At present, the Ingrians live. Chairman of the public organization of Finns-Ingrian - about the past, present and future

Faces of Russia. "Living Together, Being Different"

The Faces of Russia multimedia project has existed since 2006, telling about Russian civilization, the most important feature of which is the ability to live together, remaining different - this motto is especially relevant for the countries of the entire post-Soviet space. From 2006 to 2012, as part of the project, we created 60 documentaries about representatives of various Russian ethnic groups. Also, 2 cycles of radio programs "Music and songs of the peoples of Russia" were created - more than 40 programs. Illustrated almanacs have been released to support the first series of films. Now we are halfway to creating a unique multimedia encyclopedia of the peoples of our country, a picture that will allow the inhabitants of Russia to recognize themselves and leave a picture of what they were like for posterity.

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"Faces of Russia". Ingrians. 2011

General information

F'INN-INGERMANL'ANDS, Petersburg Finns, a people in the Russian Federation, a sub-ethnic group of Finns. The number in the Russian Federation is 47.1 thousand people, including 18.4 thousand people in Karelia, about 11.8 thousand people in the Leningrad region (mainly Gatchinsky and Vsevolozhsky districts), and 5 in St. Petersburg, 5 thousand people. They also live in Estonia (about 16.6 thousand people). Total population about 67 thousand people. According to the 2002 population census, the number of Ingrian Finns living in Russia is 300 people.

The language (a number of slightly different dialects) belongs to the eastern dialects of the Finnish language. The literary Finnish language is also widespread. Self-name - Finns (suomalayset), inkerilaiset, i.e. residents of Inkeri (Finnish name for the Izhora land, or Ingria - the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland and the Karelian Isthmus, the Germanized name is Ingria).

The faithful Finns-Ingrian are Lutherans. In the past, there was a small group of Orthodox among the Evrimeiset. Sectarianism (including the "jumpers"), as well as various pietistic currents (Laestadianism) were widespread among the Savakos.

The mass resettlement of Finns to the territory of Ingria began after 1617, when these lands, under the terms of the Stolbovsky Peace, were ceded to Sweden, which at that time included Finland. The main influx of Finnish colonists occurred in the middle of the 17th century, when the Swedish government began to force the conversion of local residents to Lutheranism and close Orthodox churches. This caused a mass exodus of the Orthodox (Izhorian, Votic, Russian and Karelian) population to the southern lands that belonged to Russia. The empty lands were quickly occupied by Finns-settlers. Settlers from the nearest regions of Finland, in particular from the parish of Euryapää and neighboring parishes in the north-west of the Karelian Isthmus, were called Evrimeiset, i.e. people from Euräpää. The Savakot ethnographic group, formed by settlers from Eastern Finland (the historical lands of Savo), was more numerous: in the middle of the 18th century, out of 72 thousand Ingrian Finns, almost 44 thousand were Savakot. The influx of Finns to the territory of Ingria also occurred in the 19th century. Ingrian Finns had little contact with the indigenous population of this region.

In the late 1920s and 30s, many Ingrian Finns were deported to other regions of the country. During the Great Patriotic War, about 2/3 of the Ingrian Finns ended up in the occupied territories and were evacuated to Finland (about 60 thousand people). After the conclusion of the peace treaty between the USSR and Finland, the evacuated population was returned to the USSR, but did not receive the right to settle in their former places of residence. Since the late 1980s, there has been a movement among Ingrian Finns to restore cultural autonomy and return to their old habitats.

N.V. Shlygin

F'INNS, suomalayset (self-name), people, the main population of Finland (4650 thousand people). They also live in the USA (305 thousand people), Canada (53 thousand people), Sweden (310 thousand people), Norway (22 thousand people), Russia (47.1 thousand people, see Ingrian Finns) and etc. The total number of 5430 thousand people. According to the 2002 Population Census, the number of Finns living in Russia is 34 thousand people.

They speak the Finnish language of the Baltic-Finnish subgroup of the Finno-Ugric group of the Ural family. Dialects are divided into Western and Eastern groups. The modern literary language is based on Western dialects with the inclusion of Eastern vocabulary. Writing based on Latin graphics.

Believers are mostly Lutherans. Various pietist movements are widespread: Hernguters (since the 1730s), "Prayers" (since the 1750s), "awakened" (since the 1830s), Laestadians (since the 1840s), Evangelicals (since 1840 1990s), Free Church, Methodists, Baptists, Adventists, Pentecostals, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others. There are a small number (1.5%) of Orthodox in the southeastern regions (and immigrants from there).

The ancestors of the Finns - the Baltic-Finnish tribes - penetrated the territory of modern Finland in the 3rd millennium BC and settled most of it by the 8th century, pushing the Sami population to the north and partially assimilating it. The Finnish nationality was formed in the process of merging the southwestern tribes of the Suomi (in the ancient Russian chronicles - sum), hyame (Old Russian em), who lived in the central part of Finland, the eastern Savo tribe, as well as the western (near Vyborg and near Saima) Karelian groups (see Karelians). The eastern regions of the country were characterized by contacts with the Ladoga region and the Upper Volga region, and the southwestern regions - with Scandinavia and the Baltic states.

In the 12th-13th centuries, the Finnish lands were conquered by the Swedes. The long Swedish domination left a noticeable imprint on the culture of the Finns (agrarian relations, public institutions, etc.). The Swedish conquest was accompanied by the forced Christianization of the Finns. During the Reformation period (16th century), Finnish writing was created. Nevertheless, the Finnish language remained only the language of worship and everyday communication until the 2nd half of the 19th century, when it received formal equality with the Swedish language. In reality, it began to be carried out already in independent Finland. Swedish remains the second official language of Finland.

In 1809 - 1917 Finland with the status of an autonomous Grand Duchy was part of the Russian Empire. In December 1917 the independence of Finland was proclaimed; in July 1919 it became a republic.

The folk culture of the Finns shows differences between Western and Eastern Finland. The ethnographic border between them runs along the line of the modern cities of Kotka, Jyväskylä, further between Oulu and Raahe. In the west, the influence of Swedish culture is more noticeable. Until the end of the 19th century, farming dominated agriculture. In the east, in the Middle Ages, slash-and-burn agriculture was the main form; in the southwest, a fallow arable system developed early; since the end of the 19th century, multi-field crop rotation began to take root. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, dairy farming became the leading one. Traditional crafts are marine (fishing, seal hunting, sailing), forestry (tar smoking), woodworking (including the manufacture of wooden utensils). More than 33% of modern Finns are employed in industry, in agriculture and forestry - about 9%.

Peasant settlements in the south-west of the country until the 16th-17th centuries were cumulus villages, since the 18th century, with the spread of farm land use, the scattered planning of villages began to prevail. In the east, in connection with the slash-and-burn system of agriculture, small settlements, often single-yard, prevailed, villages arose only where there were large areas of land suitable for permanent cultivation. The traditional dwelling is a log house of elongated proportions with a gable roof covered with shingles. The south of Pohjanmaa has been characterized by a two-storey house since the 18th century. The most important outbuildings are a shed, a bathhouse (sauna), cages (in the southwest they are often two-story, the top floor was used for sleeping in summer). In the south-west of Finland, a residential building and outbuildings formed a closed quadrangular yard, in the east the yards have a free layout. Dwellings in the west and east of the country differed in the design of the oven: the west is characterized by the combination of a heating and bread oven and an open hearth for cooking food, the early appearance of chimneys; in the East, an oven is common, close to the so-called Russian oven. The interior of a western peasant house is characterized by bunk and sliding beds, cradles on bent runners, and a variety of cabinet shapes. Polychrome painting and carving covering furniture and utensils (spinning wheels, rakes, clamp tongs, etc.) are widespread. The living quarters were decorated with woven products (blankets, festive bedspreads, curtains for bunk beds), and ruyu pile carpets. In the East, archaic forms of furniture were preserved for a long time - wall benches, fixed beds, hanging cradles, wall shelves, cabinets. The traditional architecture and decor of the east of the country had a great influence on the architecture and art of the Finns during the period of the so-called "national romanticism" of the late 19th century.

Traditional women's clothing - a shirt, blouses of various cuts, a skirt (mostly striped), a woolen sleeveless bodice or jacket, an apron, for married women - a linen or silk headdress on a hard basis with lace trim; girls wore open headdresses in the form of a crown or bandage. Men's clothing - shirt, knee-length pants, vests, jackets, caftans. In the east, a women's shirt with embroidery and an oblique cut on the chest, a white homespun or linen semi-long sundress (viita), a towel headdress, and caps were preserved for a long time. The embroidery ornaments reflected the Karelian and Northern Russian influence. Folk forms of clothing disappear early, especially in the west of the country. Their revival and the formation of the so-called national costume takes place at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, during the period of the national movement. This costume retains its festive and symbolic role even today.

There were differences in the traditional food of the Western and Eastern Finns: in the east, high soft bread was regularly baked, in the west, bread was baked 2 times a year in the form of round flat dry cakes with a hole in the middle and stored on poles under the ceiling. In the east they made lumpy yogurt, in the west they made stretchy forms of sour milk, they also made homemade cheese. Only in the east were baked closed pies (including rybniki) and pies like "gates", only in the extreme southeast was daily consumption of tea accepted. In the western regions it is traditional to make beer, in the east - malt or bread kvass.

The family is small. Large families, both paternal and fraternal, survived until the 19th century in the northwest of the country in Pohjanmaa, in the northeast - in Kainuu, in the southeast - in Karjala, where they existed until the 20th century.

The wedding ritual in Western Finland was distinguished by Swedish influences and borrowings from the church rite: wedding at home, "gate of honor", "wedding pole" in the yard, wedding under the canopy ("himmeli"), the wedding crown of the bride, etc. The Eastern Finns retained an archaic a form of wedding, with a three-part ritual of the bride's "departure" from her father's house, moving (wedding train) to the groom's house and the actual wedding-hyat in his house. Many rituals were aimed at protecting the bride from evil spirits (when moving to the groom's house, they covered her face with a veil, took a knife into the wagon, etc.) and ensured the fertility of the marriage.

Of the calendar holidays, the most important are Christmas and Midsummer Day (Juhannus, Mittumaarya). During their conduct, various pre-Christian rites were preserved, for example, making fires on Ivan's Day. There was a belief in guardian spirits, troll witches, various protective actions, etc.

In folklore, epic songs of runic size occupy a special place. On the basis of the runes collected in Karelia, Eastern Finland and Ingermanland, E. Lennrot compiled the Kalevala epic (1835), which became a symbol of the Finnish national movement.

N.V. Shlygin

Essays

Own land - strawberries, foreign land - blueberries / Oma maa mansikka; muu maa mustikka

Finland is called the Land of a Thousand Lakes. In fact, there are many more: about 190 thousand! Lakes occupy almost 9% of the entire territory of the country.

What happened to the lakes? To the forests? Before when there was no land at all?

Initially, there was only an endless ocean. A lone bird flew over it looking for a nest. Which one exactly is unknown. Ancient runes differ on this issue. It could be a duck, a goose, an eagle and even a swallow. In a word, a bird.

It was the bird that saw the knee of the first human being that stuck out of the water. It was the tribe of the wise old man Väinämöinen or (in another rune) of his mother, the heavenly maiden Ilmatar.

The bird laid an egg right on its knee... From this primary material, the creator bird created the world. In some runes, the world is created by the first man Väinämöinen, and the firmament is forged by the blacksmith Ilmarinen.

The sky was created from the top half of the egg. From the bottom - the earth, from the yolk - the sun. From the protein - the moon, from the shell - the stars.

So, with the creation of the universe, it is more or less clear, but how did it happen that the Finns became exactly the way they are at the present time?

Finn counts only on himself

The question is difficult, but it can be answered. The national character of the Finn, so to speak, was forged from the confrontation with nature. This is where the primary characterization of Finnish consciousness begins. Everything in it is determined by the desire to conquer nature. And what is most interesting (causing respect): in the fight against the natural elements, the Finn relies only on himself. Therefore, he attaches such importance to himself, convincing himself of his abilities. In the Finn's view, a person is a truly powerful being, designed to conquer the elements. We see this in the Kalevala epic.

In fairy tales, this theme of knowing the secret codes of nature is also reflected, sometimes even slightly in a comical form. Here, for example, is the "Peasant's Prediction".

There once lived a king and a peasant, and peasant meadows and fields were so close to royal palace that the owner had to pass through the courtyard of the royal castle every time on the way to his lands. Once a peasant went on a horse for a vein. When he was returning from the meadows through the royal court, the king happened to be in the courtyard of his castle, and he began to scold the peasant.

How dare you, you idiot, drive your hay through my yard, aren't you ashamed?!

Sorry, gracious king, - the peasant answered. - But the fact is that soon there will be a thunderstorm, a downpour will begin, and if I drove along the long ring road, I would not have time before the rain poured down, and my hay would get wet. That's why I hurried straight with the hay.

Well, said the king, how do you know that?

Great sovereign! replied the peasant. - I know by the tail of my mare. See how the gadflies crawl under the tail. And this is a sure sign that there will be bad weather.

That's how ... - said the king and allowed the peasant to pass.

After that, the king went to the tower of the palace astrologer and asked the soothsayer if it would rain today. The stargazer took a telescope, looked at the sky and said:

No, sir, there will be neither today, nor tomorrow, nor even the day after tomorrow, not a single tear, not a single drop, but then, maybe, there will be.

I understand, - said the king and descended from the tower to head to his chambers. But on the way to the palace, such heavy rain and a terrible thunderstorm overtook the king that the king was soaked to the skin. Finally, he reached his palace, all soiled, and immediately called the soothsayer to him.

You, unfortunate astrologer, will have to make room, since you don’t understand anything about the weather, while a stupid and uncouth peasant, looking at the tail of his mare, sees when it will rain, and when it will be a bucket, ”the king said to him and fired him from positions, sending manure to the stable to clean.

And the king summoned the peasant to himself and gave him the tower of the astrologer and the proper title, putting him in the same salary as the former soothsayer received. So the peasant became a friend of the king thanks to horseflies and a gadfly, to the envy of all the courtiers.

Finns love themselves

The Finns love themselves in a way that few nations love themselves. In general, there are few peoples who love themselves, and the Finns are just one of them. In the minds of most peoples, there is a certain ideal image of their own, or related to the golden age in the past, and their own inconsistency with this image is acutely felt.

The Finns have almost no such dissatisfaction. Finn, in essence, does not need the highest sanction, he achieved his exclusive position in the world himself. This explains the emphasized respect of the Finns for themselves, which surprised many researchers. Finn behaves with dignity, never begs for tea, even avoids a hint of it, although he will not refuse to take an increase on occasion, but he will not hint at it, and whether they add something to him in the calculation or not, he will equally thank, having received the agreed fee.

Finn is extremely little dependent on the team. A Finnish peasant lives on a farm. He does not often communicate with his neighbors, is closed in the family circle and does not see a special need to open this circle. After Sunday dinner, the owner will not go to visit. And why would he run away from home? His wife is his best friend, his children respect him. Finn is almost entirely focused on himself. His eyes, sometimes beautiful and expressive, look somehow into the depths of himself, he is closed and silent. Finn goes to fight nature one on one.

At the end of the 18th century, Finland was called the country of sorcerers. The sorcerers themselves firmly believed in their art and, as a rule, passed it on to their children, which is why it was considered the property of entire families.

Enchant nature to conquer

Since ancient times, the Finns have considered the knowledge of the hidden forces of nature to be the greatest wisdom, believing that the word can make nature act as a person wants. The wiser the person, the stronger the influence of his word on surrounding nature the more she is subject to him. Since ancient times, the Finns have been more famous than others for their sorcerers. The Finns tried to enchant nature and thus conquer it. This is one of the adequate expressions of the content embedded in the mind of a Finn. The sorcerer is like a superman. He is lonely and proud. He is closed in and on himself. He can go out to duel with nature. His goal is to force the alien forces of nature to obey his word, his desire.

Finns have an almost contractual relationship with God. They are streamlined and extremely rationalized. Lutheranism is a purely individual religion. There is no catholicity in it, each for himself. There is no mysticism in it either. Its rules are strict and simple. Strict and simple liturgical rite. Man must work. Must be a respectable family man, raise children, help the poor. All this the Finn does with the greatest zeal. But in this very correctness and moderation passion shines through. This rationality itself acquires magical traits.

The focus on conquering nature has been and remains the main content of the Finn's consciousness. Even today, Finn continues to recognize himself as a lone fighter, who owes everything to himself and counts on his own strength or God, but not on God's mercy and pity, but on God as a reliable employee with whom the Finn enters into a contract, pledging to lead a virtuous life in return for His patronage.

Finn honors the contract to the smallest detail. His religious life is very regular and orderly. It was considered an unforgivable crime for a Finn to miss a church service. Even at the post station there was a sign with the rule: “No one, except in extreme need, has the right to demand a horse and set off on a journey during worship on Sundays.”

As a religious obligation, the Finns consider the ability to read. After all, every Lutheran should know the text of Holy Scripture and be able to interpret it. Therefore, literacy in Finland already in the twentieth century was one hundred percent.

Finns read everywhere: in cafes and on trains. It is the Finnish character that can explain the Finns' love for the harsh and uncompromising poetry of Joseph Brodsky. It is this poet who enjoys incredible success in the Land of Blue Lakes.

Laugh at yourself

This is another feature of the Finnish character. It turns out that Finns love jokes about themselves. And they are willing to compose them themselves. And when they meet, they exchange novelties. And this, too, can be seen as a healthy start. People who can laugh at themselves are really capable of a lot. Finns can even joke about their favorite sauna. "The sauna can be used by anyone who is able to walk to it."

And here are a few anecdotal stories that have become a kind of classic of the genre.

Three Finn brothers are sitting on a fishing trip in the Gulf of Finland. Morning, the sun begins to rise, the younger brother says: - Nee kluyett.

Well, it's already daytime, the sun is high...

The middle brother says: -Taa, it doesn't peck at the bite.

Well, it's already evening here, the sun has already set, well, the elder brother says:

Chatting a lot of votts and pecking at her ..

Raaime, are you married?

Natt, I'm not married.

But tippya has a kaaltso on the floor!

O! Already married! Like a latitt framing!

Toivo means hope

Finnish names... do they mean something? Finnish names adopted in the Lutheran Finnish calendar are heterogeneous in origin. A significant place is occupied by ancient, pagan names. These are names that still retain a connection with the words from which they came.

For example: Ainikki (the only one), Armas (beloved), Arvo (dignity, honor), Ilma (air), Into (inspiration), Kauko (distance), Lempi (love), Onni (happiness), Orvokki (violet), Rauha (peace), Sikka (grasshopper), Sulo (charm), Taimi (sprout), Taisto (struggle), Tarmo (energy, strength), Toivo (hope), Uljas (brave), Urho (hero, hero), Vuokko ( snowdrop).

Another part of the names is borrowed from the Germanic and some other peoples. But these borrowed names have undergone such significant language processing on Finnish soil that they are now perceived as native Finnish, although they are not associated with any meaning.

With Finnish surnames, the situation is different. All Finnish surnames are formed from original Finnish significant words. Surnames of foreign origin are perceived by native speakers as foreign.

Finnish names are placed before the family name. Very often a child is given two or even three names at birth. The names before the surname are not declined - only the surname changes. For example: Toivo Letinen (Toivo Lehtinen) - Toivo Lehtiselle (Toivo Lehtinen). The stress in names, as in general in Finnish, falls on the first syllable.

It is interesting to find out which Finnish names correspond to Russian ones. In fact, there are not so many of them. For example, such names as Ahti or Aimo have no correspondences in Russian. But the name Antti corresponds to the Russian name Andrei.

Let's list a few more Finnish names along with Russian counterparts: Juhani - Ivan, Marti - Martin, Matti - Matvey, Mikko - Mikhail, Niilo - Nikolai, Paavo - Pavel, Pauli - Pavel, Pekka - Peter, Pietari - Peter, Santeri - Alexander, Simo - Semyon, Vihtori - Victor. The women's list will be as follows: Annie - Anna, Helena - Elena. Irene - Irina, Katri - Ekaterina, Leena - Elena, Liisa - Elizabeth, Marta - Martha.

The Russian language has close ties with Finnish, or rather, with a group of Finno-Ugric languages. It just so happened historically that the lands of northern Russia (and then Muscovy) were practically surrounded by peoples who spoke Finno-Ugric languages. This is the Baltic region, and the northeastern forests, near the Arctic Circle, and the Urals, and many nomadic tribes that lived in the southern steppes.

Until now, linguists are arguing which words passed from whom to whom. For example, there is a version that the word "tundra", which has passed into Russian, comes from the Finnish word "tunturi". But with the rest of the words, everything is far from being so simple. Russian word"boots" comes from the Finnish word "saappaat" or vice versa?

Aphoristic boom in Finland

Proverbs and sayings, of course, are in Finland. Books are also published in which these proverbs are collected.

The sauna is a pharmacy for the poor. Sauna öä apteekki.

Own land - strawberries, foreign land - blueberries. Oma maa mansikka; muu maa mustikka.

Finns honor not only folk wisdom, but also modern, that is, aphorisms. In Finland there is an association that brings together authors working in the genre of aphorism. They publish books and anthologies. They have their own website on the Internet (.aforismi.vuodatus.).

The 2011 anthology "Tiheiden ajatusten kirja" (Closely Thoughts on Paper) collected aphorisms from 107 authors. Every year in Finland there is a competition for the best author of aphorisms (the Samuli Paronen competition). Not only writers, poets, journalists, but also people of other professions take part in this competition. It can be said without any exaggeration that the whole of Finland is passionate about both reading aphorisms and writing them. With great pleasure we introduce the works of modern authors of aphorisms.

Each person is the smith of his own happiness. And if someone wants to forge eternal chains for himself, then this is his personal right. Paavo Haavikko

The most common type of classification: me and the rest. Torsti Lehtinen

When you get very old, you are not afraid to be young. Helena Anhava

Slowness (slowness) is the soul of pleasure. Markku Envall

Don't confuse God's sycophants with angels. Eero Suvilehto

It may very well be that some modern Finnish aphorisms will go to the people and become proverbs.

Statistics

INGERMANLAD FINNS

STORY

Ingrian Finns (self-name - suomalaisia)- one of the groups of the Finnish-speaking population, which has long lived in the central, northern and western regions of the Leningrad region and on the territory of modern St. Petersburg.

The Ingrian Finns appeared on this land after the Peace of Stolbov in 1617, when the lands between the Narova and Lava rivers were transferred to the Swedes and received the name Ingrianland. Finnish peasants began to move to the lands abandoned as a result of wars, epidemics and famine, first from the southwest of the Karelian Isthmus (mainly from the parish of Euryapäya) - they got the name euremöiset (äyramöiset). After the war of 1656-1658. a significant influx of new Finnish settlers came from the eastern regions of Finland, from Uusimaa and more distant places - these peasants later became known as Savakot (savakot). As a result, by the end of the 17th century, the number of Finns in Ingermanland reached 45 thousand people - approximately 70% of the total population of the region.

The lands of Ingermanland returned to Russia under the Treaty of Nystadt in 1721, but the Finnish peasants did not leave for Finland and linked their future with Russia. The Finnish population of the region retained its Lutheran faith, and Lutheran churches operated in Ingermanland with services in Finnish. By the beginning of the 20th century, there were 32 rural Finnish parishes in the province. The church created schools with teaching in Finnish - by the beginning of the 20th century there were 229 of them. Teachers were trained by the Kolpan Pedagogical Seminary (1863-1919). And it is from school teachers and pastors, the Ingrian intelligentsia began to take shape. The first local Finnish newspaper was founded in 1870.

After the October Revolution of 1917, which split many Ingrian families, a period of "national construction" began. In the 1920s-1930s, national Finnish village councils and the Kuyvazovsky national district existed on the territory of the Leningrad Region. Newspapers were published in Finnish, there was a publishing house, a theater, a museum, in Leningrad there was even radio broadcasting in Finnish. Finnish schools, technical schools, departments of institutes worked.

The “Leninist nationality policy”, which promised much, turned into a failure. "Kulak purges" in 1930-31, "sanation" of border villages in 1934-1936 led to the expulsion of tens of thousands of Finns from Ingermanland. Massive repressions began in 1937-1938: Finnish national village councils and the region were abolished, teaching in all Finnish schools in Ingermanland was translated into Russian, all centers of national culture and all Finnish Lutheran churches were closed. Finnish teachers, pastors, cultural figures were arrested, most were shot.

The war brought new troubles to the Ingrian Finns. More than 62,000 Finns remained in German-occupied territory and were evicted to Finland as labor force. More than 30 thousand Finns, who found themselves in the ring of blockade, in March 1942 were taken to the coast of the Arctic Ocean. In 1944, 55 thousand Ingrian Finns returned from Finland to the USSR, but they were forbidden to settle in their native places.

As a result, a small people scattered across the expanses of Eurasia from Kolyma to Sweden. Nowadays Ingrian Finns live, besides Ingrian, in Karelia, various regions of Russia, in Estonia, Sweden. Since 1990, approximately 20,000 Ingrian Finns have emigrated to Finland.

If, according to the 1926 census, there were about 125 thousand Finns in Ingria, by 2002 their number in the Leningrad region fell to 8 thousand, and 4 thousand Ingrian Finns now live in St. Petersburg.

ETHNOGRAPHIC GROUPS

The Ingrian Finns until the beginning of the 20th century maintained a sub-division into two groups: euremöiset (ä yrä mö ise t, ä grä mö iset) and Savakot (savakot). Eurämöyset Finns are Karelians by origin and come from the ancient Finnish parish of Euryapää (Äyräpää), which was located in the western part of the Karelian Isthmus (modern Vyborgsky district of the Leningrad region). The second group, Savakot Finns, got its name from the eastern Finnish land of Savo. But the study of migration flows clearly showed that, although the resettlement went mainly from the eastern regions of Finland, residents from the vicinity of the river also moved. Kyumi, belonging to Uusimaa, and from more distant places. Thus, savakot is a collective concept, which was used to name all the settlers who moved to Ingermanland from more remote parts of the country than the arrival of Euryapäya.

The differences between these two groups of Ingrian Finns were significant. Euryamöyset, as immigrants from the nearest areas of Finland, considered themselves indigenous local residents, and savakot - newcomers. Euryamöyset recognized themselves as the keepers of the old traditions, believing that "the sacred inherited from the fathers: simple customs, language, clothing." Therefore, they retained their ancient clothes for a longer time, and the archaic “Kalevala” folklore, and playing the traditional musical instrument “kantele”, customs and fortune-telling. In some areas of the eurämöiset, old huts, which were heated in a black way, existed for a particularly long time. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the Euryamöset Finns adhered to the old wedding rites, moreover, they abstained from marriages with savakot. According to materials from the end of the 19th century, when a girl nevertheless married a savakot man, she taught her children that they should look for a mate among the euryamöyset in the future. Savakot, in their opinion, were too prone to the perception of innovations and, which was especially condemned, were unstable in matters of faith. Sometimes it was said that savakot is “like a young shoot that all the winds shake”. In mixed Euryamös-Savak parishes, during services in the church, Euryamöyset and Savakot sat on opposite sides of the central aisle.

For a particularly long time, the differences between euryamöyset and savakot were preserved in folk clothes and dialects. However, by now these differences have disappeared almost completely.

Special mention should be made of the westernmost group of Finns living on the Kurgalsky Peninsula and to the south, between the rivers Luga and Rosson, in the Finnish parish of Narvusi-Kosemkina. The ancestors of the local Finns sailed here through the Gulf of Finland from the vicinity of the lower reaches of the Kyumi River, although there is information about more western areas of emigration. According to local legends, the basis of the local Finnish population is made up of "robbers" who fled from Finland in the 17th century. Previously, this population was classified as Savakot.

HOUSEHOLD AND TRADITIONAL ACTIVITIES

The main occupation of the Ingrian Finns was agriculture, and it has long been noted that "the more Finns in a given area, the more arable land." Back in the 18th century rye, barley, oats, buckwheat and peas, flax and hemp were grown. By the end of the XIX century. local Finns (especially in Oranienbaum and St. Petersburg counties) began to expand oat crops, because oats required less labor costs, and yielded more, while “in the capital city, Koporsky oats are preferred by everyone and paid more.”

The soils in the Petersburg province are generally of low quality, they had to be constantly fertilized: in some villages, the peasants brought manure to their arable land even from the St. Petersburg horse barracks and from Kronstadt. But all the same, the harvest was usually three times and very rarely four times the amount sown. In addition, the local peasantry suffered from lack of land: in the immediate vicinity of St. Petersburg, per capita allotments amounted to about 4 acres, Karelian Isthmus they were about twice as large, but in some areas they were completely insignificant - 2.5 acres. In Ingermanland, a two-field crop rotation was maintained for a long time, and as early as the 1840s, forest plots were burned for arable land in many places.

The Finns grew cabbage, rutabaga, onions, sowed turnips on forest burns. On the sandy soils of some northeastern regions, as well as in the vicinity of Volosovo, potatoes were well born, and by the middle of the 19th century. he became a truly "Finnish" vegetable. Finns began to carry potatoes to St. Petersburg markets, and in areas north of the river. Neva (in Koltushi, Toksovo, etc.), it was delivered to local distilleries, where alcohol was distilled from it, potato flour and molasses were made, and it was because of this that the local Finns were the wealthiest in Ingermanland.

And yet the most important for the Ingrian Finns was the dairy industry. Although he brought a lot of money, but the delivery of milk to the city created many difficulties. Even in the middle of the XIX century. milk had to be transported to the city on carts, and if the farm was more than 20 versts from the city, it was difficult to keep the milk from souring, although the peasants covered the cans with ice and moss. Therefore, Finns from suburban villages brought whole milk to the capital, and those who lived more than 50 miles from St. Petersburg delivered only cream, sour cream and cottage cheese. In addition, it was very difficult to take milk out of some areas: for example, although in the northern Ingrian villages the owners kept 2-3 cows, the Finnish Railway (St. were deprived of the opportunity to trade in urban markets. Soon, for some Finnish regions, the situation soon improved: the Baltic Railway connected the Tsarskoye Selo and Yamburg districts with the capital, and the peasants loaded their cans of milk and cream onto the “milk” train leaving Revel early in the morning. To the north of the Neva, milk was transported along the Irinovskaya railway. But until the end of the 1930s. as before, Finnish milkmaids - “okhtenki” - walked from the immediate vicinity of the city on foot, carrying several cans of milk on a yoke and carrying it home.

The development of dairy farming caused changes in the economy. The Finns began to create peasant associations, agricultural societies, economic supply and marketing cooperatives. The first society of farmers appeared in 1896 in Lembolovo ( Lempaala), and in 1912 there were already 12. These associations bought agricultural machines together, held consultations, organized exhibitions and training courses.

Significantly more earnings than all others, except for dairy, were brought by the nursery trade, which was mainly carried out in the province by the Finns. The peasants took in the upbringing of children from the Orphanage and from private individuals in St. Petersburg, receiving a certain amount of money for this. Such ruunulapset(“state children”) were brought up in Finnish traditions, they knew only the Finnish language, but at the same time they retained Russian surnames and the Orthodox faith.

Next to the sale of dairy products, you can put a mushroom and berry trade - the peasants sold berries (lingonberries, cranberries, cloudberries, blueberries, strawberries) and mushrooms directly to St. Petersburg. In 1882, more detailed information on berry picking was collected in the Matokskaya volost. So, in 12 villages of this volost, 191 families were engaged in fishing; they collected a total of 1485 fours (1 four - 26.239 liters) of wild berries in the amount of 2970 rubles. And, for example, in the village of Voloyarvi, Matok Volost, one yard sold up to 5 carts of mushrooms. In especially fruitful years, according to peasants, picking mushrooms turned out to be even more profitable than arable farming.

Finnish peasants were engaged in fishing in all counties. The Finns of the Kurgolovsky and Soykinsky peninsulas caught sea fish, and the inhabitants of the Ladoga coast - lake and river fish for sale in the city. The most significant fishing was carried out in winter with ice nets. In r. Lampreys were caught in the meadows, which were bought up very willingly both in Narva and in St. Petersburg. On rivers and lakes, fish were caught mainly for themselves. Crayfish were caught in rivers and lakes from the end of April until St. Peter's Day (June 29, old style). Then the fishing was suspended, as the crayfish at that time climbed into their molting holes. And from Ilyin's day (July 20, old style), catching large crayfish began and continued until August 20. They fished with a net, with and without bait, and with a good catch, one person could catch up to 300 pieces a day. In coastal areas, ship fishing was also developed (ownership of a ship and work on it, work on a ship for hire, horse-drawn ships along the canal).

The Ingrian Finns also brought meat for sale, and in autumn - poultry. It was profitable to breed and sell geese, they were driven to the city “on their own”, having previously covered their paws with tar and sand so that the birds would not erase their membranes along the way. Many Finns brought garden berries, honey, firewood, brooms, hay and straw to the city markets.

There was a well-developed network of resellers in Ingermanlandia, who brought products from the western parts of the province and the nearest regions of Finland. It is known that Finnish peasants brought their goods to Garbolovo, Kuyvozi, Oselki, Toksovo, and there they handed them over to local Finns who knew the Russian language, and they were already heading to the capital's markets.

The Ingrian Finns were also engaged in the transportation of goods on carts and sledges, and in the summer the fishermen who had sailboats delivered timber, stone, gravel and sand to St. Petersburg for the needs of capital construction. Many Ingrian Finns were engaged in cabs, sometimes leaving for a long time in St. Petersburg to work as city cab drivers. Most of them worked only in winter, especially during Shrovetide week, when sleigh rides were the main entertainment for St. Petersburg residents, and for five kopecks you could race through the whole city on Finnish wakes ( veikko- "brother").

There were more than 100 types of crafts and handicraft industries in Ingermanland. But still, handicraft activities, even in their own household, were not well developed among the Ingrian Finns, although in many villages there were good blacksmiths who could make everything: from a hook on which a baby cradle was attached to a forged grave iron cross. In the lower reaches of the river The meadows were worked by Finnish carpenters who made boats and sailboats. In many villages, willow bark was usually torn in spring or summer for 2-3 weeks before haymaking, then it was dried and crushed, and already in crushed form was delivered to tanneries in St. Petersburg. This trade was very unprofitable.

In some areas, there were rather rare crafts: for example, in the north of Ingermanland, panicle fishing was practiced exclusively in the Toksovo volost, where 285 families prepared 330,100 panicles per year. And the production of bath brooms was concentrated in the Murinsky volost (Small Lavriki). In some places, wheeled and cooperage trade was widespread. In some villages, shafts were made (they were sold to St. Petersburg to cart drivers for 3 rubles per cart), sticks (they were used for hoops on barrels and for fishing tackle). In many places, plucking a torch also brought a small income. In some villages, peasants collected ant eggs - they were used to feed birds and goldfish, they were sold in St. Petersburg, and from there they were even resold abroad.

In general, the standard of living of many Ingrian Finns in the late XIX - early XX centuries. was so high that employees were hired to work on the farm. In almost every village one could meet people from Finland: some were farmhands, some were shepherds in the herd, some were herders, many were digging ditches. There were especially many farm laborers from the eastern Finnish province of Savo: "poor people from there rush here, because here they pay many times more."

VILLAGES AND HOUSING

Initially and until the 1930s of the XX century. Ingrian Finns were almost exclusively rural dwellers. From the very beginning of their resettlement to Ingermanland, single-yard Finnish settlements began to appear on the “wasteland” (i.e., in the places of deserted villages), and in “free places” (i.e., in the fields left without owners after the departure of the Russians and Izhors ). So, in the Orekhovsky churchyard in the second half of the 17th century, one-yard villages accounted for about a third of all villages. In the future, such settlements became small villages of several households. The Finns also settled in larger settlements, where the Izhors, Russians, Vods already lived.

In the first half of the 18th century, after the return of Ingermanland under Russian rule, many Russian villages arose, the inhabitants of which were resettled here, mainly from the Moscow, Yaroslavl and Arkhangelsk provinces. Sometimes Russian villages were founded on the sites burned down during Northern war villages (Putilovo, Krasnoye Selo), in other cases, for the construction of a Russian village, the Finns living there were relocated to another place (Murino, Lampovo). Sometimes Finnish peasants were driven even to uncultivated forest and wetlands. In the XVIII century. Russian and Finnish villages differed sharply in appearance: according to surviving evidence, Russian villages had regular buildings, were crowded and relatively more prosperous than Finnish ones - small, scattered and very poor, giving the impression of decline.

In 1727, during an audit in the St. Petersburg province, it was decided to concentrate the entire Finnish population not only in separate villages, but also in single territorial groups. This is probably how many Finnish villages with typical Russian street and row layouts have developed. Such villages were characterized by a rather high building density, with a distance between neighboring houses of 10-15 m, and in some villages even 3-5 m.

Only on the Karelian Isthmus, the old Finnish layout was preserved everywhere - free, bush and cumulus. The most characteristic feature of the Finnish countryside was "free building", reflecting the individualism of the Finnish peasant. At the same time, the houses were not located uniformly, like the Russians (facade to the road or along the road), but completely arbitrary. The distance between houses was usually more than 30 m. In addition, the landscape played an important role in northern Ingermanland: houses were, as a rule, carefully “fitted” into the terrain, i.e. are confined to advantageous uneven terrain - to dry elevated places, to the slopes of hills and hollows between them. Such villages had little resemblance to a village in the Russian sense, and were perceived (including by cartographers) as a group of farms or a group of villages. Such a layout in other places of Ingermanland was already met as a relic.

According to rough estimates, by 1919 there were 758 purely Finnish villages in Ingermanland, 187 villages with Russian and Finnish populations, and 44 villages where Finns and Izhors lived. At the same time, there were practically no villages where the Eurämöyset Finns lived together with the Russians, and the Savakot Finns lived with the Izhors. On the contrary, quite often the Euryameyset coexisted with the Izhors, and the Savakot with the Russians. In some villages, both Finns and Vod, Izhora and Russians lived. Then sometimes different ends appeared in the village - “Russian end”, “Izhora end”, etc. There was no striped settlement in northern Ingermanland.

In the 19th century in the central and western Ingria, the main variant of the Finnish dwelling was the so-called “Western Russian complex” (a long house and a covered courtyard connected to it), and in the northern Ingria, an old tradition was preserved when large stone or wooden courtyards were placed separately from the house. Only in the parish of Keltto and, partially, in the parish of Rääpüvä were houses of the "Russian type".

Finnish huts in the past were single-chamber and two-chamber, when to the living quarters (pirtti) cold vestibules were built (porstua). And even when in early XIX centuries of construction became three-chambered, often only one half was residential, and the room on the other side of the vestibule served as a cage (romuhuone) . Over time, the second half became a summer hut, and sometimes a “clean” half of the dwelling. In the parishes of Keltto and Rääpüvä, multi-chamber dwellings were also widespread, which was associated with the preservation of large families of 20-30 people. There, even after the abolition of serfdom, large families remained, and for married sons a new log house was attached to the hut.

Even before the middle of the XIX century. Finnish houses were for the most part smoky (stoked in black), with low ceilings and high thresholds, many of these huts were built even at the end of the 19th century. Instead of windows, light holes were cut through, closed with wooden latches, only rich peasants had mica windows in their huts. Straw served as roofing material, later - wood chips. Huts, heated in black, were preserved even in the immediate vicinity of St. Petersburg, so that sometimes "from the portage window you can see the golden domes of the churches of the capital." Especially for a long time, until the beginning of the twentieth century. such huts existed among the Finns-Eurämöyset. Chicken ovens were of the type of wind ovens, they were built on a wooden or stone guardianship. On the hearth they left a place for a hanging boiler, which was hung on a special hook. (haahla). For heating food on the hearth, they also used a tripod taganka. With the advent of chimneys, pyramidal hoods began to be made over the hearth of the furnace. Dutch ovens were placed on a clean half.

The decoration of the house was simple: one or more tables, stools, benches and wardrobes. They slept on benches and on stoves, later - on bunks attached to the back wall of the hut - rovatit (rovatit < Russian bed). Children slept on straw mattresses on the floor, and there were hanging cradles for newborns. The hut was lit with a torch.

In the late XIX - early XX centuries. Finnish houses have changed: they were already built on the foundation, they cut through large windows. In many villages, windows outside began to be decorated with beautiful carved architraves (they were usually made by Russian carvers) and shutters. . Only in northern Ingermanland carving did not become widespread. .

FOOD

In the cuisine of the Ingrian Finns, ancient Finnish, rural Russian and St. Petersburg city traditions are combined.

By the end of the XIX - XX centuries. The usual meal schedule in an Ingrian family was as follows:

1. Early in the morning, immediately after getting up, they usually drank coffee ( kohvi), cooked at home from its own grain, in pure milk or by adding it.

2. At about 8-9 o'clock in the morning (and sometimes even earlier) they ate breakfast cooked on the stove ( murkina).

3. They drank tea between breakfast and lunch (but not in all villages).

4. Around 1-2 p.m. they arranged lunch ( lounat, pä ivä linen). Usually they ate soup, porridge, and finished the dinner with tea (although in some houses they first drank tea, and then they ate dinner!).

5. At about 4 pm, many Finns again drank tea, and on Sundays they drank store-bought coffee almost everywhere.

6. After 7 pm we had dinner. For dinner ( iltainen, iltain) usually ate lunch food warmed up or cooked a new one with milk.

The whole family usually gathered at the table, and the father, sitting at the head of the table, read a prayer and cut bread for everyone. It was impossible to talk while eating, the children were told: “Shut your mouth like an egg”, otherwise the child could get hit on the forehead with a spoon! Food at night was removed from the table (they could only leave a crust of bread and a Bible), it was especially dangerous to forget a knife on the table - after all, then an “evil spirit” could come.

The main food of the Ingrian Finns by the end of the 19th century. potato became (it was called differently in different villages: karttol, kartoffelkartuska, omena, potati, tartu, muna, maamuna, maaomenapulkka, peruna) and cabbage - they were considered even more important than bread. On Mondays they usually baked black bread for the whole week ( leipä ) from sour rye dough, in the form of high rugs. They often made cakes from rye or barley flour ( leposka, ruiskakkara, hä tä kakkara), they were usually eaten with egg butter. Soups were different, but the most common was sauerkraut soup ( haapakual), rarely cooked pea soup ( hernerokka), potato soup with meat ( lihakeitti), wow. Kashi ( putro, kuassa) were most often from barley (barley), also from millet, buckwheat, semolina, rarely from rice. Sauerkraut was stewed in the oven, turnips, turnips, and potatoes were baked. They also ate sauerkraut, salted mushrooms, salted and dried fish. There were a lot of dairy products: milk, curdled milk, cottage cheese, although most of them were taken to the markets. Oatmeal jelly enjoyed special love ( kaurakiisseli), they ate it both warm and cold, and with milk, and with cream, and with vegetable oil, and with berries, with jam, and with fried pork cracklings. They usually drank tea tsaaju), coffee beans ( kohvi), in summer - kvass ( taari).

The festive food was different: they baked wheat bread ( pulkat), a variety of pies - open ( vatruskat) and closed ( piirakat), stuffed with rice with egg, cabbage, berries, jam, fish and meat with rice. Cooked jelly ( syltty), made roast meat and potatoes ( lihaperunat, perunapaisti). We bought city sausages for the festive table ( kalpassi, vorsti), salted herring ( seltti), cheese ( siiru). On holidays they brewed cranberry jelly, homemade beer ( olut) (especially before the summer holiday Yuhannus), drank store-bought coffee (often brewed in samovars), brought wine from the city.

CLOTHES

The folk clothes of the Ingrian Finns are one of the brightest and most diverse features of their culture. In addition to the main division of the women's costume into the clothes of the Finns-Eurämöyset and the Finns-Savakot, almost every parish had its own differences, color preferences, and embroidery ornaments.

Finnish clothes - eurämöyset retained many of the ancient features of the costume of the Karelian Isthmus. The most beautiful was considered the women's Euryameis clothing of Central Ingria. It consisted of a shirt and a sundress. The shirt was especially remarkable: its upper part was sewn from thin linen, and on the chest it was decorated with recco (rekko) - trapezoid-shaped embroidery, where geometric ornaments were embroidered with woolen threads of red, orange, yellow, brown, green and blue colors with a horizontal stitch or cross (and the most ancient recco embroidered with golden yellow wool). Both the edges of the wide sleeves and their shoulder part were decorated with embroidery. Often the sleeves ended with cuffs. The slit on the shirt was on the left side recco, it was fastened with a small round fibula solok (solki). The lower part of the shirt, which was not visible, was sewn from coarse linen.

Over the shirt they wore shoulder clothes such as a sundress or a skirt, which reached up to the armpits and was sewn to a narrow cloth embroidered lining with straps - a shoulder (hartiukset). On holidays, these clothes were sewn from blue cloth, and the upper trim was made from red. On weekdays they wore red clothes, often from homespun linen. An apron was tied over the skirt (peredniekka), in young people it is often embroidered with multi-colored wool, and in older people it is decorated with black lace. The outfit was complemented by white knitted patterned gloves. The headdress of the girls was a very beautiful crown - "syappyali" (sappali) made of red cloth, decorated with metal "thorns", beads and mother-of-pearl. Married women wore white linen bonnets with lace along the edge, gathered and tied at the back with a ribbon, or white headdresses, similar to the Russian "kichka" without a rigid frame.

Such a costume in different areas had differences. It was believed that in the parish of Tyure (near Peterhof) clothes were “simpler”, in Hietamäki (near Tsarskoye Selo) - “smarter”, and the most beautiful - in Tuutari (Duderhof).

In Northern Ingermanland, the Euryameiset Finns wore a similar shirt with an embroidered recco, and on top they put on a long skirt made of blue, black or brown wool mixture, along the hem of which there was a frill made of red purchased fabric or a colored hem woven on a reed. More than 40 folds were laid on such a skirt, and a thin stitched belt was fastened with a button. Local Finns fastened on their heads junta (huntu) - a small ruffled linen circle check that was attached to the hair over the top of the forehead. WITH junta on the forehead, a married woman could walk with her head uncovered.

In the western regions of Ingermanland, Finns-euryam`yset wore a simple linen shirt and a skirt made of plain or striped wool or wool mixture, and their heads were covered with white caps with knitted lace around the edge.

In cool weather and on holidays, Finns-Eurämöiset wore a short white linen half-caftan bones (costoli) , sewn at the waist and nki-euryameyset adyvaliyu skirt from ryamyset wore the same embroidered shirt, the Russian Academy of Sciences. vsk language). strongly flared . In such an outfit, they went to church for the first time in the year in the summer, for the Ascension, and therefore the holiday was popularly called "bone" (costolipyhä). Shiley bones most often from a white purchased diagonal, and along the shelves to the waist there were narrow stripes of magnificent fine embroidery with woolen threads.

On cold days, Finns-Eurämöyset wore short or long cloth caftans flared from the waist ( viitta). They were sewn from white, brown or blue home cloth, decorated with suede, red and green silk and woolen threads. In winter, they wore sheepskin coats, needle-knitted mittens or patterned woolen gloves, and warm head scarves.

White, red or black leggings were worn on their feet, and in the summer, home-made leather shoes were fastened on top of the leg with frills. (lipokkat), bast shoes (virsut), in winter - leather boots or felt boots . Eurämöiset retained their special costume for a very long time, but at the end of the 19th century. he began to disappear, and in many villages girls began to walk around dressed like savakot.

Finnish savakot clothing was more simple - they wore shirts and long wide skirts. Shirts were sewn from white linen with a slit in the middle of the chest, fastened with a button, and with wide sleeves. Often the cuffs, trimmed with lace, were tied at the elbow, so that the lower part of the arm was open. Gathered skirts were sewn from plain, striped or plaid woolen or semi-woolen fabric. Sometimes two skirts were worn on holidays, and then the top one could be calico. A sleeveless bodice was worn over the shirt. (liivi) or jacket (tankki) from cloth or purchased fabric. Aprons were most often sewn from white linen or fabric with red stripes, the bottom was decorated with white or black lace, complex multi-color embroidery, and knitted fringe was often used along the edge.

Girls braided their hair in a braid, tied a wide silk ribbon on their heads. Married women wore soft bonnets lakki (lakki), trimmed along the edge with thin linen lace.

The clothes of savakot women from among the so-called "real state" looked different. (varsinaisetvallanomat), from the Finnish parishes of Keltto, Rääpüvä and Toksova, located north of the Neva River. They considered themselves to be higher in position than the surrounding population, and their clothes stood out for their colors. It was of red tones: and woolen fabric for skirts was woven in red and yellow squares or, more rarely, stripes, and bodices and jackets were also sewn from red fabric, trimming them with green or blue braid along the edge, and aprons were also made from red "cage". Often, red checkered silk was specially brought from the city, and the owners of silk clothes at village dances did not let girls in chintz skirts into their round dances. On holidays, both women and girls put on several bodices, so that the edge of the lower bodice was visible from under the upper one, and it was clear how many they were wearing and how rich their mistress was. Shoulder scarves were also red. The girls wore crowns of red ribbon on their heads, with long ends going down their backs, or red scarves. Women covered their heads with a white cap. On holidays, they put on "master's shoes" - good purchased high-heeled shoes.

The men wore shirts, always white, with a straight slit across the chest; in summer - linen, in winter - cloth pants. The outerwear of the Finns was white, gray, brown or blue long cloth caftans. (viitta) , sewn to the waist, with wedges expanding them from the waist. Warm clothes were underwear (rottiekka) and sheepskin coat. Especially for a long time, the Eurämöiset Finns kept the old wide-brimmed black, gray or brown felt hats with a low crown, similar to the hats of St. Petersburg cabbies. And the Savakot Finns from the end of the 19th century. began to wear city caps and caps. Shoes were usually leather, home-made, but they also wore high purchased boots. This was considered a sign of wealth, and often on the Ingrian roads one could meet a barefoot Finn carrying boots behind his back and putting them on only at the entrance to a village or city.

FAMILY RITUALS

Finnish families had many children. In addition, the Finns often took children from St. Petersburg orphanages to raise, which was well paid by the treasury. These adopted children were called reepiplapset(“state children”), and over time, Orthodox peasants grew up from them with Russian names and surnames, but who spoke only Finnish.

Birth of a child

They usually gave birth to children in a bathhouse with the help of a local midwife or one of the older women of the court. After giving birth, married village women with treats and gifts went to the "bride" ( rotinat < рус. «родины») и по традиции дарили деньги «на зубок» (hammasraha). In the first days of life, before baptism, the child was defenseless: he could be “replaced”, various “evil forces” were dangerous to him, therefore, during the first bath, salt was added to the water or a silver coin was put, and a knife or scissors were hidden in the bed. They tried to christen the child as soon as possible. And a week later, the godfather and mother carried the child to church. The importance of godparents in Finnish families was very great.

wedding ceremonies

Young people were considered adults when they mastered certain labor skills. But in order to get permission to marry, they had to go through confirmation (a rite of conscious entry into the church community), and all young people aged 17-18 studied at the confirmation school at the parish church for two weeks (therefore, the literacy rate of the Ingrian Finns was very high ).

Ingrian girls usually got married at 18-20 years old, and boys at 20-23 years old. Daughters were to be given to husbands by seniority. If the younger sister was the first to marry, it would be an insult to the eldest and she was awarded the nickname rasi (rasi) (Russian “fallen, but not yet burned forest for burning”). After 23-24 years old, a girl could only count on marriage with a widower, although a guy at 30-35 years old was not yet considered an “old bachelor”.

As a rule, the bride was chosen by the boyfriend's parents, and first of all they paid attention to whether she was a good worker, whether she had a rich dowry, what reputation her family had. At the same time, the beauty of the girl was not so important. It was possible to look after the bride at joint village work, and on trips to distant mowing, and on walks near the church on church holidays. In winter, young people met in the evenings at gatherings, where the girls were engaged in needlework, and the guys came to visit them. At the end of the XIX century. among the Finns of Northern Ingermanland, the old Finnish custom of “night” matchmaking was still preserved - they called it “night running” or “night walking” (yojuoksu,yojalankaynti). In the summer, the girls slept not in the house, but in the crate, they went to bed dressed, and the guys had the right to visit them at night, they could sit on the edge of the bed, even lie next to them, but the norms of chastity should not be violated. Guys who violated these rules could be excluded from the association of village boys. In the past, a night walk around the yards was a group, but at the end of the 19th century. the guys were already walking alone. Such late-night visits by girls' parents were discouraged and usually did not lead to marriage.

Matchmaking among the Ingrian Finns retained its ancient features for a long time: it was multi-stage, with repeated visits of matchmakers, a visit by the bride to the groom's house. This gave both sides time to think. Even the first arrival of matchmakers was often preceded by a secret request whether matchmakers would be accepted. They went on horseback to get married, even if the bride lived in the same village. At this ceremony, which was called "payment" (rahomine) or "long sandals" (pitkatvirsut), the bride was left with a pledge, money or a ring. In response, the bride gave the guy a neckerchief or handkerchief . The handkerchief was smart, it was used as a decoration of the costume: it was placed behind the ribbon of the hat when entering the church. A few days later, the girl, accompanied by an older woman, went to the groom’s house “to look at a place for a spinning wheel” and returned the pledge she received to the guy. But this did not mean her refusal, but allowed the guy to refuse the proposal made. Usually, the guy soon carried the log back, confirming his offer. Then the engagement was announced in the church. The bride and groom arrived separately for the announcement, and then the groom and the matchmaker went to the bride's house, where they agreed on the wedding day, the number of guests, and, most importantly, discussed the size of the dowry.

The bride's dowry consisted of three parts: first, her parents gave her a heifer cow, several sheep and chickens. In addition, the bride took a chest with stocks of linen, her shirts, skirts, winter clothes, her spinning wheel, sickle and rake. The third part of the dowry was a box with gifts for new relatives and important guests at the wedding: shirts, belts, towels, mittens, caps. In order to collect the required amount of gifts, the bride often went around neighboring villages with an elderly relative, receiving as a gift either raw wool and linen, or yarn, or ready-made things, or just money. This ancient custom of mutual aid was called "Wolf Walking" (susimipep).

The wedding ceremony itself was divided into two parts: "departure" (laksiaiset) were held in the bride's house, and the wedding itself (haat) was celebrated in the groom's house, and guests were invited to both houses separately. Both the “departure” and the wedding were accompanied by ancient rites, the lamentations of the bride and numerous songs.

Funeral

According to the popular beliefs of the Ingrian Finns, life in the next world differed little from earthly life, therefore, at the funeral of the deceased at the end of the 19th century. supplied with the necessary supplies of food, working equipment and even money. The deceased was treated both with respect and with fear, since it was believed that at the time of death only the spirit left the human body (henki), while the soul (sielu) for some time she was near the body and could hear the words of the living.

The dead were usually buried on the third day in the parish Lutheran cemeteries in the presence of the pastor. The main principle of the Lutheran burial is its namelessness, because the grave is the burial place of the body shell that has lost its soul with its personal manifestations, and the only grave sign should be a four-pointed cross without indicating names and dates. But at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. in Ingria, surprisingly beautiful iron forged crosses of various forms began to spread, they can still be seen in the old parish Finnish cemeteries in Kelto, in Tuutari, in Järvisaari. At the same time, in Western Ingermanland, in the parish of Narvus, traditional wooden crosses were given individual features with the help of “house signs” (graphic signs of ownership) and indicating the date of death. And in Central Ingermanland (especially in the parish of Kupanits), unusual crosses made of tree trunks and branches were sometimes placed over the graves.

CALENDAR AND FOLK HOLIDAYS

In the folk calendar of the Ingrian Finns, one can find both ancient magical pagan features, and echoes of the Catholic calendar, which once circulated in Finland, and the strict norms of the Lutheran dogma, which swept the northern countries in the 16th century. The influence of Orthodox neighbors - Russians, Izhora and Vodi - is also visible in it.

Time was counted by months and weeks, but the main "reference points" in the annual life of the Ingrian Finn were holidays. The beginning of field and home work was tied to them, future weather and even life were determined from them. Holidays divided the year into certain periods, giving clarity, clarity and regularity to existence.

It was easy to remember the annual order, connecting the holidays and counting by months, as they once did in the parish of Gubanitsa:

Joulust kuu Puavalii,

Puavalist kuu Mattii,

Matist kuu Muarujaa,

Muarijast kuu Jyrkii,

Jurist kuu juhanuksee,

Juhanuksest kuu Iiliaa,

Iiliast kuu juakoppii…

From Christmas month to Paul,

From Paul a month to Matthew,

From Matthew a month to Mary,

From Mary a month to St. George's day,

From Yuriev a month to Yuhannus,

From Yuhannus a month to Elijah,

From Ilya a month to Jacob ...

We will briefly tell only about the main holidays of the Ingrian Finns in the calendar order of their following.

January

January is also known in Ingria under the usual Finnish name for "axial month" ( Tammikuu), called it "the first core month" ( ensimmä inen sydä nkuu) and "winter holiday" ( talvipyhä inkuu) .

New Year (1.01)

To count the beginning of the year from the first of January was a long-standing church tradition among the Finns. The celebration of the new year began in Finnish churches as early as 1224. But in the villages of Ingria, ancient pagan beliefs joined this church holiday. So, it was believed that the first actions in the new year determine the year and the first New Year's day is a model for the entire subsequent year. Every move, every word of this day cuts off other possibilities, reduces choices, and creates a sustainable order. Therefore, it was important to strictly observe the order of household work, to be restrained in words and benevolent to households and neighbors.

And of course, as before all important holidays, on the eve of the new year, the girls always guessed. As in Russian houses, the Finns poured tin and recognized their future by the resulting figures, and the most daring in a dark room by candlelight looked for the groom in the mirror. If the girl hoped to see the groom in a dream, then she made a well log house out of matches, which she hid under her pillow: in a dream, the future groom would certainly appear at the well to water the horse.

There were also “terrible” fortune-telling: they went to “listen” at the crossroads - after all, it was there that the spirits gathered during the New Year and Easter time and on the eve of the summer holiday Yuhannus. But before that, they necessarily circled around themselves so that the evil forces would not touch the person. Standing in such a circle, they listened for a long time to the signs of an approaching event. If a crackling or rumble of a wagon was heard, this meant a good harvest year, and the sound of sharpening a scythe was a sign of a lean year. Music foreshadowed the wedding, the sound of planks meant death.

Evil spirits were mobile and strong, especially from Christmas to Epiphany, but they could not get inside through the "baptized" windows and doors. Therefore, the owners made cross signs on the doors and windows, usually with charcoal or chalk. And in Western Ingermanland, on every holiday, the house was “baptized” in different ways: on Christmas - with chalk, on New Year's Eve - with coal, and on Epiphany - with a knife. The yard and barn were also protected with cross signs.

Everyone was waiting for the onset of the morning of the new year and peered through the door, because if a male guest enters the house first, then the cattle will have a large offspring, but the arrival of a woman always brought misfortune.

On New Year's morning, it was necessary to go to church, and on the way back home they arranged a ride on horseback for distillation, so that this year all the work was done on time. They believed that the fastest rider would be the first in all matters for a whole year.

New Year's Day was usually spent in the family circle. On this day, all the best was put on the table: roast meat and herring salad, jelly, meat or mushroom soup, fish in different types, berry compote and cranberry jelly. They baked cabbage, mushroom, carrot and berry pies, loved pies with egg and rice and cheesecakes with jam. These days there should have been a lot of treats, because if the food on the table ended before the end of the holidays, this meant that poverty would come to the house. In the evening, the young people gathered to dance and play, they especially preferred the game of collateral (forfeits), blind man's buff and round dances.

Baptism (6.01)

Finns-Lutherans Baptism ( loppiainen) was a church holiday. But almost all Finnish villages had their own folk customs associated with this day. The Orthodox in Ingermanland had the blessing of water on this day, and often Finns could be seen in the religious processions.

In the villages of Western Ingermanland, where ancient customs were preserved for a long time, young girls at Baptism tried in various ways to find out their fate. On Epiphany night, the girls shouted at the crossroads: "Sound, sound the voice of the dear, bark, bark, father-in-law's dog!" From which side a voice sounds, or a dog barking is heard, the girl will be married there. They also guessed like this: on the Epiphany evening, the girls took grain and poured it on the ground. How many girls there were, how many heaps of grain they made, and then they brought a rooster. Whose bunch the rooster pecks first, that girl will be the first to marry.

One could also guess like this: sweep the floor on the eve of Epiphany, collect garbage in the hem, run with bare feet to the crossroads, and if there is no crossroads, then to the beginning of the road. Then it was necessary to put rubbish on the ground, stand on it and listen: from where the dogs bark - from there the matchmakers will come, from which side the bells will ring, they will marry there.

February

This month had different names: "pearl month" ( helmikuu), "second core month" ( toinen sydä nkuu), "candle month" ( kyynelkuu- this name is believed to have been borrowed from the Estonian folk calendar). Usually the celebration of Maslenitsa fell on February.

Maslenitsa

This holiday did not have a strict date, and it was celebrated 40 days before Easter. Finnish name for this holiday ( laskiainen) comes from the word laskea- "go down". According to Finnish researchers, this is due to the idea of ​​“lowering” “immersion” into fasting (after all, during the time of Finnish Catholicism, the pre-Easter fast began from this day), and Easter received a Finnish name pää siä inen, which means "exit" (from the post).

In the folk calendar, Maslenitsa is associated with women's work, and the holiday was considered "female". In the first half of the day, everyone worked, but the use of threads and spinning was forbidden, otherwise, they said, a lot of bad things would happen in the summer: either the sheep would get sick, or the cows would injure their legs, snakes and flies would disturb, or maybe strike with a thunderstorm.

On this day, the floor was swept many times, and the garbage was carried far away, because they believed that then the fields would be clean from weeds. They tried to finish household chores early - "then the summer work will pass quickly and on time." Then everyone went to the bathhouse and sat down for an early supper. It was impossible to talk while eating, otherwise "insects will torture you in the summer." Meat was always eaten on Maslenitsa, in accordance with the saying: “You have to drink at Christmas, but eat meat on Shrove Tuesday.” There had to be a lot of food, so that the table would not be empty all day, while they said: “Let the tables be full all year, like today!”. And the treats themselves had to be fatty: “the more fat shines on the fingers and mouths, the more pigs will fatten up meat in the summer, the cows will be better milked, and the more housewives churn butter.” Boiled pork legs were one of the main treats on the table, but the bones left after eating were always taken into the forest and buried under the trees, believing that then the flax would grow well. Perhaps, in this custom, the features of the ancient worship of trees and the offering of sacrifices to them appear.

The main entertainment on Maslenitsa was skiing from the mountains in the afternoon. Skating, a rich harvest and the growth of "especially high" flax - everything was intertwined in the Maslenitsa celebration in Ingermanland. When riding in the parish of Keltto, they shouted: “Hey, hey, hey, long, white, strong flax and durable linen, such high flax as this mountain!” (101). And the Finns from the western village of Kallivieri shouted: “Roll, roll, carnival! High flax rolling, low - sleeping, small - sitting on the bench! Whoever does not come to ride, his flax will get wet, bend down to the ground! They also rode on a sled, and in the old sieve they froze the water, and it was possible to quickly and cheerfully go down the mountain on it.

Archaic female fertility magic was strong these days. In Northern Ingermanland, in the parish of Miikkulaisi, Maslenitsa was celebrated according to ancient customs, riding from the mountains “with a bare backside” in order to transfer the “bearing power” to flax. And in Central Ingermanland, women, having been in a bathhouse, descended naked from the mountain with a broom on their heads, if they wanted good high flax.

When descending from the mountain, they wished the house another rich harvest: “Let the rye grow big, like ram's horns! And barley is like fir cones! And the sheep will be woolen, like tows! And let the cows be milked by the stream!

Where there were no hills (and where they were!), they recovered to ride horses in neighboring villages, paying for the horse and the work of the driver. And so in many places this day was called the "great rolling day." The harness of the horse was decorated with colored paper and straw, a large straw doll “suutari” was tied over the saddle, as if she were driving this horse. In the vicinity of Gatchina, during the whole Shrove Tuesday, they carried with them a straw “Shrovetide grandfather” and a poker with painted ribbons. Many sledges were tied behind the horse one after another, where older people also sat, but usually girls and boys gathered in different sledges. During the ride, the girls sang skating songs, in which they glorified the cabman, the horse, all the young and their native places. After all, it is not by chance that in Western Ingermanland they said: "Whoever does not sing at Shrovetide, he will not sing in the summer either."

In winter, especially during the Orthodox Shrovetide week, the Ingrian Finns went to the cities to work as cab drivers, where they were known under the name "veika" (from the Finnish veikko- brother). The horse was harnessed to a festive sleigh, bells were put on its neck, the harness was decorated with beautiful paper, a doll made of straw like “suutari” was attached to the arc or saddle. They sang about such straw "suutari":

"The Lord sits on an arc, beloved on shafts, rides in city ribbons ...".

For five kopecks it was possible to rush not only along the streets of St. Petersburg, but also along the ice of the Neva, to go to Tsarskoye Selo, Gatchina and Peterhof. Wake riding ended at the start of World War I, when both men and horses were taken to war.

March

Main title March ( maaliskuu- earth month) received because at this time the earth is shown from under the snow: “March opens the earth”, “March shows the earth and fills the streams”) (137) .. Other names of the month in Ingria - hankikuu(Nast month) (135) and pä lvikuu(month of thaw) (1360.

Mary's Day (25.03)

Annunciation ( Marian pä ivä ) in Finnish Ingermanland was called Red Mary ( Puna-Maaria). At the same time, they necessarily paid attention to the weather: “If the land does not appear on Mary, then summer will not come on St. George’s Day.” In the parish of Skvoritsa, it was believed that “what is in Mary on the roof, then on St. George’s day on the ground,” and in the parish of Narvusi on the Luga River they said: “If there is a thaw in Red Mary, then the year will be berry.” On Mary, the girls took care of their beauty and ate cranberries and other red berries picked on the previous autumn Mary, so that their cheeks would remain red all year.

Easter

In Finnish, the name of the holiday pää siä inen comes from the word pää stä , which means the act of exit or deliverance from fasting, sin, and death. Easter does not have a fixed date and is usually celebrated in April. The Easter period lasted 8 days and began on Palm or Palm Saturday, followed by Holy Week ( piinaviikko- a week of torment), when it was impossible to do anything noisy or use sharp objects. It was believed that at this time the souls of the dead move around people, taking away the offered food and giving signs of future events.

The first day was Palm Sunday palmusunnuntai). Willow branches with red bark were collected in advance and placed in water so that leaves appeared. Multi-colored shreds of fabric, paper flowers and caramel candy wrappers were attached to the branches, lingonberry stalks and juniper branches were added (“for greenery”). The idea of ​​purification and expulsion of evil spirits is connected with "recruitment", therefore, first they recruited themselves, then family members and animals. It was important to recruit early, before dawn, when the evil forces began to move, so often the recruiters caught the sleepers by surprise.

In Ingermanland, it was customary to give one's willow bouquet, and such "gifts" were placed by the owners behind the door frame or between the shutters. It was believed that these willows gave livestock health and protected the economy, therefore, on St. George's Day (on the day of the first cattle pasture), they drove animals to pasture. After that, the branches were thrown into the water or taken to the field and planted to "grow", which improved the growth of flax.

When recruiting, they sang songs in which they wished health and wealth, the well-being of livestock and a good harvest:

Kui monta urpaa,

Nii monta uuttii,

Kui monta varpaa,

Nii monta vasikkaa,

Kui monta lehteä,

Nii monta lehmää,

Kui monta oksaa,

Nii onta onnea!

Queen monta oksaa,

Niin mont orrii.

How much willow

So many lambs

How many rods

So many calves.

How many leaves.

So many cows.

How many branches.

So much happiness.

How many branches

So many stallions.

As a return gift, they asked kuostia(gifts) - a piece of cake, a spoonful of butter, sometimes money. And a week later, on Easter Sunday, the children went from house to house, where they recruited and collected treats.

Easter Thursday ( kiiratorstai) was a day of cleansing from sin and all that was bad. According to the Finns , kiira- some evil force, a creature living in the yard, and he should have been driven into the forest that day. But researchers believe that this word comes from the old Swedish name for this day - skirslapoordagher(cleansing, clean Thursday). Finnish peasants have rethought this holiday and its incomprehensible name. "Kiira" was taken around the house three times, and a circle was made on all the doors of the rooms with chalk or clay, and in the center - a cross. They believed that after performing such actions, the evil forces would leave, and the snakes would not appear in the yard in the summer. This Thursday it was impossible to do any work related to torsion - it was impossible to spin and knit brooms.

Easter Friday ( pitkä perjantai) any work was prohibited. We went to church, but it was impossible to visit. It was believed that this Friday and Saturday ( lankalauantai) - the worst days of the year, when all the evil forces are in motion, and Jesus is still sleeping in the grave and cannot protect anyone. In addition, witches and evil spirits begin to walk and fly around the world, causing harm. Just as in Christmas and New Year's time, doors and window openings were protected from them, placing cross signs and blessing buildings, animals and residents. These days, the housewives themselves could resort to magical actions to increase their wealth, especially in cattle breeding, therefore, most often they conjured over neighboring cows and sheep. And in the morning of the next day, careless owners could find traces of someone else's witchcraft in their barn - sheared wool from sheep, cut or scorched pieces of skin from cows (the conjured neighbors then nailed them to the bottom of their butter churns to adopt someone else's luck).

On Easter Saturday, the housewives of Ingria had pre-holiday chores. At this time, supplies were already running out, and the festive table required a rich treat. Especially tasty at Easter were closed wheat pies with rice groats, with cottage cheese or "strong milk" (sour milk baked in the oven). Such "strong milk" was often eaten with milk and sugar. Salted milk was also prepared for the Easter table, mixed with sour cream and salt - it was eaten instead of butter and cheese with bread, potatoes or pancakes. Egg butter and dyed chicken eggs were also obligatory Easter food in Ingrian villages. Eggs were most often dyed either with onion skins or broom leaves.

And finally, Easter Sunday arrived. Clear weather in the morning spoke of a future good harvest of grain and berries. If the sun was in the clouds, then it was expected that frosts would destroy flowers and berries, and the summer would be rainy. And if it was raining, then everyone was waiting for a cold summer. For a long time in Ingermanland, an old custom was preserved when on Easter morning they were going to watch the sunrise, while they said that "it dances with joy." Then everyone necessarily went to church for a festive service, and the church on that day could hardly accommodate the inhabitants of all nearby villages.

On Easter morning, after church, the children went to receive gifts. Entering the hut, they greeted each other, wished a good Easter and announced: "We have come to pick up the gifts."

Everything was already prepared in the houses, and it was a matter of honor to give what the recruiters asked for a week ago: eggs, pastries, sweets, fruit or money.

At Easter, bonfires were lit and swings began to swing. Bonfires ( kokko, pyhä valkea) is an old pre-Christian tradition. They were usually built on the eve of Easter on high places near fields, cattle pastures and familiar swing places. It was believed that lighting fires expels bad power and protects people. Ingermanland had its own "wheel" bonfires, when an old tarred cartwheel (sometimes a tar barrel) was attached to a high pole and lit, and it burned like a "night sun" for a long time.

Swinging has long been common in Ingrian villages. It began precisely at Easter, and the swing ( keinuja, liekkuja) became a meeting place for young people throughout the spring and summer. Up to 20 girls could sit on a large swing, made of thick logs and large strong boards, and 4-6 guys would swing them standing up.

Swing songs were usually sung by girls, while one of them was the leader ( eissä lauluja), while others sang along, picking up the last word and repeating the stanza. Thus, it was possible to learn new songs. About 60 swing songs, sung on the Easter swing, have been collected in Ingria. Common themes of such songs were the origin of the swing made by either the brother or the guest, the quality of the swing, and advice to the swingers. Those young people who failed to get on the swing sang "circle songs" (rinkivirsiä ) , circling in round dances and waiting for their turn.

From the beginning of the 20th century, pole swings began to disappear, although they were also installed in places in the 1940s.

April

Finnish name for April ( huhtikuu) comes from the old word huhta(coniferous fire). In Ingermanland this month is also known as mahlakuu (mahla- tree sap).

Yurki (23.04)

In Ingria, St. George was credited with success in spring sowing and was worshiped as a protector of domestic animals. On St. George's Day ( Jurki, Yrjö n pä ivä ) for the first time after winter, cattle were driven out to pasture. They believed that the protection of the saint, as the owner of the forest, closing the mouths of wolves and the guardian of livestock, extends all the time of summer grazing until the day of Mikkeli or Martin.

Even before the start of grazing, the mistresses and the shepherd performed various magical actions that were supposed to protect the herd from accidents and wild animals.

The strongest protection was given by iron objects. To do this, axes, shovels, pokers, knives and other iron objects were placed on top or below the gates and doors through which the animals went out to run. The “sacred” villages could also protect the animals, and magic helped to increase the herd. At the beginning of the 19th century, they wrote: “When in the morning on St. George’s Day the cows are driven out into the street, first, on the run, the hostess takes a knife between her teeth and goes around the animals 3 times. Then he also takes a mountain ash, cuts off the top of it, puts it together, puts it on top of the gate or door, breaks the branches of the mountain ash, drives the animals out under them. Some housewives themselves climb over the gates or doors and drive the animals out between the legs.”

They believed that resin could protect animals. So, in the parish of Tyre, before pasturing a cow, for the first time in spring, they smeared it with resin at the base of the horns, at the base of the udder and under the tail and said: “Be as bitter as pitch is bitter!” It was believed that wild animals would not touch such a "bitter beast".

Even in autumn, a large "sowing bread" was baked from the previous year's harvest, with the image of a cross, which was kept all winter. And on St. George's Day, all the wealth of the previous harvest and the protective power of the cross could be transferred to domestic animals. To do this, the housewives put bread in a sieve, on top of it - salt and incense, and then a piece of bread was given to the cows.

The Yuryev customs among the Ingrian Finns also included pouring over the shepherd before the cattle were pastured or during the return of the herd home. But most often a bucket of water was poured on anyone they met, believing that it would bring good luck and prosperity.

May

In Ingermanland this month was also called the sowing month ( toukokuu), and the month of foliage (lehtikuu), and the month of lightning ( salamakuu). Usually in May there was the celebration of the Ascension.

Ascension

Ascension ( helatorstai) among the Ingrian Finns is considered one of the most important church holidays. It is celebrated 40 days after Easter. The name of this day comes from the Old Swedish language and means "Holy Thursday".

The days between Ascension and Peter's Day (29.6) were the most important in the peasant year. This is the time when cereals begin to bloom, and everyone was extremely afraid of all kinds of destructive phenomena, and not only weather, but also from the dead. In general, in Ingermanland, great attention was paid to the veneration of the dead. But at this time, they were not only, as usual, propitiated by sacrificing food and drink, they were also threatened with festive bonfires, believing that the dead were afraid of fire. In addition to fire, iron and water, red color and a strong cry could be used as a talisman. And the closer the time of flowering approached, the more tension increased. Therefore, from Ascension, the girls began to walk in red skirts and with red scarves on their shoulders along the village streets and fields, singing loud songs.

Trinity

Trinity ( helluntai) is held 50 days after Easter between May 10 and June 14. Trinity in Ingermanland is a significant church and folk holiday. He is also known by the name neljatpyhä t(fourth holidays), because his celebration lasted 4 days.

On the eve of the Trinity, a big cleaning was carried out in all the houses and after that they went to the bathhouse. It is no coincidence that Finnish folklore collectors noted: “Cleaning and cleaning rooms and people is of greater importance here than in Finland as a whole. As some holiday comes, for example, the Trinity, then women rush to clean and wash the huts. They scrape the walls of black huts white with knives or other iron objects.

After the church service, the main common event in the village was the lighting of "holy" bonfires. helavalkia. The ancient origin of these fires is proved by the fact that they were lit not in the usual way, but by rubbing thick dry torches against each other. All the village girls were supposed to come to the Trinity fire, and no one dared to leave, even if they wanted to. In the parish of Koprin, they gathered to the fire to the following song:

Lä htekää t tytö t kokoille,

Vanhat ammat valkialle!

Tuokaa tulta tullessanne,

Kekäleitä kengissänne!

Kuka ei tule tulelle

Eika vaarra valkialle,

Sille tyttö tehtaköön,

Rikinä ksi ristiköö n!

Gather girls to the fires,

Old grandmas to the fires!

Bring the fire coming

Smut in your shoes!

Who won't come to the fires

Do not dare (to approach) the fires,

Let them make a girl for that

Let the broken one be christened!

The threat could also sound like this: “Let him have a boy, become a potter!”, - after all, the work of a potter in the villages was considered dirty and hard.

When the guys finished building a fire, the girls gathered on the village street, preparing for the festive festivities. They took each other's hands and formed a "long circle » and they sang long "Kalevala" songs, when she sang the initial stanza, and the whole choir repeated either the entire stanza, or only the last words. The singer led out: “Come, girls, to the night fires, hoi!”. And the chorus picked up: “Ay, lo-lee, to the night fires, ho-oh!”

It was a bewitching sight: hundreds of brightly dressed girls moving, a uniform, deaf clatter of feet, a sharp joyful voice of the leader and a powerful choir responding with many voices! It is no coincidence that Finnish researchers wrote that only after hearing trinity songs in Ingermanland, one can imagine what the original meaning of the festive “holy cry” was.

When the girls arrived at the firefield, the guys lit the fire. Tarred wheels, barrels, tree stumps were burned on Trinity bonfires, and straw “suutari” should have been burned there, which were not burned on other festive bonfires. When the fire flared up, the girls stopped their round dances and stopped singing, and all eyes were riveted to the fire, waiting for the suutari to break out. And when, finally, the flames engulfed the suutari, everyone screamed so loudly "that their lungs could burst"!

June

June was called differently in Ingermanland: and kesä kuu(Fallowfield month), and suvikuu(summer month), and kylvö kuu(month of sowing). The Finns from Gubanitsy spoke of the usual June chores: "Three hurries in the summer: the first rush is the sowing of spring crops, the second is a sonorous haymaking, the third is the usual rye business." But the most important event of June has always been the ancient holiday of Yuhannus - the day of the summer solstice.

Johannus (24.06)

Although the holiday was officially considered a church holiday - a day in honor of John the Baptist, it completely retained its pre-Christian appearance, and the influence of the church comes through only in its name. juhannus (Juhana- John). In Western Ingermanland this holiday was called Yaani.

Everything was important during Yuhannus: high festive bonfires, and songs until the morning, and fortune-telling about the future, and protection from witches and supernatural beings, and one's own secret witchcraft.

The main village business these days was a fire. On the eve of the holiday, a tar barrel or an old cart wheel was raised to a high pole in the “bonfire” fields, where the “holy” Ascension bonfires had recently burned. Old boats were set on fire in coastal villages. But very special "leg fires" (sää ri kokko) bonfires were built in Northern Ingermanland. There, a week before Yuhannus, the guys and village shepherds drove 4 long poles into the ground, which formed a square at the base of the fire. Dry stumps and other junk trees were placed inside these "legs", which formed a high tower tapering upwards. The fire was always set on fire from the top, but not with matches, but with coals, birch bark or a torch, which they brought with them.

When the fire burned down, they continued to celebrate, singing, swinging, dancing.

According to pre-Christian beliefs, evil spirits and witches became active on the night before Juhannus. They believed that witches were able to take away material objects and profit at the expense of their neighbor. Therefore, all harrows and other tools of labor had to be placed on top of the ground so that the witches would not take away the grain luck. And the housewives placed a grip in the barn window so that bad housewives would not come to milk milk, and they said: “Milk my grip, not my cows.” On this night, one could also remember the old witchcraft: it was necessary to secretly, stripped naked and let down your hair, sit on top of the butter churn and “churn” invisible butter in it - then the cows will give good milk yield all year and the butter will turn out good.

“Couples” became active on Yuhannus’s night. "Para" was one of the most common mythological creatures in Ingria. She was seen in various forms: as a fiery wheel or a flaming ball with a long thin burning tail, and similar to a red barrel, and in the form of a pitch black cat. She came to take away luck, wealth, grain from the fields and barns, milk, butter, etc., and therefore distinguished between money, grain and milk "pairs". The one who baptized objects avoided her comings. But each hostess herself could create a “pair” for herself. It was necessary on the night of Yuhannus to go to the bathhouse or barn, taking with them a birch bark and four spindles. The “head” and “body” were made from birch bark, and “legs” were made from spindles. Then the hostess, completely undressed, imitated "birth", saying three times:

Synny, synny, Parasein

Voita, maitoo kantamaan! Butter, milk to wear!

Fortune-telling was especially important for Yuhannus, and they tried to achieve happiness for themselves and well-being for the household. Fortune-telling has already begun on the eve of the holiday. In Western Ingermanland, they also guessed about future events when going to the bath before the holiday: “When in the evening they go to Yaani to wash, they put flowers around the broom and put it in water, and wash their eyes with this water. When they come out after washing, they throw a broom over their heads onto the roof. When the butt is up on the roof, they say, then you will die, and if the top is up, then you will continue to live, and when it turns out to be sideways, then you will get sick. And if you throw it into the river and go to the bottom, then you will die, and remain on top of the water, then you will live.

And the girls, by the position of the broom, determined where they would marry: where the broom lies with the top, they will marry in that direction.

The girls also collected bouquets of 8 types of flowers, put them under the pillow and waited for the future groom to appear in a dream. And those who wanted to get married could lie naked in the rye field belonging to the guy's house until the night dew washed their skin. The purpose was to kindle love desire in the beloved when he would later eat the bread of this field. It was also believed that Yuhannus dew cured skin diseases and made the face beautiful. At the crossroads, where souls were believed to gather, people went to listen to omen signs. From which side the bells rang, the girl will marry there. And when the “foot” fire was lit, each girl chose for herself any of the fire “legs”: which of the legs would fall first after burning, that girl would marry first, and if the “leg” remained standing, then the girl would remain unmarried this year .

July August

July bore the name heinä kuu(month of haymaking), and August - elokuu(month of life) or mä tä kuu(rotten month). The main concerns at that time were haymaking, harvesting, sowing winter rye. Therefore, holidays were not celebrated, only in mixed villages the Finns-Lutherans joined the Orthodox and celebrated Ilya (20.07).

September

This month was called in Ingermanland and as in all of Finland syyskuu(autumn month) and sä nkikuu(month of stubble), because in this month the entire crop was harvested from the fields, and only stubble remained in the fields. Field work ended and the Finns said: "Turnip - in the pits, women - in the house ...".

Mikkelinp ä iv ä (29.9)

Mikkeli was a common and especially revered holiday throughout Ingermanland. In Mikkeli's celebration, traces of the previous autumn sacrifices have been preserved. We are talking about special "Mikkel" rams - they were chosen in the spring, they were not sheared, and they were eaten at the holiday, boiled right in the wool (therefore, such a ram was also called the "woolen lamb").

In many Finnish villages, Mikkeli marked the end of grazing, and on this day shepherds celebrated the end of their work. This is how this holiday was described in Northern Ingermanland: “Mikkeli's holiday was widely celebrated in his native village. Pies were baked and beer was brewed. Relatives came from near and far. The young were on the day of Mikkeli in the shepherds. It was such an old custom that the shepherd received a free day at the conclusion of the contract of payment, and the young villagers took his place. In the evening, when the cows were driven from the pasture and returned to the village, the best holiday of the guys began. Then they went from house to house, brought many buckets of beer and pies.

October

October was known in Ingermanland under the name lokakuu(month of dirt), and ruojakuu(month of food).

Katarinan p ä iv ä (24.10)

Once upon a time this day was in Ingria one of the most important holidays associated with the welfare of domestic animals. For the holiday, beer was put from especially carefully selected components, and if the chickens managed to taste at least one grain of malt for catharine beer, then it was believed that this would bring misfortune. In the morning, they cooked a special “katarina” porridge, the water for which had to be taken first from the well in the morning. The porridge was taken to the barn and given along with beer, first to cattle, only then to people. Before the meal, they always said: “Good Katarina, beautiful Katarina, give me a white calf, it would be nice to have a black one, and a motley one would come in handy.” To get good luck in livestock, they also prayed like this: “Good Katarina, beautiful Katarina, eat butter, jelly, don’t kill our cows.”

Since the cause of the death of St. Catherine was the martyr's wheel, on this day it was impossible to spin or grind flour on hand millstones.

November

MARRASKUU- KUURAKUU

Common Finnish name for this month ( marraskuu) comes from the word "dead (earth)" or with the meaning "month of the dead". Ingermanland also knew the name kuurakuu(hoarfrost month).

Sielujenp ä iv ä- Pyh ä inp ä iv ä (01.11)

Under this name they celebrated the day of all the holy martyrs, and the next day - the day of all souls. In Ingermanland, the cult of the dead persisted for a long time among Lutheran Finns as well. It was believed that in the fall, during the dark season, the dead could come to their former homes, and that the dead could move especially at night on the eve of the feast of all saints. Therefore, this time was spent in silence, and on the eve of the holiday, straw was laid on the floor so that “when walking, your feet would not knock.”

Jakoaika

The ancient Finnish year ended at the end of November. The next month, the winter month, modern December, began the new year. There was a special period between them - jakoaika(“section time”), which was carried out in different places at different times, attaching it either to the end of the harvest or to the autumn slaughter of livestock. In Ingermanland, the division time lasted from All Saints' Day (01.11) to St. Martin's Day (10.11). The weather at that time was used to predict the weather of the next year: the weather of the first day corresponded to the weather in January, the second day - in February, etc. . The time of division was considered dangerous - "diseases fly in all directions." And this was a favorable time for divination about future events. The girls went secretly to “listen” under the windows of the huts: what male name you hear three times, with that name you will get yourself a groom. If swearing was heard from the room, then the subsequent life would consist of quarrels, but if songs or good words were heard, then a harmonious family life followed. The girls made a “well” out of matches and placed it under their pillow, hoping that the real groom would appear in a dream to water his horse. The guys also wondered: in the evenings they locked the well, assuming that the real bride would come at night in a dream to “pick up the keys”.

Partition time was an old festive time when many hard day-to-day jobs were forbidden. It was forbidden to wash clothes, shear sheep, spin and cut animals - it was believed that violation of the prohibitions would lead to diseases of domestic animals. It was a time of rest when visiting relatives or doing light work inside the house. These days it was good for men to mend and knit nets, and for women to knit socks. They didn’t ask the neighbors for anything, but they didn’t give anything from home either, because they believed that a new one would not take the place given. Later, these worries about taking property or losing one's luck carried over to the time of Christmas and New Year's Eve, like many other customs and taboos.

Martin p ä iv ä (10.11)

For a long time in Ingria, Martti was considered as big a holiday as Christmas or Epiphany, because earlier on these days serfs were given free time.

In Ingermanland, children in torn clothes went from house to house caroling - singing Marttin songs, dancing round dances and asking for food. The senior leader had sand in a box, which she scattered on the floor, wishing the house good luck in bread and livestock. Often they wished something to each member of the family: to the owner - “10 good horses, so that everyone could walk in the cart”, to the mistress - “hands - to knead bread, fingers - to knead butter, and full barns”, to the master's sons: “from below - a walking horse, on top - a right helmet", and for daughters - "sheds full of sheep, fingers full of rings". If the carolers did not receive the desired gifts, they could wish the hosts misfortunes in the family, in agriculture and cattle breeding, or even a fire in the house!

December

And then came the last month of the year, and together with its new name joulukuu(Christmas month), he kept in Ingermanland and his old name talvikuu ( month of winter). The main winter holiday among the Ingrian Finns in the 19th century was Christmas.

Joulu (25.12)

Among Lutherans, Christmas was considered the biggest holiday of the year and was expected as a church holiday and as a family holiday: "Come, feast, come, Christmas, the huts have already been cleaned, and the clothes have been stored." Preparations for Christmas began in advance, and the holiday itself lasted 4 days.

On Christmas Eve, they heated the bathhouse and brought Christmas straw into the hut, on which they slept on Christmas night. Christmas Eve was very dangerous: many supernatural beings, evil spirits and souls of the dead were set in motion. Various means were used to protect against them. It was possible to put iron or sharp objects above (or under) the door. It was possible to light candles or a fire in the furnace, and watch all night so that they do not go out. But the best means were protective magical signs that were painted on places that needed to be protected. The most common sign was the cross, which was made with pitch, chalk or coal on the doors of almost all houses in Ingermanland and in Johannus, and on the "long Friday" before Easter, and especially on Christmas. On the eve of the holiday, the owner, having stuck the ax in his belt, went to make cross signs on all four sides of the doors and windows of the hut, on the gates and windows of the yard and barn. At the end of the round, the ax was placed under the table.

With darkness, candles were lit, Christmas texts from the gospel were read, and psalms were sung. Dinner followed. Christmas food had to be very plentiful, if it ran out in the middle of the holidays, this meant that poverty would come into the house. The preparation of traditional Christmas food most often began with the slaughter of livestock. Usually a pig was slaughtered for Christmas, sometimes a calf or a ram. Christmas beer, kvass were brewed in advance, jelly was made and a Christmas ham was baked. Meat or mushroom soup, meat roast, jelly, salted herring and other fish supplies, sausage, cheese, pickles and mushrooms, cranberry jelly and berry or fruit compote were placed on the Christmas table. They also baked pies - carrot, cabbage, rice with egg, berry and jam.

All the time of Christmas on the table lay a special "cross" bread, on which the sign of the cross was applied. The owner cut off only a piece of such bread for food, and the bread itself was taken to the barn for baptism, where it was stored until the shepherd and cattle received part of it in the spring on the day of the first cattle pasture and the sower on the first day of sowing.

After dinner, the games with the straw doll began. olkasuutari. This word is translated as "straw shoemaker", but researchers believe that it comes from the Russian word "sir". Each Finnish parish of Ingermanland had its own tradition of making suutari. Most often, they took a large armful of rye straw, bent it in half, making a “head” at the place of the fold, and tightly tied wet straw around the “neck”. Then the “hands” were separated and tied in the middle, in place of the belt. There were usually three "legs" so that the suutari could stand. But there were also such suutari who had no legs at all or had two legs. Sometimes they made as many suutari as there were men in the house. And in the parish of Venjoki, every woman had her own straw suutari.

One of the most common ways to play with suutari was as follows: the players stood with their backs to each other, holding the length of a stick between their legs. At the same time, one of the players, who was with his back to the suutari, tried to knock it over with a stick, and standing facing the straw doll, tried to protect it from falling.

They tried to find out from the suutari any important things related to the house: the local suutari made a crown of ears of corn on their heads, for which a handful of ears of corn were randomly snatched from a sheaf of straw. If the number of ears taken was even, then this year one could expect a new daughter-in-law to come to the house. With the help of suutari, the girls guessed about the events of the next year in this way: “Girls of marriageable age sat around the table, and the suutari were placed upright in the middle. Some girl said: “Now we are guessing for you!” At the same time, they began to shake the table with their hands, and the suutari began to jump until he fell into the arms of a girl, which foreshadowed this girl to get married soon. Then the suutari was seated either in the corner of the table, or raised to the mother, where it was kept until Yuhannus.

Ingermanland preserved the traditions of the parish for a long time. joulupukki ( Christmas goat). Joulupukki usually dressed in a sheepskin coat and a fur hat worn inside out. His fake tow beard looked like a goat's. In his hands was a knobby staff. Such a youlupukki was supposed to look rather intimidating in the eyes of young children, but the expectation of gifts won over the fear: toys, sweets, clothes, knitted things.

Even at the end of the 19th century, the Christmas tree was a rare thing, it was placed only in the houses of priests and public schools.

On Christmas morning they got up early, because. The service started at 6 o'clock. Parish churches on that day could not accommodate all those who came. They raced home from the church, because it was believed that the fastest work would be done best. They tried to spend Christmas at home, they didn’t go to visit and weren’t happy with the guests who accidentally came in, they were especially frightened by the arrival of a woman as the first guest - then a bad lean year was expected.

tapanin p ä iv ä (26.12)

In Ingria, the second Christmas day was celebrated - the day of Tapani, who was revered as the patron saint of horses. In the early morning, the owners put on clean clothes and went to the stable to water the animals, putting a silver ring or brooch in the drink in advance - they believed that silver could bring good luck in raising livestock.

But the main holiday of Tapani was for young people - from that day village festivities began. The older people spent their time in prayer, while the younger people went from house to house kiletoimassa(carols) - they sang praising songs in honor of the owners, who in return gave beer and vodka. This custom was borrowed from the Russians. In the western Ingrian villages, boys and girls also went igrissoil(from the Russian word "game"), which were held in village houses. In advance, they made masks from birch bark, painted their faces with charcoal or chalk, put on caftans, attached “humps” to their backs, took staffs in their hands .. They dressed as wolves and bears, boys could dress as girls, and vice versa. It was noisy fun: they beat drums, sang loudly, danced tirelessly. There were mummers in other places, and still in the parish of Tuutari, elderly people remember how important it was to dress in such a way that no one would recognize you - then you could get a good treat as a reward.

FOLKLER

Having come to the new lands of Ingermanland, the inhabitants of the Karelian Isthmus did not lose their ancient epic songs. And even at the beginning of the twentieth century, one could hear the old myth about the origin of the world from a bird's egg.

Whether the swallow of the day,

Becoming a night bat

Everything flew on a summer night

And autumn nights.

Looking for a place to nest

To lay an egg in it.

Copper nest cast -

It has a golden egg in it.

And the white of that testicle turned into a clear moon,

From the yolk of that egg

The stars are created in the sky.

People often went out

Look at the clear moon

Admire the sky.

(Recorded by Maria Vaskelainen of Lempaala parish in 1917).

Among the local Finns, folklorists in the late XIX - early XX centuries. recorded ancient runic songs about the creation of an island with a girl to whom various heroes woo and about forging a golden maiden and various objects. To the sounds of an ancient musical instrument kantele one could hear the story of the miraculous playing on it. Ancient songs about the competition of shamans in magical singing and about the transformation of a killed squirrel into a girl sounded in the Ingrian villages. All those who listened were frightened by the runes about the courtship of the insidious son Koyonen and his terrible murder of his bride, and were delighted by the songs about the girl Helena, who chose her husband from the edge of the sun. Only in Ingria they sang so much about the enmity of the families of two brothers - Kalervo and Untamo - and about the revenge of Kullervo - the son of Kalervo. Numerous wars that passed through the Ingrian lands left their mark on folklore: in many villages they sang songs about wheels rolling in blood under the walls of fortresses, about a horse bringing news of the death of its owner in the war.

And yet, the Kalevala epic and ritual songs, traditional for the Baltic-Finnish peoples, have survived little among the Ingrian Finns. The Finnish Lutheran Church showed intolerance towards other branches of Christianity and cruelty in the persecution of paganism, persistently banished pre-Christian folk customs. So, in 1667, a special code was approved, according to which no more than 2-3 people were allowed to be invited to a wedding dinner, and the church “Protocol” of 1872 prescribed “refusing all superstitious and inappropriate games” at weddings. But by the beginning of the 20th century, “new” ballads sounded everywhere in the Finnish villages of Ingermanland - songs with rhymed verse, single-line round dance songs pirileikki, Ingrian ditties Lieculaulut(they sang about village customs and customs, swinging 10-12 people on a large Easter swing). But the most original were the dance songs röntuska, which accompanied dances such as quadrille. They were "played" only in the north of Ingermanland - in the parishes of Toksova, Lempaala, Haapakangas and Vuole. Lyrical songs from Finland also circulated in the Ingrian villages - they were distributed through popular prints and songbooks. They taught Finnish songs and Finnish parish schools.

The folklore richness of the Ingrian Finns is made up of thousands of well-aimed proverbs and sayings, hundreds of fairy tales, tales and legends.

MODERNITY

The revival of Finnish culture in Ingria began with the creation in 1975 of Finnish Lutheran communities in Koltushi and Pushkin. In 1978, a Finnish Lutheran church was opened in Pushkin, and currently there are 15 Finnish Lutheran parishes in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region.

In 1988, a public organization of Ingrian Finns "Inkerin Liitto" ("Ingermanlansky Union") was established, which now has branches throughout the Leningrad region - from Kingisepp to Tosno and from Priozersk to the Gatchina region. Independent public organizations of the Ingrian Finns carry out national work in many regions of Russia from Pskov to Irkutsk. "Inkerin Liitto" in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region has been conducting Finnish language courses in various places in the city and region for many years. The problem of training teachers of the Finnish language remains acute in the region, and Inkerin Liitto organizes advanced training courses for teachers. The company has an Employment Center that helps hundreds of Finns find work, you can get advice from a lawyer.

The closest attention is paid to the preservation and maintenance of Ingrian folk culture. At Inkerin Liitto, a group for the revival of the traditional costumes of the peoples of Ingermanland worked for 10 years. The costumes of different parishes were recreated by her works using ancient technology. Based on old and new photographs, creative photo exhibitions were created, many works took part in international competitions and exhibitions. There is an association of Ingrian poets. In the region and St. Petersburg, Finnish song and musical groups have been created and are actively performing: choirs at parishes, the Ingrian ensemble "Rentushki" (the village of Rappolovo, Vsevolozhsk district of the Leningrad Region), the ensemble "Kotikontu" and the folk group "Talomerkit" (St. Petersburg "Inkerin Liitto") . The ensembles revive and support the traditions of ancient folk singing in Ingermanland, performing both at prestigious international competitions and at rural holidays. In 2006, Inkerin Liitto created in St. Petersburg a mobile museum "Indigenous Peoples of the Petersburg Land", which was exhibited for a long time at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. Peter the Great - the famous "Kunstkamera". This unique traveling museum tells the history of the culture of the Ingrian Finns, Vodi and Izhora. With the support of Inkerin Liitto activists, the Ethnos film studio created magnificent films about the history and current situation Ingrian Finns, Izhors and Vodi.

Hundreds, and sometimes even thousands of people are united by folk holidays. In Ingermanlandia, Inkerin Liitto also organizes traditional folk festivals, such as the Finnish carnival with skiing from the mountains and songs around the festive fire. At Christmas, “Christmas workshops” are organized, where everyone is taught how to celebrate the holiday in Finnish, how to make Christmas tree decorations on their own. On the "Day of the Kalevala" (February 28), concerts and children's competitions dedicated to Finnish culture are held. In many villages where Finns still live, local village holidays and days of Ingrian culture are held.

New holidays are being created - "Inkeri Day" (October 5), where competitions in the old Finnish sport "boot throwing" are interspersed with folk games, dances and songs. But the main holiday of the year is still Yuhannus, which is now celebrated on Saturday on Midsummer's Day. This summer song festival was revived by Inkerin Liitto in 1989 in Koltushi (Keltto). Yuhannus always takes place with a large gathering of people in different places under the open sky.

A lot of work is being done to study and preserve the folk traditions of the Ingrian Finns, to study the history of the Ingrian villages and their inhabitants.

Konkova O.I., 2014

Kazakhstan :
373 people (2009, Finns)
Belarus :
151 people (2009, Finns) Language Religion

Finns-Ingrian (fin. inkeriläiset, inkerinsuomalaiset, est. ingerlased, Swede. finskingermanländare) - sub-ethnic group Finns living in the historical region Ingermanland. The Ingrian language belongs to the eastern dialects Finnish. By religion, Ingrians traditionally belong to Lutheran churches, but some of them adhere to orthodoxy.

Story

The Ingrian sub-ethnos was formed as a result of migration to the Ingrian lands, which were ceded to Sweden on Stolbovsky world, parts of the Finns- evremeisov and Finns- Savakotov from the central regions of Finland. Finnization Izhora land was largely facilitated by the heavy demographic losses suffered by it during the Time of Troubles, especially its eastern part.

Dynamics of the proportion of Lutherans in the population of Ingermanland in 1623-1695 (v %)

Lena	1623	1641	1643	1650	1656	1661	1666	1671	1675	1695
Ivangorodsky	5,2	24,4	26,7	31,8	26,3	38,5	38,7	29,6	31,4	46,7
Yamsky	-	15,1	15,2	16,0	17,2	44,9	41,7	42,9	50,2	62,4
Koporsky	5,0	17,9	19,2	29,4	30,3	34,9	39,9	45,7	46,8	60,2
Noteburgsky	14,7	58,5	66,2	62,5	63,1	81,0	88,5	86,0	87,8	92,5
Total	7,7	35,0	39,3	41,6	41,1	53,2	55,6	59,9	61,5	71,7

The territory was Russified again after the founding of St. Petersburg. But even at the beginning of the 19th century, the districts of St. Petersburg were almost exclusively Finnish-speaking. By the beginning of the 20th century, there were two large regions with the highest proportion of the Finnish population: the Ingrian part of the Karelian Isthmus (the northern part Petersburg and Shlisselburgsky counties) and the area southwest of Petersburg, roughly along the line Peterhof - Red Village - Gatchina(Western part Tsarskoye Selo and eastern part Peterhof districts).

There were also a number of smaller areas where the Finnish population completely dominated ( Kurgalsky peninsula , Koltush Upland and etc.).

In the rest of Ingria, the Finns lived in stripes with the Russians, and in a number of places ( Izhora Upland) - and with Estonian population.

Until the 20th century, there were two main groups of Ingrian Finns evremeis (fin.äyrämoiset) and savakota (fin. savokot). According to P. I. Köppen, who studied the geography of the settlement of the Finns in the middle 19th century, Evremeis settled on Karelian Isthmus(except for the southern part, directly adjacent to St. Petersburg, and the area Beloostrov), in the parishes of Tuutari, Tyrö, Hietamäki, Caprio, Soikkola, Liissila, partly Serepetta, Koprina and Skvoritsa. In other regions of Ingria (parishes of Valkeasaari, Rääpüvä, Keltto north of the Neva, Kolpino, the region of Nazii and Mgi, the Izhora Upland, etc.), Savakots settled. A special group were the Lutheran Finns from the Lower Luga (Kurgalsky Peninsula, Fedorovka village, Kallivere). Numerically, Savakots also prevailed - according to P.I. Köppen, out of 72,354 Finns, there were 29,375 Evremeusets and 42,979 Savokots. By the beginning of the 20th century, the differences between the Evremeis and Savakots gradually faded, and the Ingrian group identity was lost.

At the beginning of the 19th century, another territorial group of Ingrians arose - the Siberian Ingrians. At present, the main area of ​​their settlement is vil. Ryzhkovo in the Omsk region.

Of the 1,602,000 people arrested in 1937-1939 under the political articles of the criminal code, 346,000 people were representatives of national minorities, of which 247,000 were shot as foreign spies. Of the arrested "nationalists", Greeks (81%) and Finns (80%) were executed more often than others.

1. During Great Patriotic War decision of the Military Council Leningrad Front No. 196ss from August, 26th 1941 Finnish and german suburban population Leningrad subject to compulsory evacuation Komi ASSR and Arkhangelsk region. The results of this migration are not exactly known today. It should be noted that the decree was issued only a few days before all communication routes connecting the environs of Leningrad with the outside world were cut by land by German troops. Ironically, those who managed to evacuate on barges across Ladoga were thus saved from the starvation of the blockade.
2. Decree of the Military Council Leningrad Front No. 00714-a dated 20th of March 1942 repeated the demand for the mandatory evacuation of the Finnish and German population. The decision was based on the Decree Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from June, 22 1941“On martial law”, which granted the military authorities the right to “prohibit entry and exit to areas declared under martial law, or from certain points of it, of persons recognized as socially dangerous both for their criminal activities and for their connections with the criminal environment” . According to V.N. Zemskov, 44,737 Ingrians were evicted, of which 17,837 were placed in Krasnoyarsk Territory, 8267 - in Irkutsk region, 3602 - in Omsk region, the rest - in Vologda and Kirovskaya areas. Upon arrival at the place of residence, the Finns were registered with special settlements. After the end of the Great Patriotic War January 12 1946 the special settlement regime was lifted, but the government forbade the Finns to return to the territory of the Leningrad region. Decree Council of Ministers of the USSR from 11 February 1949 Finns were allowed to enter only the territory adjacent to the Leningrad region Karelia, where several tens of thousands of both former special settlers and (mostly) repatriates from Finland. As a result of the implementation of this resolution, Karelia became one of the three largest settlement centers for Soviet Finns.
   This resolution was canceled by the new Decree of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of the KFSSR “On Partial Change of the Resolution of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of Ministers of the KFSSR of December 1, 1949”, on the basis of which even people who had moved to Karelia were evicted from the border area.
3. After the signing of the Soviet-Finnish armistice agreement, the Ingrian population, previously resettled by the German occupation authorities in Finland, was returned to the USSR (see below). However, in accordance with the decision GKO USSR No. 6973ss dated November 19 1944 repatriates were sent not to the Leningrad region, but to five neighboring regions - Pskov , Novgorod , Kalininskaya , Velikolukskaya and Yaroslavl. Disposition Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 13925rs dated September 19 1945 allowed entry into the Leningrad region only to "Ingrian families of military personnel - participants in the Patriotic War", as well as non-Finn repatriates. Most of the Finnish repatriates chose to leave the areas assigned to them for settlement. Some tried by hook or by crook to return to Ingermanland, others went to Estonia and Karelia.
4. Despite the prohibitions, a significant number of Finns returned to the Leningrad region after the war. According to official data, by May 1947 13,958 Finns lived on the territory of Leningrad and the Leningrad region, who arrived both without permission and with official permission. In accordance with the resolution Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 5211ss from May 7 1947 and the decision of the Leningrad Executive Committee No. 9cc dated May 11 1947 Finns who arbitrarily returned to the region were subject to return to the places of their former residence. According to the order of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 10007rs dated July 28th 1947 the same fate befell the Finns, who lived in the Leningrad region without leaving the entire period of occupation. Only the following categories of Ingrians were allowed to stay in the Leningrad Region: a) participants of the Great Patriotic War who have government awards and their family members; b) family members of servicemen who died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War; v) labor army members and other persons awarded orders and medals of the Soviet Union, and members of their families; d) members and candidate members CPSU (b) and their families; e) family members headed by Russians and e) obviously disabled elderly with no relatives. In total, there were 5669 people in the Leningrad region and 520 in Leningrad.

The most important result of the repressive policy of the Soviet authorities in relation to the Ingrians was the split of the monolithic range living of the Finns into three large and many small spatially separated areas. Even at the level of small administrative units, the Finns in the second half XX century nowhere constituted not only a majority, but also a significant minority. This "dissolution" in the Russian environment largely stimulated the processes of genetic assimilation and acculturation the Finnish population, which led to a rapid decline in its numbers, which by now has assumed an unambiguously irreversible character. It is important to emphasize that these processes under conditions of a sharp increase migration processes in the 20th century, especially migrations from the countryside to the cities, would still take place. In addition, the events of the Great Patriotic War also caused heavy demographic damage to the Finns ( Leningrad blockade and long-term residence in occupied territory). However, the forced division of the Ingrian settlement area, which was never overcome in the post-war period, undoubtedly contributed to a sharp “acceleration” of assimilation processes in the Finnish environment.

The fate of the Finns who found themselves in the occupied territory

The relocation of residents to Finland and Estonia was in line with the plans of the Reich. according to plan Ost 350 thousand German colonists were supposed to be resettled to the territory of the Leningrad region within 25 years. Indigenous people was supposed to be driven out or destroyed. When the shortage of labor became apparent, and the Germans were already using Estonians and Ingrian, for example, in the military economy, the Finnish government decided to get 40,000 people as labor. But Germany's position had also changed by this time. High Command of the Ground Forces (Wehrmacht) and ministry of eastern territories opposed the transportation of the Ingrian. January 23 1943 The German Foreign Ministry announced that it had agreed to transport a maximum of 12,000 people. February 5th 1943 The German government, proceeding primarily from political interests, agreed to transport 8,000 able-bodied men with their families. Helanen’s commission was appointed for the move, which went to Tallinn 25 February 1943.

The first volunteers moved March 29 1943 from Klooga camps. 302 people from the port Paldiski transported the ship "Aranda". Transportation was carried out in 2-3 days to the camp Hanko. In early April, the ship "Suomi" was added, which could take 450 passengers on board. In June, a third ship was added - the Louhi minesweeper, because during the transition main problem there were mines. In autumn, crossings were postponed to nighttime due to increased activity Soviet aviation. The relocations were voluntary and based on the proposals of the Pelkonen Commission to relocate primarily from areas near the front. On the resettlement, a document was drawn up on October 17, 1943.

On the eve of the expected Soviet offensive near Leningrad, the Estonian General Commissariat, which was a division Reichskommissariat "Ostland" (German Generalbezirk Eastland) and command Army Group North began the forced evacuation of the Ingrian territories, despite the conditions previously agreed with Finland on voluntary resettlement. It was planned that the territories would be evacuated, and it was possible to agree later. Edwin Scott from the Estonian General Commissariat showed activity, moreover, independently of the Ministry of Eastern Territories and independently of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The evacuation was planned to be carried out in one month and began October 15 1943.

Operation already started has been approved November 2 1943 when the first part of 40 thousand people was transported to the port. Relocation agreement signed November 4 1943. Later, it remained to agree on the resettlement of those in German service.

Dynamics of the number and settlement of the population resettled in Finland from the territory of the Leningrad region occupied by Germany

provinces	15.07.1943	15.10.1943	15.11.1943	31.12.1943	30.01.1944	31.03.1944	30.04.1944	31.05.1944	30.06.1944	31.07.1944	31.08.1944	30.09.1944	31.10.1944	30.11.1944
Uusimaa	1861	3284	3726	5391	6617	7267	7596	8346	8519	8662	8778	8842	8897	8945
Turku Pori	2541	6490	7038	8611	10 384	12 677	14 132	15 570	16 117	16 548	16 985	17 067	17 118	17 177
Häme	2891	5300	5780	7668	9961	10 836	11 732	12 589	12 932	13 241	13 403	13 424	13 589	13 690
Vyborg	259	491	591	886	1821	2379	2975	3685	3916	3904	3456	3285	3059	2910
Mikkeli	425	724	842	1780	2645	3402	3451	3837	3950	3970	4124	4186	4159	4156
Kuopio	488	824	921	2008	3036	4214	4842	4962	5059	5098	5043	5068	5060	5002
Vaasa	925	2056	2208	2567	4533	5636	6395	6804	7045	7146	7227	7160	7344	7429
Oulu	172	552	746	680	2154	2043	2422	2438	2530	2376	2488	2473	2474	2472
Lappi	5	10	14	94	385	1301	1365	1408	1395	1626	1626	1594	1527	1430
Total	9567	19 731	21 866	29 685	41 536	49 755	54 910	59 639	61 463	62 571	63 130	63 119	63 227	63 211

After the war

63,000 Ingrians were resettled in Finland during the war. But the Soviet Union demanded that they be returned in 1944. After Moscow truce in the fall of 1944, 55,000 people, believing the promises of Soviet officials, agreed to return to their homeland. At the same time, the authorities of the Leningrad region were selling empty houses and buildings left by the Ingrians to the Russians. The men who had previously served in the military economy of the Germans, identified during the verification of documents in Vyborg, were shot on the spot. Those returning from Finland were taken past their homeland to the Pskov, Kalinin, Novgorod, Yaroslavl regions and Velikiye Luki. Others ended up further away, for example, in Kazakhstan, where back in the 30s many unreliable, according to the authorities, Ingrian peasants were exiled.

Many tried to return to their homes later, and even received permission from higher authorities, but the new tenants categorically resisted the return of the Ingrian and, with the help of local authorities, prevented them from settling in their homeland. In 1947, a secret order was issued that forbade the residence of Ingermanlans in the suburbs of Leningrad. This meant the expulsion of all those who still managed to return.

The return became possible only after the death of Stalin in 1953. For the next ten years, attempts to settle in Ingria were tried to limit. Many have already managed to settle down in new places. The largest Ingrian communities formed in Estonia and in the republic Karelia. Thus, the Ingrians became almost everywhere in their homeland a national minority among Russian settlers and former Russian inhabitants. According to the 1926 census, about 115,000 Ingrian Finns lived in the St. Petersburg province, and in 1989 only about 16,000.

Rehabilitation and repatriation

In 1993, a resolution of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation on the rehabilitation of Russian Finns was issued. Every repressed person, even a child born in an evicted family, receives a certificate of rehabilitation, which says "on the termination of the case." In fact, this is where rehabilitation ends - the decree does not have a mechanism for its implementation, everything is entrusted to the local authorities, moreover, an insoluble contradiction is laid down: “measures for the resettlement and arrangement of Russian Finns who have returned to their places of traditional residence ... to be carried out without infringing on the rights and legitimate interests of citizens, residing in the respective territories. There is no chance of returning home or land.

Dynamics of the number of Ingrian Finns

* according to the census in the St. Petersburg province

** data for "Leningrad Finns"

*** data on the number together with all the fins of the USSR (after repressions and exile)

**** total number of Finns on post-Soviet space(in Russia - 34050)

According to the 2002 census, 34,000 Finns live and are registered in Russia, of which at least 95% are Ingrian Finns and their descendants.

and only reflects the methodology of the census, in which it is not necessary to indicate the clarification "Ingrian".

Dynamics of the number of all Finns in the USSR / Russia

* - 2010 census data.

Modern settlement and population

All Russian Federation: 34,050

Outside the Russian Federation:

• Estonia : 10 767 (2009)
• Kazakhstan : 1 000 (1989)
• Ukraine : 768 (2001)
• Belarus : 245 (1999)

Public organizations of Ingrian Finns

The Ingrian Finns are historically connected with the activities of the Lutheran Churches of Ingria.

Ingrians are sometimes called izhora, which, in fact, gave the name of the historical region Ingria, but unlike the Lutheran-Finns, they traditionally profess orthodoxy.

• Inkerin Liitto ("Ingrian Union") is a voluntary society of Ingrian Finns. The goals of the community are the development of culture and language and the protection of social and property rights Ingrians. It operates on the territory of historical Ingria and in other regions of Russia, except for Karelia. Website: http://www.inkeri.spb.ru
• The Ingrian Union of Finns of Karelia was created in 1989 to preserve the language and culture of ethnic Finns living in Karelia. Website: http://inkeri.karelia.ru

Personalities

• Vinonen, Robert - poet, member of the Writers' Union of Russia
• Virolainen, Oleg Arvovich - from November 2003 to May 2006, Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg. From May 2006 to October 2009 - Chairman of the Committee for Improvement and Road Facilities
• Ivanen, Anatoly Vilyamovich- poet
• Kayava, Maria - preacher, founder of the first Evangelical Lutheran community in the USSR after the war
• Kiuru, Ivan- poet, translator, member of the Union of Writers of the USSR
• Kiuru, Eino- Candidate of Philology, Senior Researcher at the Folklore Sector of the IYALI KSC RAS, member of the Writers' Union of Russia
• Kondulainen, Elena- actress, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation
• Konkka, Unelma - poetess
• Konkka, Juhani - Writer
• Cugappy, Arry- Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria, Doctor of Theology
• Kukkonen, Katri - preacher, founder of the first Evangelical Lutheran community in the USSR after the war
• Quartey, Aatami - priest, writer, author of many books about Ingermanland
• Laurikkala, Selim Yalmari - probst northern Ingria
• Lemetti, Ivan Matveevich - Ingrian philosopher
• Mishin (Khiyri), Armas - Chairman of the Writers' Union of the Republic of Karelia. Together with the folklorist Eino Kiuru, he translated into Russian the epic " Kalevala »
• Mullonen, Anna-Maria - Outstanding Vepsologist
• Mullonen, Irma- Director of the Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History of the Karelian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences
• Myaki, Artur - Russian politician
• Oyala, Ella - writer, author of books about northern Ingermanland
• Pappinen, Toivo - champion of the USSR in ski jumping
• Putro, Mooses- musician, composer, educator, author of the anthem "Nouse Inkeri"
• Rautanen, Martti - Missionary of the Lutheran Church in Namibia
• Rongonen, Luli - writer, translator, professor of literature
• Ryannel, Toivo Vasilievich- People's Artist of the Russian Federation
• Survo, Arvo- Lutheran pastor, initiator of the creation of the Church of Ingria
• Tunni, Aale - poetess, translator, winner XIV Summer Olympic Games 1948 in London, v art competition
• Uymanen, Felix - skier, champion of the USSR
• Heiskanen, Kim - Geologist, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Honored Scientist of the Republic of Karelia, Director of the Institute of Geology of the Karelian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2000-2001.
• Khudilainen, Alexander Petrovich- politician
• Hupenen Anatoly - colonel general, doctor of military sciences, professor, participant wars in Vietnam
• Elfengren, Yurio - white officer, chairman of the State Council of the self-proclaimed Republic of Northern Ingria
• Yakovlev, Vladimir Anatolievich- Russian politician, governor Petersburg in 1996-2003

Notes

1. All-Russian population census 2002. Archived from the original on August 21, 2011. Retrieved December 24, 2009.
2. Eesti Statistika 2001-2009
3. Statistical Committee of Estonia Ethnic composition of the population Census 2000 ()
4. All-Ukrainian population census 2001. Russian version. Results. Nationality and mother tongue. Ukraine and regions
5. Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan on statistics. Census 2009. (National composition of the population .rar)
6. The national composition of Belarus according to the 2009 population census
7. Map of the ratio of Lutheran and Orthodox farmsteads in 1623-43-75.
8. Itämerensuomalaiset: heimokansojen historiaa jakohtaloita / toimittanut Mauno Jokipii; . - Jyväskylä: Atena, 1995 (Gummerus).
9. Map of peoples and language groups of Ingermanland
10. Ethnographic map of the St. Petersburg province. 1849
11. Carlo Kurko "Ingrian Finns in the clutches of the GPU" Porvoo-Helsinki 1943, St. Petersburg 2010, p. 9 ISBN 978-5-904790-05-9
12. Ingrian Center (Finnish)
13. National minorities of the Leningrad region. P. M. Janson, L., 1929, p. 70
14. Musaev V.I. Political history Ingria in the late XIX-XX century. - 2nd ed. - St. Petersburg, 2003, p. 182-184.
15. (fin.) Hannes Sihvo Inkerin Maalla. - Hämeenlinna: Karisto Oy, 1989. - P. 239. - 425 p. - ISBN 951-23-2757-0
16. Inkerin Maalla; c 242
17. Inkerin Maalla; c 244
18. Inkerin Maalla; c 246
19. Shashkov V. Ya. Special settlers on Murman: The role of special settlers in the development of productive forces on the Kola Peninsula (1930-1936). - Murmansk, 1993, p. 58.
20. AKSSR: List of populated places: based on the materials of the 1933 Census. - Petrozavodsk: Ed. UNKhU AKSSR Soyuzorguchet, 1935, p. 12.
21. Brief results of passportization of the districts of the Leningrad region. - [L.], Regional Executive Committee, 1st type. publishing house Leningrad. Regional Executive Committee and Council, 1931, p. 8-11.
22. Ivanov V. A. Mission of the Order. Mechanism mass repression in Soviet Russia in the late 20s - 40s: (On the materials of the North-West of the RSFSR). - St. Petersburg, 1997.
23. Zemskov V.N. Special settlers in the USSR, 1930-1960. - M.: Nauka, 2005, p. 78.
24. Chapter from the book "Stalin against the 'cosmopolitans'" / G. V. Kostyrchenko, 2010. ISBN 978-5-8243-1103-7
25. List of urban and rural settlements, of which there were in 1937-1938. the Finns were taken away to be shot for their nationality
26. Three decrees of one day
27. Zemskov V.N. Special settlers in the USSR, 1930-1960. - M.: Nauka, 2005, p. 95.
28. Musaev V.I. Political history of Ingermanland in the late XIX-XX century. - 2nd ed. - St. Petersburg, 2003, p. 336-337.
29. Decree of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of the KFSSR "On a partial change in the decision of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of Ministers of the KFSSR of December 1, 1949"
30. Gildi L.A. The fate of the "socially dangerous people": (The secret genocide of the Finns in Russia and its consequences. 1930-2002). - St. Petersburg, 2003, p. 32.
31. Jatkosodan Kronikka: Inkeriläisia Suomeen, s. 74 Gummerus,

I have several sides to the Finns. Firstly, I was born in the Finnish city of Sortavala. Follow this tag in my journal - you will learn a lot of interesting things.

Secondly, as a teenager, I had a friend, Zhenya Krivoshey, on my mother's side - Thura, thanks to whom I learned a lot, from about the 8th grade, that people can live, very close to us, with a much more normal life than they used to live we.

Thirdly, in our family from about 1962 to 1972 (I can make a little mistake in the dates) there lived a Finn - Maria Osipovna Kekkonen. How she settled with us and why, I will tell you when I put my mother's memories in order.

Well, my friend in life and in LiveJournal, Sasha Izotov, despite his Russian (paternal) surname, is also half Finn, although we met and became friends after a considerable time after our mutual departures abroad.

It's not that I don't like it, but I avoid the word immigrant (emigrant) for the simple reason that I am formally listed as "temporarily staying abroad." The time of my stay was quite extended, on May 23, 2015 it will be 17 years old, but nevertheless, I didn’t have permanent residence, and still don’t.

I am always interested in this country, I feel infinite respect for these laconic people for their untranslatable quality into Russian sisu. Any Finn will understand what it is and can even smile. if you mention this word.

Therefore, when I saw this material on the Yle website, I could not resist reposting. Victor Kiuru, about whom you will read below, I, it seems, even knew.
In any case, I met them on the streets of Petrozavodsk or in the editorial office of the "Northern Courier" for sure. Only events and faces are forgotten...

So, stories about fate.

Kokkonen

Thanks for being alive...

Once, as a child, I asked my grandmother: “Are you happy?” After a little thought, she replied: “Probably yes, happy, because all the children remained alive, only the youngest baby died of starvation on the way to Siberia.”

Over the years, bit by bit, from the memories of relatives, a chronology of events and stages in the life of my loved ones, starting from pre-war times, lined up.

On the Karelian Isthmus, five kilometers from the pre-war border, in the village of Rokosaari (Rokosaari) lived the Kokkonens, and almost half of the village had this surname. From what territories of Suomi they moved there, no one remembered; married and married people from neighboring villages.

There were six children in the family of my grandmother Anna and Ivan Kokkonen: Viktor, Aino, Emma, ​​Arvo, Edi, and the smallest, whose name has not been preserved.

Before the start of hostilities (Winter War 1939 - ed.), units of the Red Army entered the village, the residents were ordered to leave their homes. Of the male population, someone managed to escape across the border, the rest were sent to labor camps. Two brothers of my grandfather called Ivan to go to Finland, but he could not leave his wife and children. Subsequently, he ended up in labor camps, and of the brothers, one lived in Finland, the other in Sweden. But where? All communications were lost and are unknown to this day. Grandfather met his children only in the sixties, and he already had a different family.

Women with children were ordered to go on a ferry across Lake Ladoga, but some of the inhabitants hid in the forest and lived in dwellings dug in the ground - “dugouts”. Among them was my grandmother with children. Later, residents said that the ferry was bombed from planes that had red stars on them. Until the last days, my grandmother kept this a secret.

The Kokkonen family, 1940.

Photo:
Natalia Blizniouk.

Later, the remaining residents were transported along the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga, put into freight cars and taken somewhere far away and for a long time. There was no food, the grandmother did not have milk to feed the little one ... He was buried somewhere at a half-station in the field, now no one knows where.

There were many such trains, the inhabitants of the villages passing by knew where the freight trains were being taken. The trains stopped in the taiga, in winter, everyone was dropped off and left to die from cold and hunger.

The train stopped at the station: the city of Omsk. People went out to get water, to find some food. A woman approached my grandmother (thank you very much) and said: “If you want to save the children, do this: leave two at the station, and when the train starts, start screaming that your children are lost, they are behind the train and you need to follow them return. And you can then get on the next train all together.” Grandmother did just that: she left the elders Viktor and Aino (my mother) at the station, was able to get off the train at the next stop, return back to Omsk with the remaining children and find Viktor and Aino.

Another kind person (thank you very much) advised my grandmother to hide the documents that indicate the surname and nationality, and go to a distant collective farm, say that the documents were lost or that they were stolen along the way - this would be an opportunity to stay alive. Grandmother did just that: she buried all the documents somewhere in the forest, got with the children to the educational farm (a training livestock farm) in the Omsk region and worked there as a calf, raised small calves. And the children survived. Thank you grandma for staying alive!

In the 1960s, N. Khrushchev was the head of the country, and the repressed peoples were allowed to return to their native lands. Arvo's son, daughters Edi, Emma and Aino with their children returned from Siberia with their grandmother (it was me, Natalya, and brother Andrey). The eldest grandmother's son Victor already had four children, they all had to be recorded under the changed name - Kokonya. And only in the eighties they were able to regain their real name Kokkonen.

Emma returned without children, they stayed with her mother-in-law in Omsk, after which she became very ill and died, and the children died at the age of thirty.

By the time of a possible move to Finland, all grandmother's children had passed away, and out of thirteen grandchildren, four remained in Siberia, four died at the age of 30-40, and only four were able to move. Now there are only three of us, my brother, unfortunately, managed to live in Suomi for only one year and a week: his sick heart stopped.

The thirteenth grandson, Oleg, Emma's youngest son, probably lives in Finland or Estonia (his father was Estonian), there is no information, and I would like to find him.

My family and I moved to Finland in 2000. We accidentally learned from a woman who already lived in Suomi that there is a law according to which people with Finnish roots can move to their historical homeland.

The Bliznyuk family, 2014.

Photo:
Natalia Blizniouk.

By this time, after several crises in the Russian economy and politics, there were fears for the life and future of children. Thanks to my husband Alexander for insisting on paperwork for moving to Finland. We moved - and began ... "a completely different life." I had the feeling that I had always lived here, that I had returned to my “childhood”. People, friendly, spoke the same language as my grandmother, and outwardly very similar to her. Flowers grow the same as in our garden when I was little. And the Finnish language “by itself” was in my head, I almost didn’t have to memorize it.

When communicating with the Finns, they take stories about our past very warmly and close to their hearts. In Russia, I always felt like “not Russian”, because it was impossible to say what nationality your relatives were, whether there were relatives abroad, I had to keep the history of the family secret.

In Suomi I feel “at home”, I feel like a Finn who was born in Siberia and lived outside of Finland for some time.

Regarding the future of the Ingrian people: in Russia there is not even such a question and nationality, but in Finland, I think that this is a story - a common one for the entire Finnish population without any differences.

Natalya Bliznyuk (born 1958)
(descendant of Kokkonenykh)

P.S. I often think about the history of my relatives and sometimes I think that it deserves to be published and even can be filmed, it is quite in tune with S. Oksanen’s novel “Purification”, only our story is about the Finns who found themselves “on the other side” of the front.

Kiuru

My name is Victor Kiuru, I am 77 years old. I was born in South Kazakhstan, in the Pakhta-Aral cotton-growing state farm, where in 1935 the Stalinist regime exiled my parents with their children. Soon their children, my brothers, died from climate change. Later, in 1940, my father managed to move to East Kazakhstan with a more favorable climate, where I improved my then useless health.

Victor Kiuru with his mother

In 1942, Father Ivan Danilovich left for the labor army, and in 1945 I went to school and gradually forgot the words in Finnish and spoke only Russian. In 1956, after Stalin's death, my father found my brother, and we moved to Petrozavodsk. In Toksovo, where the parents lived before the evacuation, entry was prohibited. After that, there was study, three years in the army, work in various positions, marriage - in general, ordinary life Soviet man with public work in the Federation of Chess and Ski Racing of Karelia.

Agricultural College, first year, 1951

In 1973, he came from Finland on a tour package cousin father - Danil Kiuru from Tampere. This is how I first met a real Finn from capitalist country. By chance, in 1991, the sports committee of Karelia, at the invitation of a farmer from Rantasalmi Seppo, sent me with two young skiers (champions of Karelia) to compete in Finland. We became friends with Seppo and began to meet on Finnish soil and in Petrozavodsk. Together they began to study Finnish and Russian, even corresponded.

Later, the editors of the Northern Courier, where I worked as a sports observer, sent me many times as a special correspondent to the ski championships in Lahti and Kontiolahti, the world cups in Kuopio and Lahti. There I met outstanding athletes from Russia, Finland and my native Kazakhstan, whom I interviewed.

Victor Kiuru, 1954

At the same time, he got acquainted with the life, work and leisure of Finnish friends, who by that time were living in different provinces of Finland. In the summer he came to them on vacation, worked in the forest and in the fields, picked berries. I bought a car here, and the first Opel was presented to me by Seppo's neighbor Jussi. He just stunned me - he submitted documents and said: “Now she is yours! Is free!" You can imagine how shocked I was.

During the putsch I was in Rantasalmi and was very worried, following what was happening in Russia. But everything ended well, and I calmly returned to Petrozavodsk. By this time, many Ingermalanders began to move to Finland, my father's sister, my cousin, many acquaintances left, but I was in no hurry, hoping that a fresh wind would bring positive changes to the lives of ordinary Russian citizens.

Retirement approached, and soon Tarja Halonen's well-known decree on the last opportunity for the Ingermalanders to return to Finland, in my case, to move. By this time, my daughter was living in Finland on a work visa. After working for five years, she received the right to permanent residence, and then received Finnish citizenship. She lives in Turku, and in Seinäjoki, her eldest granddaughter Eugenia already lives in her house with her family.

It was there in 2012 that my wife Nina and I moved to help the young. They have five-year-old Sveta and three-year-old Sava. Zhenya and her husband Sergey work in Kurikka at a small electrical engineering company. Following Russian habit, we have developed a garden on their site, set up a greenhouse, and now we have something to do in the summer: potatoes and vegetables, berries and herbs are now on the table, and we are in business. In the fall, they collected, salted and froze mushrooms.

Victor Kiuru with great-grandchildren.

And I got an apartment - a three-room apartment - on the third day! Incredibly, in Petrozavodsk I lived in a one-room apartment, and here I immediately have my own office, where an easel and chess are constantly standing - these are my hobbies. I paint the surrounding landscapes and enjoy life, which has changed so much for the better after the move. In a word, I am happy and perfectly understand that I have never lived so well before.

I fully feel the help of the social service from its representative Lena Kallio, the medical center and the attending physician Olga Korobova, who is fluent in Russian, which makes communication easier for us. I go skiing, there is a beautiful illuminated track nearby, I have been doing sports all my life, I ran the Murmansk marathon three times and told my readers in Karelia about the holiday of the North. And, of course, I do not stop following all the sporting events in Finland and the world. I look forward to the biathlon championship in Kontiolahti, where I visited in the now distant 1999. Petrozavodsk residents Vladimir Drachev and Vadim Sashurin successfully performed there, the first for the Russian national team, the second for Belarus. Well, now I will follow the races on TV and cheer for two countries - Russia and Finland.

Victor Kiuru (born 1937)

So

My name is Andrey Stol, I am 32 years old. I was born in the town of Osinniki, near Novokuznetsk, in the Kemerovo region of Western Siberia. Our region is known for its beauty, rich deposits of coal and iron ore, as well as large factories.

Stoli in 1970.

I moved to Finland a year and a half ago with my wife and child. My moving story begins in 2011. My namesake Mikhail found me on Skype, for which many thanks to him. At that time, a guy from the Moscow region studied in Mikkeli in his first year. We met him and began to look for common roots. As it turned out later, his roots were German, however, when the war began, his grandmother said that she was from the Baltics. Now, having safely moved with his family, he lives in Riga.

During the conversation, he said that in Finland there is such a repatriation program, according to which Ingrian Finns can move to Finland. I started collecting information and documents to get in line for repatriation. My father was able to tell me a little about my grandfather Oscar, since my grandfather died when my father was in the army.

My grandfather Stol Oskar Ivanovich was born on February 16, 1921 at the Lakhta station in the Leningrad Region. During the war, he was exiled to Siberia to work in a mine. There he met my grandmother, a German by nationality, Sofia Alexandrovna, and my uncle Valery and my father Victor were born there. It is said that Oscar was a good hunter, fisherman and mushroom picker. He spoke Finnish only once, when his sister came to visit him. The family spoke only Russian.

Oscar Stol.

So, I quickly collected the documents and flew to Moscow to join the queue a week before it closed (July 1, 2011). Fortunately, I ended up in line at number twenty-two thousand of some sort. My birth certificate was sufficient. I was told that it was necessary to pass an exam in Finnish, and then, if the result was positive, it would be possible to apply for moving to Finland, at the same time, if an apartment was rented. I said that I didn't know where to start studying, since we don't have any Finnish language courses in Siberia. The embassy gave me some books and told me to return them and take the exam within a year. Time has gone.

Since September 2011, I began to study the Finnish language closely. Combining two jobs, I found the time and energy to look at textbooks bought via the Internet for at least an hour, listened to Finnish radio. In May 2012 I passed the exam and waited for the result for about a month. Finally, they called me and said that you can prepare the documents for the move. It was difficult to find an apartment remotely. Fortunately, one wonderful woman Anastasia Kamenskaya helped us, for which many thanks to her!

So, we moved in the summer of 2013 to the city of Lahti. Recently, with work in Novokuznetsk, where I lived with my family, it was not important. Moreover, I did not want to stay in the fifth most polluted city in Russia, besides, my wife was pregnant with her second child. Of the relatives, only we moved. Parents at one time in the 90s had the opportunity to move to Germany through their grandmother's roots, but grandfather, mother's father, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, who reached Berlin himself, strictly ordered to stay at home.

My wife and I have no regrets about the move. We are currently renting a three-room apartment. Senior Timothy goes to Kindergarten. Wife Xenia is still at home with a one-year-old, born already in Lahti, Oscar. I took a Finnish language course and enrolled in ammattikoula for a profession that I had only dreamed of. No stress, no rush, good-natured and honest people, clean air, delicious tap water, children will have a real childhood and one of the best education in the world! I am grateful to Finland for all this!

Of course, I would like to find relatives in Finland. Perhaps someone will read this article, remember my grandfather and want to answer me.

Thank you for your attention!

Andrey Stol (born in 1982)

Suikanen

History of the Suikanen family

My mother, after my father, Nina Andreevna Suikanen, was born in the village of Chernyshovo not far from Kolpino ( Leningrad region) in an Ingrian family. My grandfather, Suikanen Andrei Andreevich, worked as a forester in the forestry, he had five daughters and one son, a small farm - a horse, cows, chickens and ducks. In his free time, he participated in the work of a volunteer fire department and played in an amateur brass band.

Suikanen Nina Andreevna in Helsinki, 1944

In 1937, my grandfather was dispossessed and later convicted under Article 58 as an enemy of the people. In 1939, he died of pneumonia in a camp in the northern Urals in the city of Solikamsk. My mother went to the Klooga concentration camp during the war, and later the Finns took her with her sisters to Finland. The sisters worked at a military factory in the city of Lohja, and my mother took care of the children in a wealthy family.

In 1944, my mother and sisters were sent back to the USSR, to the Yaroslavl region. And two years later they moved to the Estonian SSR in the city of Johvi, and my mother began to work at a cement plant. All the sisters somehow settled down in life, worked and lived in Estonia. In the late 60s, my mother moved to live in Leningrad with my father.

We learned about the existence of a program for the resettlement of Ingrian Finns in the Lutheran church in the city of Pushkin, where my mother went to services. The first time I came to Finland in 1992, we stayed with my mother's cousins ​​in Helsinki, but there was no question of staying permanently. I did not know the language (my father did not approve of learning Finnish), and I had a good job in Leningrad. I permanently moved to Suomi with my wife and daughter only at the end of 1993. During this time, I learned a little about the language, and the unresolved issue with my own housing also pushed me to move.

Baptism of Mark's second daughter in Kouvola, 1994.

The small town of Kouvola was not at all ready for our arrival, although this is the only place out of six where I wrote to the labor exchange and sent my resume and from where I received an answer: I was invited to personally participate in the job search on the spot. When I arrived with my family, of course, there was no work for me. There were no adaptation programs at all. Thank you, random acquaintances, the same Ingrians, helped me rent a house, open a bank account and complete other formalities.

The situation with work was difficult, and already in the spring of 1994, I left for work back in Russia, while the family remained in Kouvola. Gradually, everything got better: my wife studied at language courses, the family grew - I had two more daughters. My wife found a job, the older children grew up and got a profession, now they live separately, they work not far from us.

The Solovyovs' dacha in the village of Siikakoski

In 1996, my mother and my sister came to live in Finland with her family, everything turned out well for everyone. I myself moved permanently to Suomi in 2008. The work in Russia has ended, and I have not yet been able to find a permanent job here, but I still hope. Although my Finnish language, age and lack of jobs make this hope illusory. And so everything is not bad: your home, nature, forest. Over time, everyone received Finnish citizenship, got used to it, and already we connect our lives only with Suomi, thanks to President Koivisto and the Finnish state.

Mark Solovyov (born 1966)

Regina

History of the Regina family

My name is Lyudmila Gouk, nee Voinova. I was born, raised and lived for many years in the small Karelian town of Medvezhyegorsk. From the Medvezhyegorsk region - my paternal ancestors. My mother is the daughter of a Swede and a Finn who lived in the Murmansk region before the repressions. The first family of my grandmother lived in the village of Vaida-guba, the second - in the village of Ozerki.

Maria Regina, 1918

But in 1937, my grandmother was arrested and shot six months later. Grandfather, apparently, was frightened (we don’t know anything about him), and my mother (she was 4 years old) ended up in an orphanage in the Arkhangelsk region. The surname of her mother - Regina - she learned only at the age of 15, when she had to go to school. She had a wonderful life in the future: she became a teacher of the Russian language, she worked at the school for 42 years, she is an honored teacher of Karelia.

My sister and I knew from birth that my mother was Finnish. Brother Olavi sometimes visited her. He spoke Russian poorly, but sang songs in Swedish and Norwegian. Often in conversation they suddenly fell silent and sat silently for a long time. Arriving in Finland, I learned that these are traditional Finnish pauses. Of course, we felt some kind of peculiarity. Let's say we were different from our peers, as if we knew something that they do not know.

In the 80s, I wrote to the Murmansk FSB. We were sent a letter, which indicated the date of arrest, the date of execution, the date of rehabilitation, and that the place of death was not established. As I remember now: I go in, and my mother is sitting with a large envelope and crying.

I learned about the remigration program in the early 90s. Then I got married, and, as it turned out, my husband was also from a family of repressed Finns. His mother Pelkonen (Russunen) Alina was born in 1947 in Yakutia, where her entire family was exiled in 1942. In 1953, her father was lucky to receive documents, and they went to Karelia, to the village of Salmi in the Pitkyaranta region of Karelia. They arrived in Leningrad, but it was impossible for them to settle there, and they bought a ticket to the station, to which there was enough money.

The fate of Alina and her sisters was not so successful. All their lives they lived in fear. For example, I found out that my mother-in-law is Finnish many years later. And about the fact that she speaks good Finnish only when she came to visit us in Helsinki. According to her stories, she seemed to be ashamed of this, unlike my mother, who was always proud of it. The mother-in-law remembered how her older sisters went to the police to check in, how her mother, who did not speak Russian, practically did not leave the house. My mother also has terrible memories: how they went to school, and local children threw stones at them and shouted: White Finns!

When we learned that we could come, the decision came immediately. Of course, we did not know what difficulties we would face (we were a little naive), but we were sure that in Finland we would be better off. No matter how much we persuaded our relatives, they did not go with us. Maybe they regret it now, but that was their decision.

The Gouk family in Helsinki.

Upon arrival, everything went very well: we got a wonderful apartment, my husband quickly began to learn the language, I gave birth to a son. In the future, I opened my own small business and have been working for 9 years now. My husband also works at his favorite job, we have two children aged 11 and 16.

I was bored for a very long time, but when I stopped, I felt at home. And no matter how sinful it sounds, I consider Finland to be my homeland. I feel very good here mentally and physically. Now for the difficulties. The first is kindergarten and school. We studied at a completely different school, and when our daughter went to school, for the first two years we could not understand anything at all, how it all works and how it all works. Now it is easier, my daughter has already finished school, now we are mastering Lukio.

The second difficulty (only for me) is the Finnish language. I didn’t go to courses very often, at work I mostly keep quiet, with employees - in Russian. In the evening I come home, tired, children and household chores - as a result, I speak badly. There are very few evening courses for working people. All short-term, tried to get a couple of times, all unsuccessful. But that, of course, is only my fault. We have been living in Helsinki for 13 years, I have never felt discrimination against myself or my loved ones. At work, everyone is very respectful and even, let's say, extremely attentive. We are happy here and think that everything will be fine with us in the future.

Lyudmila Gouk (born 1961)

Savolainen

For a long time I did not attach importance to my ethnic origin. Although I noticed differences in mentality from ethnic Russians, I didn’t connect it with nationality before, I thought that it was more like a family one.

Andrey with his daughter Orvokki in Jokipii.

Starting around the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, many of my acquaintances, one after another, periodically began to travel abroad, including to Finland. They told me that I had a really Finnish character. In addition, I dated a girl for a while who had lived in Norway for a long time. And according to her, I had a typical Scandinavian mentality (by Scandinavians she meant both Norwegians and Finns; from her point of view, there are no significant national differences between them).

I liked what my friends told me about Finland and the Finns. Although many responded negatively, those features that they did not like, I, on the contrary, considered positive qualities. I became interested, reading materials about Finland. He also became more interested than before in the history of the Ingrian Finns. Unfortunately, by that time, none of the generation of grandparents was already alive. I searched for information on the Internet, and later also sometimes participated in events organized by the Inkerin liitto society.

I know that the ancestors of the Ingrians moved to Ingria in the 17th century, having moved there from Karelia and Savo. Judging by my grandmother's maiden name, Savolainen, my distant ancestors were from Savo. During the Second World War, the Ingrians, including all my paternal relatives living at that time (my mother is ethnically half-Estonian, half-Russian), were exiled to Siberia. Their houses and all property were confiscated, and they themselves were sent to the Omsk region.