Japanese. The real Samurai, the descendants of the Ainu warriors, gained such influence and prestige in medieval Japan that they intermarried with the rest of the ruling circles and introduced Ainu blood into them, while the rest of the Japanese population was mainly descendants of the Yayoi.

It should also be noted that, in addition to archaeological and other features, the language was partially preserved. There is a dictionary of the Kuril language in the "Description of the Land of Kamchatka" by S. Krasheninnikov.
In Hokkaido, the dialect spoken by the Ainu is called saroo, but in SAKHALIN it is reychishka.
As it is not difficult to understand, the Ainu language differs from the Japanese language in terms of syntax, phonology, morphology and vocabulary, etc. Although there have been attempts to prove that they are related, the vast majority of modern scholars reject the suggestion that the relationship between languages ​​goes beyond contact relationships, involving mutual borrowing of words in both languages. In fact, no attempt to tie the Ainu language to any other language has been widely accepted.

In principle, according to the well-known Russian political scientist and journalist P. Alekseev, the problem of the Kuril Islands can be solved politically and economically. To do this, it is necessary to allow the Ainam (partially evicted to Japan in 1945) to return from Japan to the land of their ancestors (including their original range - the Amur Region, Kamchatka, Sakhalin and all the Kuriles, creating at least following the example of the Japanese (it is known that the Parliament of Japan only in 2008 did he still recognize the Ainu as an independent national minority), the Russian dispersed autonomy of an "independent national minority" with the participation of the Ainu from the islands and the Ainu of Russia.
We have neither people nor funds for the development of Sakhalin and the Kuriles, but the Ainu have. The Ainu, who migrated from Japan, according to experts, can give impetus to the economy of the Russian Far East, namely, by forming not only in the Kuril Islands, but also within Russia, national autonomy and reviving their family and traditions in the land of their ancestors

Japan, according to P. Alekseev, will be out of work, because. the displaced Ainu will disappear there, and here they can settle not only in the southern part of the Kuriles, but throughout their original range, our Far East, eliminating the emphasis on the southern Kuriles. Since many of the Ainu deported to Japan were our citizens, it is possible to use the Ainu as allies against the Japanese by restoring the dying Ainu language.
The Ainu were not allies of Japan and never will be, but they can become allies of Russia. But unfortunately this ancient People is ignored to this day.
With our pro-Western government, which feeds Chechnya for nothing, which deliberately flooded Russia with people of Caucasian nationality, opened unhindered entry for emigrants from China, and those who are clearly not interested in preserving the Peoples of Russia should not think that they will pay attention to the Ainu, only CIVIL INITIATIVE will help here.

"All human culture, all achievements of art,
science and technology that we are witnessing today,
- the fruits of the creativity of the Aryans ...
He [the Aryan] is the Prometheus of mankind,
from whose bright brow at all times
sparks of genius flew, kindling the fire of knowledge,
illuminating the darkness of dark ignorance,
that allowed a person to rise above others
creatures of the earth."
A. Hitler

I'm getting down to the most difficult topic, in which everything is confused, discredited and deliberately confused - the spread of the descendants of immigrants from Mars across Eurasia (and beyond).
While preparing this article in the institute, I found about 10 definitions of who the Aryans, Aryans are, their relationship with the Slavs, etc. Each author has his own view on the issue. But no one takes it wide and deep in millennia. The deepest is the self-name of the historical peoples of Ancient Iran and Ancient India, but this is only the 2nd millennium BC. At the same time, in the legends of the Iranian-Indian Aryans there are indications that they came from the north, i.e. expanding geography and time span.
Where possible, I will refer to external data and the R1a1 y-chromosome, but as observations show, these are only "approximate" data. Over the millennia, the Martians (Aryans) mixed their blood with many peoples on the territory of Eurasia, and the y-chromosome R1a1 (which for some reason is considered a marker of true Aryans) appeared only 4,000 years ago (though I already saw that 10,000 years ago, but it’s still has not yet beaten with 40,000 years, when the first Cro-Magnon appeared, he is also a Martian migrant).
The most faithful are the traditions of the peoples and their symbols.
I'll start with the most "lost" people - with the Ainu.

Ainu ( アイヌ Ainu, lit.: "man", "real man") - the people, the oldest population of the Japanese islands. Once the Ainu also lived on the territory of Russia in the lower reaches of the Amur, in the south of the Kamchatka Peninsula, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. At present, the Ainu have remained mainly only in Japan. According to official figures, their number in Japan is 25,000, but according to unofficial statistics, it can reach up to 200,000 people. In Russia, according to the results of the 2010 census, 109 Ainu were recorded, of which 94 people are in the Kamchatka Territory.

Ainu group, 1904 photo.

The origin of the Ainu is currently unclear. Europeans who encountered the Ainu in the 17th century were amazed at their appearance. Unlike the usual type of people of the Mongoloid race with yellow skin, the Mongolian fold of the eyelid, sparse facial hair, the Ainu had unusually thick hair covering their heads, wore huge beards and mustaches (holding them with special sticks while eating), their facial features were similar to European ones. Despite living in a temperate climate, in the summer the Ainu wore only loincloths, like the inhabitants of the equatorial countries. There are many hypotheses about the origin of the Ainu, which in general can be divided into three groups:

• The Ainu are related to the Indo-Europeans of the Caucasian race - this theory was adhered to by J. Bachelor, S. Murayama.

• The Ainu are related to the Austronesians and came to the Japanese islands from the south - this theory was put forward by L. Ya. Sternberg and it dominated Soviet ethnography. (This theory has not been confirmed at present, if only because the culture of the Ainu in Japan is much older than the culture of the Austronesians in Indonesia).

• The Ainu are related to the Paleo-Asiatic peoples and came to the Japanese islands from the north / from Siberia - this point of view is mainly held by Japanese anthropologists.

So far, it is known for certain that, according to the main anthropological indicators, the Ainu are very different from the Japanese, Koreans, Nivkhs, Itelmens, Polynesians, Indonesians, aborigines of Australia, the Far East and the Pacific Ocean, and come close only to the people of the Jomon era, who are the direct ancestors of the historical Ainu . In principle, there is no big mistake in putting an equal sign between the people of the Jomon era and the Ainu.

The Ainu appeared on the Japanese islands about 13 thousand years before. n. e. and created the Neolithic Jomon culture. It is not known for certain where the Ainu came from to the Japanese islands, but it is known that in the Jomon era, the Ainu inhabited all the Japanese islands - from Ryukyu to Hokkaido, as well as the southern half of Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and the southern third of Kamchatka - as evidenced by the results of archaeological excavations and toponymy data , for example: Tsushima— tuima- "distant", Fuji - hutsi- "grandmother" - kamuy hearth, Tsukuba - that ku pa- “head of two bows” / “two-bow mountain”, Yamatai mdash; I am mother and- “a place where the sea cuts the land” (It is very possible that the legendary state of Yamatai, which is mentioned in Chinese chronicles, was an ancient Ainu state.) Also, a lot of information about place names of Ainu origin in Honshu can be found in the Institute.

Historians have found that The Ainu created extraordinary ceramics without a potter's wheel, decorating it with fancy rope ornaments.

Here is another link to those who decorated the pots with a pattern, winding a rope around it, although in this article they are called "laces".

The Ainu sculpted figurines of dogu, similar to a modern man in a spacesuit.

Ethnographers are also wrestling with the question - where did people in these harsh lands come from, wearing swing (southern) type of clothing. Their national everyday clothes are dressing gowns decorated with traditional ornaments, festive clothes are white, the material is made of nettle fibers.

Here are the beauties in traditional clothes.


And here the beauty is not only in traditional clothes, but also against the background of a traditional ornament (doesn't she resemble our "sown field").

And perhaps the Ainu were also the very first farmers in the Far East, and maybe in the world. For a reason that is completely incomprehensible today, they left their agriculture and crafts, taking a step back in their development, and turned into simple fishermen and hunters. The legends of the Ainu people testify to countless treasures, castles with fortresses. However, travelers from Europe found representatives of this tribe living in dugouts and huts, where the floor was 30-50 cm below ground level.


So far, no satisfactory explanation has been found for why the Jomon people dug their dwellings into the ground. The suggestion that this was done in order to increase the height of the dwelling seems to us too shaky. It was possible to raise the ceiling with the help of other methods available at that time. (My version, pay attention, they live in semi-dugouts).
What were the dwellings of the Jomons? All of them, or almost all of them, are in the shape of a circle or rectangle. The location of the pillars that supported the roof indicates that it was conical, if the base of the building was a circle, or pyramidal, when a quadrangle was located at the base. During the excavations, no materials were found that could cover the roof, so we can only assume that branches or reeds were used for this purpose. The hearth, as a rule, was located in the house itself (only in the early period it was outside) - near the wall or in the middle. The smoke exited through smoke holes, which were made on two opposite sides of the roof.



Ainu language- also a mystery (it has Latin, Slavic, Anglo-Germanic and even Sanskrit roots). Interesting in this regard is the study of Valery Kosarev. He says: "

"I don't think there were already Indo-European languages ​​by 12,000 years ago. Taking into account such a respectable historical period, one can only assume that the Proto-Ainu or Proto-Ainu language once stood out from the previous language array. And at the designated time it was a Nostratic community (Nostratic proto-language, Nostratic linguistic unity). If the ancestors of the Ainu separated from some kind of Paleolithic intertribal community, migrated and then found themselves in long-term isolation on the island periphery of Asia, then this well explains the relic nature of the Ainu language, which preserved very archaic linguistic features. "Further, he compares Ainu words with Indo-European.
The structure of the Ainu language is agglutinative, with a predominance of suffixation. In grammar, it should be noted that the designation of units is optional. or many numbers, which brings the Ainu language closer to some languages ​​of the isolating system. In the Ainu language, the original counting system (according to "twenties": 90 is denoted as "five-twenty without ten"). Genealogical connections of the Ainu language have not been established.
For reference: Agglutinative languages(from lat. agglutination- gluing) - languages ​​\u200b\u200bthat have a structure in which the dominant type of inflection is agglutination (“gluing”) of various formants (suffixes or prefixes), and each of them carries only one meaning. Agglutinative languages ​​are Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Mongolian, Tungus-Manchu, Korean, Japanese, Kartvelian, part of Indian and some African languages. The Sumerian language (the language of the ancient Sumerians) also belonged to the agglutinative languages.

The Ainu language, according to the official version, was an unwritten language (literate Ainu used Japanese). At the same time, Pilsutsky wrote down the following Ainu symbols:


Here they compare the Ainu runes with the runes found on the territory of Rus'. Of course, I understand that crosses and curls are also crosses and curls in Africa, but nonetheless, they are very similar!

Conquest. Approximately two thousand years BC. other ethnic groups begin to arrive on the Japanese islands. Initially, migrants arrive from Southeast Asia (SEA) and South China. Migrants from Southeast Asia mainly speak Austronesian languages. They settle mainly on the southern islands of the Japanese archipelago and begin to practice agriculture, namely rice growing. Since rice is a very productive crop, it allows a fairly large number of people to live in a very small area. Gradually, the number of farmers increases and they begin to put pressure on the natural environment and thus threaten the natural balance, which is so important for the normal existence of the culture of the Neolithic Ainu. The migration of the Ainu to Sakhalin, the lower Amur, Primorye and the Kuril Islands begins. Then, at the end of the Jomon era - the beginning of the Yayoi, several ethnic groups from Central Asia arrive on the Japanese islands. They were engaged in cattle breeding and hunting and spoke the Altai languages. (These ethnic groups gave rise to the Korean and Japanese ethnic groups.) According to the Japanese anthropologist Oka Masao, the most powerful clan of those Altaic migrants who settled in the Japanese islands developed into what later became known as the Tenno clan.

When the state of Yamato is formed, the era of constant war between the state of Yamato and the Ainu begins. (At present, there is every reason to believe that the state of Yamato is a development of the ancient Ainu state of Yamatai.

The confrontation between the state of Yamato and the Ainu lasted for almost one and a half thousand years. For a long time (starting from the eighth and almost up to the fifteenth century), the border of the Yamato state passed in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe modern city of Sendai, and the northern part of the island of Honshu was very poorly mastered by the Japanese. Militarily, the Japanese were inferior to the Ainu for a very long time. As a result of these wars, the Japanese even had a special culture - samurai, which has many Ainu elements. And some of the samurai clans, by their origin, are considered Ainu. For example, the Ainu warrior had two long knives. The first was ritual - for committing a rite of suicide, which the Japanese later adopted, calling "hara-kiri" or "seppuku". It is also known that Ainu helmets replaced thick long hair, which was tangled. The Japanese were afraid of an open battle with the Ainu and recognized that one Ainu warrior is worth a hundred Japanese. There was a belief that especially skilled Ainu warriors could let in fog in order to hide unnoticed by enemies. However, the Japanese still managed to conquer and oust the Ainu by cunning and betrayal. But this took 2,000 years.
An interesting fact: The village in the Ainu language is called "kotan" Since the villages were settled mainly by one family (genus), the family was also called a kotan.

The swords of the Ainu were short, slightly curved, with one-sided sharpening and belts made of vegetable fibers. Dzhangin (Ainu warrior) fought with two swords, not recognizing shields.
Swords were presented to the public only during the Bear Festival.


Those. for the Ainu, the sword had a sacred meaning, it was like an affiliation of the clan. Not surprisingly, the famous Japanese swords began to be called katana.

Ainu beliefs. In general, the Ainu can be called animists. They spiritualized almost all phenomena of the natural order, nature as a whole, personified them, endowing each of the fictional supernatural beings with the same features as they possessed. The world created by the religious imagination of the Ainu was complex, vast and poetic. This is the world of celestials, mountain dwellers, cultural heroes, numerous masters of the landscape. The Ainu are still very religious. The traditions of animism still dominate among them, and the Ainu pantheon consists mainly of: "kamui" - the spirits of various animals, among which the bear and killer whale occupy a special place. Ayoina, cultural hero, creator and teacher of the Ainu.

Unlike Japanese mythology, Ainu mythology has one supreme deity. The supreme god is named Pase kamuy (that is, " creator and owner of the sky") or Kotan Kara Kamuy, Moshiri kara kamuy, Kando kara kamuy(that is " divine creator of worlds and lands and ruler of heaven"). He is considered the creator of the world and the gods; through the good gods, his assistants, he takes care of people and helps them.

Ordinary deities (yayan kamuy, that is, “near and distant deities”) embody individual elements and elements of the universe, they are equal and independent of each other, although they constitute a certain functional hierarchy of good and evil deities (see Ainu Pantheon). Good deities are predominantly of celestial origin.

Evil deities usually earthly origin. The functions of the latter are clearly defined: they personify the dangers that await a person in the mountains (this is the main habitat of evil deities), and control atmospheric phenomena. Evil deities, unlike good deities, take on a certain visible form. Sometimes they attack good gods. For example, there is a myth about how some evil deity wanted to swallow the Sun, but Pase Kamuy saved the sun by sending a crow that flew into the mouth of the evil god. It was believed that evil deities arose from hoes, with the help of which Pase kamuy created the world and then abandoned it. The evil deities are headed by the goddess of swamps and bogs Nitatunarabe. Most of the other evil deities are her descendants, and they go by the common name Toiekunra. Evil deities are more numerous than good ones, and myths about them are more common.

Ainu(Ainu) - a mysterious tribe, because of which scientists from different countries have broken a great many copies. They are white-faced and straight-eyed (men are also distinguished by strong hairiness) and in their appearance are strikingly different from other peoples of East Asia. They are clearly not Mongoloids, rather gravitate towards the anthropological type of Southeast Asia and Oceania.

Ainu in traditional costumes. 1904

Hunters and fishermen, who for centuries had almost no knowledge of agriculture, the Ainu nevertheless created an unusual and rich culture. Their ornament, carving and wooden sculpture are amazing in their beauty and invention; their songs, dances and stories are beautiful, like any genuine creations of the people.

Each nation has its own unique history and culture. To a greater or lesser extent, science knows the stages of the historical development of a particular ethnic group. But there are peoples in the world whose origin remains a mystery. And today they continue to excite the minds of ethnographers. These ethnic groups primarily include the Ainu - the natives of the Far East region.

It was the most interesting, beautiful and naturally healthy people who settled on the Japanese Islands, southern Sakhalin and the Kuriles. They called themselves various tribal names - "soy-untara", "chuvka-untara". The word "Ainu", which they used to call them, is not the self-name of this people. It means "man". These aborigines have been singled out by scientists as a separate Ainu race, combining Caucasoid, Australoid and Mongoloid features in appearance.

The historical problem that arises in connection with the Ainu is the question of their racial and cultural origin. Traces of the existence of this people were found even in the places of Neolithic sites on the Japanese islands. The Ainu are the oldest ethnic community. Their progenitors are the carriers of the “jomon” culture (literally “rope ornament”), which is almost 13 thousand years old (on the Kuril Islands - 8 thousand years).

The beginning of the scientific study of the Jomon sites was laid by the German archaeologists F. and G. Siebold and the American Morse. Their results varied considerably. If the Siebolds asserted with all responsibility that the Jomon culture was the creation of the hands of the ancient Ainu, then Morse was more careful. He did not agree with the point of view of his German colleagues, but at the same time emphasized that the Jomon period differed significantly from the Japanese.

But what about the Japanese themselves, who called the Ainu the word "ebi-su"? Most of them did not agree with the conclusions of archaeologists. For them, the natives were always only barbarians, as evidenced, for example, by the entry of a Japanese chronicler made in 712: “When our exalted ancestors descended on a ship from the sky, on this island (Honshu) they found several wild peoples, among them the wildest were the Ainu.

But as archaeological excavations testify, the ancestors of these "savages" long before the Japanese appeared on the islands created a whole culture there, which any nation can be proud of! That is why the official Japanese historiography made attempts to correlate the creators of the Jomon culture with the ancestors of modern Japanese, but not with the Ainu.

And yet, most scholars agree that the Ainu culture was so viable that it influenced the culture of its enslavers - the Japanese. As Professor S. A. Arutyunov points out, Ainu elements played a significant role in the formation of samurai and the ancient Japanese religion - Shintoism.

So, for example, the Ainu warrior - dzhangin - had two short swords, 45-50 cm long, slightly curved, with one-sided sharpening, and fought with them, not recognizing shields. In addition to swords, the Ainu carried two long knives (“cheiki-makiri” and “sa-makiri”). The first was a ritual knife for making sacred shavings "inau" and performing the rite "re" or "erytokpa" - ritual suicide, which the Japanese later adopted, calling hara-kiri, or seppuku (as, by the way, the cult of the sword, special shelves for the sword, spears , bow).

Ainu swords were put on public display only during the Bear Festival. An old legend says: “A long time ago, after this country was created by God, there lived an old Japanese man and an old Ain man. The Ainu grandfather was ordered to make a sword, and the Japanese grandfather was ordered to make money. It further explains why the Ainu had a cult of swords, while the Japanese had a thirst for money. The Ainu condemned their neighbors for acquisitiveness.

The Ainu did not wear helmets. By nature, they had long thick hair, which was tangled into a tangle, forming a semblance of a natural helmet. Very little is currently known about the martial art of the Ainu. It is believed that the pra-Japanese adopted almost everything from them. In fact, the Ainu fought not only with the Japanese.

Sakhalin, for example, they conquered from the "tonzi" - a short people, really the indigenous population of Sakhalin. It remains to be added that the Japanese were afraid of an open battle with the Ainu, conquered and drove them out by cunning. An ancient Japanese song said that one "emishi" (barbarian, ain) is worth a hundred people. There was a belief that they could make fog.

Initially, the Ainu lived on the islands of Japan (then it was called Ainumoshiri - the land of the Ainu), until they were pushed north by the proto-Japanese. They came to the Kuriles and Sakhalin already in the XIII-XIV centuries. Traces of their stay were also found in Kamchatka, in Primorye and the Khabarovsk Territory.

Many toponymic names of the Sakhalin region bear Ainu names: Sakhalin (from "Sakharen Mosiri" - "undulating land"); the islands of Kunashir, Simushir, Shikotan, Shiashkotan (the ending words “shir” and “kotan” mean, respectively, “plot of land” and “settlement”). It took the Japanese more than two thousand years to occupy the entire archipelago up to and including Hokkaido (then called Ezo) (the earliest evidence of skirmishes with the Ainu dates back to 660 BC).

There are enough facts of the cultural history of the Ainu, and it would seem that it is possible to calculate their origin with a high degree of accuracy.

Firstly, it can be assumed that in ancient times the entire northern half of the main Japanese island of Honshu was inhabited by tribes that are either direct ancestors of the Ainu or standing very close to them in their material culture. Secondly, two elements are known that formed the basis of the Ainu ornament - the spiral and the zigzag.

Thirdly, there is no doubt that the starting point of Ainu beliefs was primitive animism, that is, the recognition of the existence of a soul in any creature or object. And finally, the social organization of the Ainu and the method of their production have been studied quite well.

But it turns out that the factual method does not always justify itself. For example, it has been proven that the spiral ornament has never been the property of the Ainu alone. It was widely used in the art of the inhabitants of New Zealand - the Maori, in the decorative drawings of the Papuans of New Guinea, among the Neolithic tribes who lived in the lower reaches of the Amur.

What is it - a coincidence or traces of the existence of certain contacts between the tribes of East and Southeast Asia in some distant period? But who was the first, and who adopted the discovery? It is also known that the worship of the bear and its cult were spread over vast areas of Europe and Asia. But among the Ainu, it is sharply different from similar ones among other peoples, for only they fed the sacrificial bear cub with the breast of a female nurse!

Ainu and the cult of the bear

The Ainu language also stands apart. At one time it was believed that it was not related to any other language, but now some scientists are bringing it closer to the Malayo-Polynesian group. And linguists have discovered Latin, Slavic, Anglo-Germanic and even Sanskrit roots in the Ainu language. In addition, ethnographers are still struggling with the question - where did people in these harsh lands come from, wearing swing (southern) type of clothing.

A dressing gown made from wood fibers and decorated with traditional ornaments looked equally good on men and women. Festive white robes were sewn from nettles. In the summer, the Ainu wore a loincloth of the southern type, in winter they sewed fur clothes for themselves. Salmon skins were used by them to make knee-length moccasins.

The Ainu were alternately ranked among the Indo-Aryans, and among the Australoids and even Europeans. The Ainu themselves considered themselves to have flown in from heaven: “There was a time when the first Ainu descended from the Land of Clouds to the earth, fell in love with it, took up hunting, fishing in order to eat, dance and procreate children” (from the Ainu legend). And indeed, the life of these amazing people was completely connected with nature, the sea, the forest, the islands.

They, being engaged in gathering, hunting, fishing, combined the knowledge, skills and abilities of many tribes and peoples. For example, as taiga dwellers, they went hunting; collected seafood, like southerners; they beat the sea beast like the inhabitants of the north. The Ainu strictly kept the secret of mummification of the dead and the recipe for a deadly poison extracted from the root of the aconite plant, with which they soaked the tips of their arrows and harpoons. They knew that this poison would quickly decompose in the body of the slaughtered animal and the meat could be eaten.

The tools and weapons of the Ainu were very similar to those used by other communities of prehistoric people who lived in similar climatic and geographical conditions. True, they had one significant advantage - they had obsidian, which is rich in the Japanese islands. When processing obsidian, the edges were smoother than those of flint, so that the arrowheads and axes of the Jomons can be attributed to the masterpieces of Neolithic production.

Of the weapons, the most important were the bow and arrows. The production of harpoons and fishing rods made from deer antlers reached a high level of development. In a word, both the tools and weapons of the Jomon people are typical of their time, and the only thing that is somewhat unexpected is that people who did not know either agriculture or cattle breeding lived in fairly large communities.

And how many mysterious questions have been generated by the culture of this people! The ancient Ainu created ceramics of amazing beauty by hand molding (without any device for spinning dishes, and even more so a potter's wheel), decorating it with a fancy rope ornament, and mysterious dogu figurines.

Jōmon pottery

Everything was done by hand! And yet, jōmon ceramics have a special place in primitive pottery in general - nowhere is the contrast between the polishedness of its ornament and the extremely low "technology" more striking than here. In addition, the Ainu were perhaps the earliest farmers of the Far East.

And again a question! Why did they lose these skills, becoming only hunters and fishermen, essentially taking a step back in development? Why do the traits of different peoples, elements of high and primitive cultures intertwine in the most bizarre way among the Ainu?

Being a very musical people by nature, the Ainu loved and knew how to have fun. Carefully prepared for the holidays, of which the most important was the bear. The Ainu deified everything around them. But they especially revered the bear, the snake and the dog.

Leading a seemingly primitive life, they gave the world inimitable examples of art, enriched the culture of mankind with nothing comparable to mythology and folklore. With all their appearance and life, they, as it were, denied the established ideas and habitual patterns of cultural development.

Ainu women had a smile tattoo on their faces. Culturologists believe that the tradition of drawing a “smile” is one of the oldest in the world, it was followed by representatives of the Ainu people for a long time. Despite all the prohibitions from the Japanese government, even in the 20th century, the Ainu were tattooed, it is believed that the last “correctly” tattooed woman died in 1998.

Only women applied tattoos, it was believed that the ancestors of the Ainu were taught this rite by the progenitor of all living things - Okikurumi Turesh Machi, the younger sister of the creator God Okikurumi. The tradition was passed along the female line, the drawing on the body of the girl was applied by her mother or grandmother.

In the process of "Japanization" of the Ainu people in 1799, a ban on tattooing girls was introduced, and in 1871 a second strict ban was proclaimed in Hokkaido, because it was believed that the procedure was too painful and inhumane.

For the Ainu, the rejection of tattoos was unacceptable, since it was believed that in this case the girl would not be able to marry, and after death find peace in the afterlife. It is worth noting that the ceremony was really cruel: for the first time, the drawing was applied to girls at the age of seven, and later the “smile” was completed for several years, the final stage on the day of marriage.

In addition to the characteristic smile tattoo, geometric patterns could be seen on the hands of the Ainu, they were also applied to the body as a talisman.

In a word, over time, there were more and more mysteries, and the answers brought more and more new problems. Only one thing is known for sure, that their life in the Far East was extremely difficult and tragic. When, in the 17th century, Russian explorers reached the "farthest east", their eyes opened up to the boundless majestic sea and numerous islands.

But more than bewitching nature, they were amazed at the appearance of the natives. Before the travelers appeared people overgrown with thick beards with wide eyes, like those of Europeans, with large, protruding noses, similar to anyone: peasants from Russia, residents of the Caucasus, gypsies, but not Mongoloids, whom Cossacks and service people are accustomed to see everywhere beyond the Ural ridge. The explorers dubbed them "hairy smokers."

Russian scientists learned about the Kuril Ainu from the “note” of the Cossack ataman Danila Antsyferov and Yesaul Ivan Kozyrevsky, in which they informed Peter I about the discovery of the Kuril Islands and about the first meeting of Russian people with the natives of those places.

This happened in 1711.

“Leaving the canoes to dry, we went along the shore at noon and in the evening we saw either houses or plagues. Keeping the squeaks at the ready - who knows what kind of people are there - went towards them. Fifty people dressed in skins poured out to meet them. They looked without fear and were of an unusual appearance - hairy, long-bearded, but with white faces and not slanting, like the Yakuts and Kamchadals.

For several days, the conquerors of the Far East, through the interpreter, tried to persuade the "hairy smokers" under the sovereign's hand, but they refused such an honor, stating that they did not pay yasak to anyone and would not pay. Only the Cossacks found out that the land to which they sailed was an island, that at noon other islands lay behind it, and even further - Matmai, Japan.

Stepan Krasheninnikov visited Kamchatka 26 years after Antsyferov and Kozyrevsky. He left behind the classic work "Description of the land of Kamchatka", where, among other information, he gave a detailed description of the Ainu as an ethnic type. This was the first scientific description of the tribe. A century later, in May 1811, the famous navigator Vasily Golovnin visited here.

The future admiral spent several months studying and describing the nature of the islands and the life of their inhabitants; his truthful and colorful story about what he saw was highly appreciated by both lovers of literature and scientists. Let us also note the following detail: Golovnin's translator was a Kurilian, that is, an Ain, Alexei.

We do not know what name he bore "in the world", but his fate is one of the many examples of Russian contact with the smokers, who willingly learned Russian speech, converted to Orthodoxy and carried on a lively trade with our ancestors.

The Kuril Ainu, according to eyewitnesses, were very kind, friendly and open people. Europeans who visited the islands in different years and usually boasted of their culture made high demands on etiquette, but they noted the gallant manners characteristic of the Ainu.

The Dutch navigator de Vries wrote:
“Their behavior towards foreigners is so simple and sincere that educated and polite people could not have behaved better. Appearing before strangers, they dress in their best clothes, pronounce forgiveness their greetings and wishes, bow their heads.

Perhaps it was this good nature and openness that did not allow the Ainu to resist the harmful influence of people from the mainland. Regression in their development came when they found themselves between two fires: pressed from the south by the Japanese and from the north by the Russians.

Modern Ainu

It so happened that this ethnic branch - the Kuril Ainu - was wiped off the face of the Earth. Now the Ainu live in several reservations in the south and southeast of the island. Hokkaido, in the Ishikari river valley. Purebred Ainu practically degenerated or assimilated with the Japanese and Nivkhs. Now there are only 16 thousand of them, and the number continues to decline sharply.

The life of the modern Ainu strikingly resembles the picture of the life of the ancient Jomons. Their material culture has changed so little over the past centuries that these changes can be ignored. They leave, but the burning secrets of the past continue to excite and disturb, inflame the imagination and nourish an inexhaustible interest in this amazing original and unlike any other people.

The Japanese captured the "Japanese" islands, destroying the indigenous people

Everyone knows that Americans are not the native population of the United States, just like the current population of South America. Do you know that the Japanese are also not the indigenous population of Japan? Who then lived on these islands before them? ...

Before them, the Ainu lived here, a mysterious people, in whose origin there are still many mysteries. The Ainu for some time coexisted with the Japanese, until the latter managed to push them north. The fact that the Ainu are the ancient masters of the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands is evidenced by written sources and numerous names of geographical objects, the origin of which is associated with the Ainu language. And even the symbol of Japan - the great Mount Fuji - has the Ainu word "fuji" in its name, which means "deity of the hearth." According to scientists, the Ainu settled the Japanese islands around 13,000 BC and formed the Neolithic Jomon culture there.

The Ainu did not engage in agriculture, they earned their living by hunting, gathering and fishing. They lived in small settlements quite distant from each other. Therefore, their area of ​​residence was quite extensive: the Japanese islands, Sakhalin, Primorye, the Kuril Islands and the south of Kamchatka.

Around the 3rd millennium BC, Mongoloid tribes arrived on the Japanese islands, who later became the ancestors of the Japanese. The new settlers brought with them a rice culture that allowed them to feed a large number of people in a relatively small area. Thus began hard times in the life of the Ainu. They were forced to move north, leaving their ancestral lands to the colonialists.

But the Ainu were skilled warriors, who were fluent in bow and sword, and the Japanese failed to defeat them for a long time. Very long, almost 1500 years. The Ainu knew how to handle two swords, and on their right thigh they wore two daggers. One of them (cheyki-makiri) served as a knife for committing ritual suicide - hara-kiri.

The Japanese were able to defeat the Ainu only after the invention of cannons, having by this time managed to learn a lot from them in terms of military art. The code of honor of the samurai, the ability to wield two swords and the mentioned hara-kiri ritual - these seemingly characteristic attributes of Japanese culture were actually borrowed from the Ainu.

Scientists still argue about the origin of the Ainu

But the fact that this people is not related to other indigenous peoples of the Far East and Siberia is already a proven fact. A characteristic feature of their appearance is very thick hair and a beard in men, which representatives of the Mongoloid race are deprived of. For a long time it was believed that they may have common roots with the peoples of Indonesia and the Pacific natives, since they have similar facial features. But genetic studies ruled out this option.

And the first Russian Cossacks who arrived on Sakhalin Island even mistook the Ainu for Russians, so they were not like Siberian tribes, but rather resembled Europeans. The only group of people from all the analyzed options with whom they have a genetic relationship turned out to be the people of the Jomon era, who were supposedly the ancestors of the Ainu. The Ainu language also strongly stands out from the modern linguistic picture of the world, and a suitable place has not yet been found for it. It turns out that during the long isolation, the Ainu lost contact with all other peoples of the Earth, and some researchers even single them out as a special Ainu race.

Ainu in Russia

For the first time, the Kamchatka Ainu came into contact with Russian merchants at the end of the 17th century. Relations with the Amur and Northern Kuril Ainu were established in the 18th century. The Ainu considered Russians, who differed in race from their Japanese enemies, as friends, and by the middle of the 18th century, more than one and a half thousand Ainu had accepted Russian citizenship. Even the Japanese could not distinguish the Ainu from the Russians because of their external resemblance (white skin and Australoid facial features, which are similar to Caucasians in a number of ways). Compiled under the Russian Empress Catherine II, the "Spatial Land Description of the Russian State" included in the Russian Empire not only all the Kuril Islands, but also the island of Hokkaido.

The reason is that ethnic Japanese at that time did not even populate it. The indigenous population - the Ainu - following the results of the expedition of Antipin and Shabalin, were recorded as Russian subjects.

The Ainu fought the Japanese not only in the south of Hokkaido, but also in the northern part of the island of Honshu. The Cossacks themselves explored and taxed the Kuril Islands in the 17th century. So that Russia can demand Hokkaido from the Japanese.

The fact of Russian citizenship of the inhabitants of Hokkaido was noted in a letter from Alexander I to the Japanese Emperor in 1803. Moreover, this did not cause any objections from the Japanese side, let alone official protest. Hokkaido for Tokyo was a foreign territory like Korea. When the first Japanese arrived on the island in 1786, the Ainu came out to meet them, bearing Russian names and surnames. And what's more - orthodox Christians! Japan's first claims to Sakhalin date back only to 1845. Then Emperor Nicholas I immediately gave a diplomatic rebuff. Only the weakening of Russia in the following decades led to the occupation of the southern part of Sakhalin by the Japanese.

It is interesting that the Bolsheviks in 1925 condemned the former government, which had given Russian lands to Japan.

So in 1945, historical justice was only restored. The army and navy of the USSR resolved the Russo-Japanese territorial issue by force. Khrushchev in 1956 signed the Joint Declaration of the USSR and Japan, Article 9 of which read:

"The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, meeting the wishes of Japan and taking into account the interests of the Japanese state, agrees to the transfer of the Habomai Islands and the Shikotan Islands to Japan, however, that the actual transfer of these islands to Japan will be made after the conclusion of the Peace Treaty between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan" .

Khrushchev's goal was the demilitarization of Japan. He was ready to sacrifice a couple of small islands in order to remove American military bases from the Soviet Far East. Now, obviously, we are no longer talking about demilitarization. Washington clung to his "unsinkable aircraft carrier" with a stranglehold. Moreover, Tokyo's dependence on the United States even increased after the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Well, if so, then the gratuitous transfer of the islands as a “goodwill gesture” loses its attractiveness. It is reasonable not to follow Khrushchev's declaration, but to put forward symmetrical claims based on well-known historical facts. Shaking ancient scrolls and manuscripts, which is normal practice in such cases.

An insistence on giving up Hokkaido would be a cold shower for Tokyo. We would have to argue in the negotiations not about Sakhalin or even about the Kuriles, but about our own territory at the moment. I would have to defend myself, justify myself, prove my right. Russia from diplomatic defense would thus go over to the offensive. Moreover, China's military activity, North Korea's nuclear ambitions and readiness for military action, and other security issues in the Asia-Pacific region will provide another reason for Japan to sign a peace treaty with Russia.

But back to the Ainu

When the Japanese first came into contact with the Russians, they called them the Red Ainu (Ainu with blond hair). It was only at the beginning of the 19th century that the Japanese realized that the Russians and the Ainu were two different peoples. However, for Russians, the Ainu were "hairy", "dark-skinned", "dark-eyed" and "dark-haired". The first Russian researchers described the Ainu as similar to Russian peasants with swarthy skin or more like gypsies.

The Ainu were on the side of the Russians during the Russo-Japanese Wars of the 19th century. However, after the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Russians abandoned them to their fate. Hundreds of Ainu were massacred and their families forcibly transported to Hokkaido by the Japanese. As a result, the Russians failed to win back the Ainu during World War II. Only a few representatives of the Ainu decided to stay in Russia after the war. More than 90% went to Japan.

Under the terms of the St. Petersburg Treaty of 1875, the Kuriles were ceded to Japan, along with the Ainu living on them. On September 18, 1877, 83 North Kuril Ainu arrived in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, deciding to remain under Russian control. They refused to move to the reservations on the Commander Islands, as they were offered by the Russian government. After that, from March 1881, for four months they traveled on foot to the village of Yavino, where they later settled.

Later, the village of Golygino was founded. Another 9 Ainu arrived from Japan in 1884. The 1897 census indicates 57 people in the population of Golygino (all Ainu) and 39 people in Yavino (33 Ainu and 6 Russians). Both villages were destroyed by the Soviet authorities, and the inhabitants were resettled in Zaporozhye, Ust-Bolsheretsky district. As a result, three ethnic groups assimilated with the Kamchadals.

The North Kuril Ainu are currently the largest subgroup of the Ainu in Russia. The Nakamura family (South Kuril on the paternal side) is the smallest and has only 6 people living in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. There are a few on Sakhalin who identify themselves as Ainu, but many more Ainu do not recognize themselves as such.

Most of the 888 Japanese living in Russia (2010 census) are of Ainu origin, although they do not recognize this (full-blooded Japanese are allowed to enter Japan without a visa). The situation is similar with the Amur Ainu living in Khabarovsk. And it is believed that none of the Kamchatka Ainu survived.

Epilogue

In 1979, the USSR crossed out the ethnonym "Ainu" from the list of "living" ethnic groups in Russia, thereby declaring that this people had died out on the territory of the USSR. Judging by the 2002 census, no one entered the ethnonym "Ainu" in fields 7 or 9.2 of the K-1 census form. There is such evidence that the Ainu have the most direct genetic ties in the male line, oddly enough, with the Tibetans - half of them are carriers of a close haplogroup D1 (the D2 group itself is practically not found outside the Japanese archipelago) and the Miao-Yao peoples in southern China and in Indochina.

As for the female (Mt-DNA) haplogroups, the U group dominates among the Ainu, which is also found among other peoples of East Asia, but in small numbers. During the 2010 census, about 100 people tried to register themselves as Ainu, but the Kamchatka Krai government rejected their claims and recorded them as Kamchadals.

In 2011, the head of the Ainu community of Kamchatka, Aleksey Vladimirovich Nakamura, sent a letter to the Governor of Kamchatka, Vladimir Ilyukhin, and the chairman of the local Duma, Boris Nevzorov, with a request to include the Ainu in the List of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation. The request was also denied. Aleksey Nakamura reports that in 2012 there were 205 Ainu in Russia (compared to 12 people registered in 2008), and they, like the Kuril Kamchadals, are fighting for official recognition. The Ainu language died out many decades ago.

In 1979, only three people on Sakhalin could speak Ainu fluently, and there the language had completely died out by the 1980s. Although Keizo Nakamura spoke fluent Sakhalin-Ainu and even translated several documents into Russian for the NKVD, he did not pass the language on to his son. Take Asai, the last person to know the Sakhalin Ainu language, died in Japan in 1994.

Until the Ainu are recognized, they are marked as people without a nationality, like ethnic Russians or Kamchadals. Therefore, in 2016, both the Kuril Ainu and the Kuril Kamchadals are deprived of the rights to hunt and fish, which the small peoples of the Far North have.

The Japanese are not the original inhabitants of Japan October 19th, 2017

Everyone knows that the Americans are not, just like they are now. Did you know that the Japanese are not native to Japan?

Who then lived in these places before them?

Before them, the Ainu lived here, a mysterious people, in whose origin there are still many mysteries. The Ainu for some time coexisted with the Japanese, until the latter managed to push them north.

The fact that the Ainu are the ancient masters of the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands is evidenced by written sources and numerous names of geographical objects, the origin of which is associated with the Ainu language. And even the symbol of Japan - the great Mount Fuji - has the Ainu word "fuji" in its name, which means "deity of the hearth." According to scientists, the Ainu settled the Japanese islands around 13,000 BC and formed the Neolithic Jomon culture there.

The Ainu did not engage in agriculture, they earned their living by hunting, gathering and fishing. They lived in small settlements quite remote from each other. Therefore, their area of ​​residence was quite extensive: the Japanese islands, Sakhalin, Primorye, the Kuril Islands and the south of Kamchatka. Around the 3rd millennium BC, Mongoloid tribes arrived on the Japanese islands, who later became the ancestors of the Japanese. The new settlers brought with them a rice culture that allowed them to feed a large number of people in a relatively small area. Thus began hard times in the life of the Ainu. They were forced to move north, leaving their ancestral lands to the colonialists.

But the Ainu were skilled warriors, who were fluent in bow and sword, and the Japanese failed to defeat them for a long time. Very long, almost 1500 years. The Ainu knew how to handle two swords, and on their right thigh they wore two daggers. One of them (cheyki-makiri) served as a knife for committing ritual suicide - hara-kiri. The Japanese were able to defeat the Ainu only after the invention of cannons, having by this time managed to learn a lot from them in terms of military art. The code of honor of the samurai, the ability to wield two swords and the mentioned hara-kiri ritual - these seemingly characteristic attributes of Japanese culture were actually borrowed from the Ainu.

Scientists still argue about the origin of the Ainu. But the fact that this people is not related to other indigenous peoples of the Far East and Siberia is already a proven fact. A characteristic feature of their appearance is very thick hair and a beard in men, which representatives of the Mongoloid race are deprived of. For a long time it was believed that they may have common roots with the peoples of Indonesia and the Pacific natives, since they have similar facial features. But genetic studies ruled out this option. And the first Russian Cossacks who arrived on Sakhalin Island even mistook the Ainu for Russians, so they were not like Siberian tribes, but rather resembled Europeans. The only group of people from all the analyzed options with whom they have a genetic relationship turned out to be the people of the Jomon era, who were supposedly the ancestors of the Ainu. The Ainu language also strongly stands out from the modern linguistic picture of the world, and a suitable place has not yet been found for it. It turns out that during the long isolation, the Ainu lost contact with all other peoples of the Earth, and some researchers even single them out as a special Ainu race.

Today there are very few Ainu left, about 25,000 people. They live mainly in the north of Japan and are almost completely assimilated by the population of this country.

Ainu in Russia

For the first time, the Kamchatka Ainu came into contact with Russian merchants at the end of the 17th century. Relations with the Amur and Northern Kuril Ainu were established in the 18th century. The Ainu considered Russians, who differed in race from their Japanese enemies, as friends, and by the middle of the 18th century, more than one and a half thousand Ainu had accepted Russian citizenship. Even the Japanese could not distinguish the Ainu from the Russians because of their external resemblance (white skin and Australoid facial features, which are similar to Caucasians in a number of ways). When the Japanese first came into contact with the Russians, they called them the Red Ainu (Ainu with blond hair). It was only at the beginning of the 19th century that the Japanese realized that the Russians and the Ainu were two different peoples. However, for Russians, the Ainu were "hairy", "dark-skinned", "dark-eyed" and "dark-haired". The first Russian researchers described the Ainu as similar to Russian peasants with swarthy skin or more like gypsies.

The Ainu were on the side of the Russians during the Russo-Japanese Wars of the 19th century. However, after the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Russians abandoned them to their fate. Hundreds of Ainu were massacred and their families forcibly transported to Hokkaido by the Japanese. As a result, the Russians failed to win back the Ainu during World War II. Only a few representatives of the Ainu decided to stay in Russia after the war. More than 90% went to Japan.

Under the terms of the St. Petersburg Treaty of 1875, the Kuriles were ceded to Japan, along with the Ainu living on them. On September 18, 1877, 83 North Kuril Ainu arrived in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, deciding to remain under Russian control. They refused to move to the reservations on the Commander Islands, as they were offered by the Russian government. After that, from March 1881, for four months they traveled on foot to the village of Yavino, where they later settled. Later, the village of Golygino was founded. Another 9 Ainu arrived from Japan in 1884. The 1897 census indicates 57 people in the population of Golygino (all Ainu) and 39 people in Yavino (33 Ainu and 6 Russians). Both villages were destroyed by the Soviet authorities, and the inhabitants were resettled in Zaporozhye, Ust-Bolsheretsky district. As a result, three ethnic groups assimilated with the Kamchadals.

The North Kuril Ainu are currently the largest subgroup of the Ainu in Russia. The Nakamura family (South Kuril on the paternal side) is the smallest and has only 6 people living in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. There are a few on Sakhalin who identify themselves as Ainu, but many more Ainu do not recognize themselves as such. Most of the 888 Japanese living in Russia (2010 census) are of Ainu origin, although they do not recognize this (full-blooded Japanese are allowed to enter Japan without a visa). The situation is similar with the Amur Ainu living in Khabarovsk. And it is believed that none of the Kamchatka Ainu survived.

In 1979, the USSR crossed out the ethnonym "Ainu" from the list of "living" ethnic groups in Russia, thereby declaring that this people had died out on the territory of the USSR. Judging by the 2002 census, no one entered the ethnonym "Ainu" in fields 7 or 9.2 of the K-1 census form

There is such information that the Ainu have the most direct genetic ties in the male line, oddly enough, with the Tibetans - half of them are carriers of a close haplogroup D1 (the D2 group itself is practically not found outside the Japanese archipelago) and the Miao-Yao peoples in southern China and in Indochina. As for the female (Mt-DNA) haplogroups, the U group dominates among the Ainu, which is also found among other peoples of East Asia, but in small numbers.

sources