The itinerary included the Omsk Region, Kuzbass, Krasnoyarsk Krai, and Irkutsk Region. Alexey met and talked with Ingrian Finns, Veps, Setos, Estonians, and representatives of other ethnic groups, recorded speech samples from them, and collected details on place names, kinship ties, occupations and household practices, and religious life.
The first place for the surveys by Alexey Blandov was the village of Ryzhkovo, located in the Krutinsky District, Omsk Region. Since the early 19th century, it had been an exile destination for Ingrian Finns, Estonians, and Latvians convicted under various charges. Their descendants still live in Ryzhkovo. Of particular interest to Alexey were the local Finns, who speak a language variety closely related to the Lower Luga Ingrian Finnish and Lower Luga Izhorian. In Ryzhkovo, several persons born in the 1940s–1950s are its fluent speakers.
— Local Finns know very little about their historical homeland – Ingria. In the 20th century, the only relatives they stayed in touch with were from the village of Boyarka in the Vikulovsky District, Tyumen Region. Many informants recall that they used to be called 'gorlaks' (korlakat). The etymology of the word remains unclear, but there is a hypothesis linking it to the term 'korelyaks' [i.e., Karelians], – explains Alexey.
Koloniya railway station
The second item on the itinerary was the "Om' Colony" – once the largest Lutheran community in the Asian part of Russia. Founded in the 1860s, the colony has evolved into a cluster of several villages located in the Kalachinsky District, Omsk Region, not far from the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Surveys were primarily conducted in the village of Orlovka (Sarvi-kylä). According to long-time residents, this settlement was founded in 1925. Its first inhabitants were ethnic Finns and Estonians who moved there from the neighboring villages of Old Helsingfors and New Helsingfors, as well as migrants from the village of Finy in Znamensky District, Omsk Region. In the mid-20th century, the population of Orlovka was substantially augmented by ethnic Germans deported from the Volga region.
The ancestors of local Finns were both Ingrian Finns and people who had come directly from Finland. However, by the early 21st century, only the language variety close to literary Finnish has survived in Orlovka. Today, Estonian speech can still be heard around the village, and there are speakers of German, but the researcher failed to find anyone fluent in Finnish.
During the Siberian expedition, Alexey Blandov visited several other Estonian villages: Old Revel and New Revel (Omsk Region), Kaiduly (Kemerovo Region), and Estonia (Krasnoyarsk Krai). The latter two were founded at the time of Stolypin’s agrarian reform and initially represented groups of farmsteads, which were later, in the 1930s, consolidated into villages.
Village of Estonia
Siberian Estonians have always maintained close ties with their historical homeland. Many preserved contacts with Estonia, and some families eventually moved there permanently. Although in some communities the Estonian language has already given way to Russian in everyday communication, the researcher succeeded in finding several native speakers and recording samples of living speech.
Alexey Blandov conducted a fairly detailed survey of the village of Estonia (Julgus) in the Nizhneingashsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai. The villagers are convinced that their ancestors were exiled to Siberia for some kind of misconduct. As a rule, they have nothing to say about their religious affiliation. They remember being baptized by village women, but do not know into which faith exactly.
A book in Estonian
A group of the migrants who set out for Siberia in the 20th century seeking a better life were Setos –a small nationality who used to live in the borderlands of the Pskov and Livonia Governorates. In Siberia, Setos founded the village of New Pechora, now located in the Rybinsky District of the Krasnoyarsk Krai.
As the story goes, the first inhabitants of New Pechora settled in dugouts on the banks of the Syrgil River and engaged in trade with workers of the neighboring gold mines. Over time, numerous farmsteads sprang up around New Pechora – Tagel-Khutor, Ainik-Khutor, Adra-Khutor, and others. Later, these were consolidated into the settlement of Iskra.
— The population of New Pechora and Iskra was polyethnic from the very start, – says Alexey. – Alongside Setos, there lived Lutheran Estonians. Later, several Latvian families moved there from the village of Lebedyovka. The last to arrive in the village were Lithuanians and Germans, who were deported to Siberia shortly before or during the Great Patriotic War [WW II]. Despite the motley ethnic composition of the population, Seto remained the main spoken language in New Pechora. Today, however, only a few elderly women can speak the language.
— Local residents identify themselves as Estonians, although they barely have any comprehension of literary Estonian. They also have a very vague notion of their ancestors' historical homeland –Pechorsky District of the Pskov Region – and rarely wonder why their village is called New Pechora, – the researcher relates.
From there, Alexey Blandov moved on to the Novokuznetsky District of the Kemerovo Region, where Veps had settled in the 1930s. They had originally arrived from the Tikhvinsky Uyezd of the Novgorod Governorate. Initially, the migrants settled in the village of Shilovka, but after its elimination in the 1960s, they moved to larger settlements – primarily Kuzedeyevo.
In Kuzedeyevo
The former village of Shilovka and the settlement of Kuzedeyevo are situated in the foothills of the Kuznetsk Alatau, on the border with Mountain Shoria. There, Veps’s neighbors were Shors – an indigenous Turkic-speaking people of Southern Siberia.
Many natives of Shilovka with whom Alexey spoke had never been to their ancestors' historical homeland, yet they have managed to preserve their mother tongue and identity. They call themselves Chukhars.
The easternmost point of Alexey Blandov's expedition was the village of Mardai in the Alarsky District, Irkutsk Region – another place with a compact Siberian Veps population. The historical homeland of this Veps group was the villages of Kuya and Pondala in the Babayevsky District, Vologda Region. There were two waves of their migration: the first families moved to Mardai in the 1910s, while the main wave of settlers arrived in the 1930s. The village was founded on Buryat lands. What the first Veps settlers found there was a few abandoned Buryat yurts standing along a stream.
Village of Mardai
Other inhabitants of Mardai alongside the Veps were Moldovans, while the nearby settlements were home to Buryats, Choldons (old-resident Russian population of Siberia), Tatars, Ukrainians, as well as Katsaps (apparently, migrants from southern regions of Russia). There are also recollections of Chinese people living nearby. According to Alexey's informants, Veps used to live in other villages of the Alarsky and Zalariinsky Districts as well, but it was only in Mardai that they constituted the majority of the population.
The Veps language is no longer in use in Mardai. Locals of the village do not have fluent command of it, yet they retain in their memory some Veps words and texts of folk ditties, and refer to themselves as Chukhars.
Alexey Blandov's Siberian expedition is over. The researcher will submit all the collected materials to the Audio Record Archive of the Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History KarRC RAS.
We eagerly look forward to scientific publications based on the results of this work!
Photos by Alexey Blandov
