[BRIEF NOTE] On the last of the Ingrians

[rfmcdonald]

Helsingin Sanomat's Heli Saavalainen has an English-language article examining the elderly Ingrian populations of Kingisepp, a community in Russia just outside of St. Petersburg and not very far at all from the Estonian border.

The Ingrians are a Finnic population living in the hinterland of St. Petersburg, descended equally from indigenous and immigrant Finns, who suffered atrociously in the course of the 20th century. After the end of the Soviet Union, Ingrian Finns--then living mainly in Russia or in adjacent, Finnic Estonia--were offered Finnish citizenship, and very many accepted. Today, notwithstanding interest from Finland and Estonia in promoting Finnic languages and cultures among Russia's different Finnic populations--I blogged about this in January 2006 and July 2007--Ingrian ethnic identity seems on the verge of vanishing, as the old remain in their historic communities while the young emigrate to Finland (or Estonia) or assimilate into the Russian community.

The river flows swiftly through the town of Jaama, or Kingisepp in Northwest Russia. Young people spend their summer day on the shore, drinking beer and enjoying each other’s company. Here and there anglers try to catch fish.

The river is the Luga River. The area has strongly Finnish roots. At the Nivo cemetery on the Kurkola Peninsula there are plenty of Finnish names - Koi¬vu¬nen, Sep¬pä¬nen, Jalonen, Sippo, Harakka, Saunanen, Suomalainen.

The Ingrian culture is alive in the villages where a group of tenacious grandmothers who have gone through many tribulations in their lives still hang on.

One of the women is 83-year-old Tyyne Yllö. She was born in Hakaja, raised three children, buried her husband, mother-in-law, and her son and his family.

In 1943 at the age of 13 the girl was brought to Finland to escape the war. “The Germans drove us to Finland. They did it by force, although they said later that we wanted to go there ourselves”, Yllä says.

She ended up in a farm in Orimattila.

“Then in 1944 they said that we can go home.”

But there was no going back home – the new address was found in Siberia. “We had no food or money”, Yllö says, recalling her youth.

Her family fled to Estonia, and from there to Soviet Karelia. “There was work and bread there. They let us live.”

In 1958 they got permission to return to Hakaja. “I immediately had a great need to get back.”

However, their home was no longer the same. “Everything had been ravaged. There was no roof and no doors. Fish helped us through the poverty, and we had to work hard.”

[. . .]

The villages are also gradually dying out. “A few years ago all villages had life, even children”, says Father Grigori, a priest of the Ingrian Church.

The young people move out to find work, and the area becomes increasingly dominated by ethnic Russians.

“Many have moved to Finland, and many more are dead”, says Aleksander Ruotsi, the chairman of the local chapter of the Ingrian League.

When the association was set up in 1989 there were more than 2,000 active members. Now there are less than 100.

The congregation holds a memorial service at the Nivo cemetery each year. “Many times we take flowers to those who were there the previous year”, Father Grigori says.