Perm Prikamye is a unique region in ethnocultural terms. The population of the Perm Territory throughout its history evolved multiethnically, since its peoples mastered completely different in language, origin, traditions and way of life. The result was an exceptionally interesting ethnocultural complex, which has no analogues in Russia and its regions. The population of the Perm Territory during its existence built relationships in a purely peaceful way, there were no ethnic conflicts.
Nationalities
The interaction of peoples in this region has always been active, among the characteristic features are many interethnic borrowings as a result of close contacts with neighbors. The population of the Perm Territory used many forms and various degrees of influence - up to absolute assimilation. In these vast territories and now live more than one hundred and twenty nationalities belonging to three language groups: Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Slavic. This was facilitated by its own reasons, which will be considered in this article. Why does the population of Perm Krai have such an ethnically diverse composition? First of all, because Prikamye has always been a historical crossroads for peoples who either moved along the banks of the Kama River, or were going to cross the Ural Ridge on the way to Siberia from Europe, and also vice versa - from Siberia to civilization.
Here and now there pass the most important ways for connecting the Russian plain and Western Europe with the taiga and steppe regions of Asia, as well as with the eastern states. The population of the Perm region of the Perm Territory inhabited the banks of the Kama in those distant times, when ancient trade routes could only go along the river and its tributaries. Of course, all this influenced the formation of such a complex national composition. Already in the nineteenth century, Russians, Bashkirs, Tatars, Mari, Udmurts, Komi-Permyaks and Mansi constantly lived here. The most ancient annals are those who made up the first population of the Perm region of the Perm Territory - these are the Perm tribes, otherwise - the Zyryans, who are the ancestors of the Komi-Permyaks and Komi-Zyryans, and also the Ugra tribe - the ancestors of the present Khanty and Mansi - originally lived here. Then, in the nineteenth century, the dramatic history of our country brought here representatives of many other nations.
Russians and Ukrainians
The largest people here in the last hundred years were Russians, there are currently more than two and a half million, or 85.2% of the total population of the Perm Territory. They settle evenly, prevail in most of the territories. The exceptions are only Bardymsky and five districts in the Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug, where only 38.2% of Russians are there. The vast majority of Russians inhabit the cities of the Perm Territory. According to the population, urban prevails - 75.74%, according to 2017. In total, 2, 632, 097 people with a density of 16.43 people per square kilometer live in the Perm Territory. Russians in this region are newcomers, they began to settle here from the fifteenth century, when the Upper Kama lands became part of the Russian State. Most of all they came from the north, and they were peasants. As the borders expanded eastward, the Russians were the first to develop new lands. In the seventeenth century, a compact and nationally mature group was formed here, which became part of the Russian nation.
In the nineteenth century, cities of the Perm Territory grew even more. In terms of population, the region has become more crowded, and in terms of ethnic composition is much more complicated. Settlers from very remote territories began to arrive here. For example, in 1897, one hundred and ninety-five Ukrainians settled here compactly, and by the twentieth year of the last century there were already significantly more - almost a thousand. They settled in Ohan and Osinsky districts, and came here as a result of the land reform of Stolypin. Now the population of Perm region of Ukrainian nationality is more than sixteen thousand people. They live almost all in the cities: Kizel, Gubakh, Gremyachinsk, Berezniki, Aleksandrovsk, there are also few such settlers in the Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug.
Belarusians and Poles
The first Belarusians came here after the Russians at the end of the eighteenth century. At first, there were a little less than eighty people, most of them in Perm district. During the land reform, they significantly increased in number, at the beginning of the twentieth century there were already more than three thousand of them. Most Belarusians are villagers, they always lived compactly, preserving the language and all traditions of life. Now there are six and a half thousand of them in the Perm Territory, and in Okhansky and Osinsky districts there are few of them, everyone has moved to the north of the Territory, to industrial and monetary places. And industry was developing very intensively, and no matter how much the population of the Perm Territory, everything was not enough to participate in this process. Engineering and petrochemical, chemical, oil refining, forestry, pulp and paper, woodworking, and printing industries are also developed.
The main ones are ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, as well as the extraction of oil, coal, potash and salt. There has always been a lot of work, and now the able-bodied population of the Perm Territory is not in poverty in this regard. Before the revolution, Perm was a famous city for political exiles. Especially many among the exiled here were Poles, who at the end of the eighteenth century, when Poland was part of the Russian Empire, participated in the national liberation movement. The census of 1897 speaks of the number of a thousand or more inhabitants of Polish origin. Perm Territory became their second homeland. I must say that their number on the Kama land for all these centuries has not increased. In 1989, there were 1, 183 Poles in the Perm Territory.
Komi
The Komi-Permyaks belonging to the Finno-Ugric peoples have inhabited the vast lands of the upper Kama from the twelfth century. Their language and origin are close to the Komi-Zyryans and Udmurts. In the fifteenth century, Permian Komi were the first of the peoples of the Urals to join the Russian State. The population density of the Perm Territory at that time was not so high. If in 1869 the census showed 62, 130 Komi-Permyaks living in the Kama basin, then in 1989 there were already 123, 371 of them. It was this people that made up the ethnic core of the national district, formed in 1925 (since 1977 it has become autonomous). They replenished the population of the cities of the Perm Territory not as willingly as other nationalities. It so happened that they were the first to adopt the experience of farming and the culture of Russian immigrants, and therefore most of them live in rural areas. Among the autonomies of Russia, the Finno-Ugric composition of the Komi-Permyaks have the highest share of the population of the Perm Territory - in 1989 in the okrug they amounted to more than sixty percent. Now their number is significantly reduced, as, indeed, of any Russian people. In 2002, there were 103, 500 Komi-Permyaks, and in 2010, only 81, 000.
Considered to be part of the Komi-Permyak ethnic group, the Komi-Yazvintsy are actually a completely different nation. Their representatives settled in the Solikamsk and Krasnovishersky districts, where the Yazva River begins. They do not have their own written language, but they have preserved their own language, as well as their ethnic identity. Cultural and household specificity also distinguishes them from their neighbors. What population of the Perm Territory would not be proud of their own roots, their own sources? Of course, assimilation takes place here too, sometimes right up to the complete disappearance of characteristic ethnic features, but not all ethnic groups have gone this way to the end. Despite the fact that at the moment there are only about two thousand people left, the Komi-Yazvintsy are very precious in their origin.
Mansi and Udmurts
The Mansi nationality was formed in the tenth century just east of Prikamye - in the Trans-Urals. After the twelfth century, they settled in several areas of the Prikamye - Cherdynsky and Kungursky counties. Mansi also lived compactly in the upper reaches of the Vishera River and along the Chusovaya River. The number of the Mansi people can be traced only from the end of the eighteenth century, since the first census in these parts was in 1795. Then there were a little more than two hundred people. In the nineteenth century, most of them migrated in the Trans-Urals, to the Verkhotursky Uyezd, to the Lozva River. Now in the Perm Territory, the Mansi have almost disappeared. In 1989, only twenty-six people counted them in different regions, and in 2002 there were a little more - thirty-one.
The Udmurts came to Zakamye at the end of the sixteenth century and settled on the Bui River. Since they were always pagans, in the Kama region they had a hard time. Church began, the strengthening of feudal oppression. However, the Udmurts retained their beliefs and rites of their ancestors. Their language is distinguished by many anachronisms, but many influences have been superimposed on ethnic culture, and much more borrowings have appeared. The multinational environment could not but affect, especially if the Russian population always prevailed. The Udmurts believe that the processes of mutual influence cannot but enrich each other, however, surprisingly, they managed to preserve a lot of everyday and ritual, cult things literally from antiquity. In 1989, almost thirty-three thousand Udmurts lived in the Perm Region, that is, slightly more than one percent of the total population. Compact - in the Kuedinsky district by a historically formed group of almost six thousand people (seventeen percent of the district’s population). In everyday life, they speak their native language and study it in schools; cultural ties with Udmurtia, the historical homeland, are closely supported. According to the 2010 census, more than twenty thousand people lived in the Perm region.
Mari
At the end of the sixteenth century, in the south of the Perm Territory, in the Suksun district, on the Sylva River, the Mari settled. In those days, the Middle Volga region, where the Republic of Mari El is now located, had not yet joined Russia, but the Mari gradually moved to the South Prikamye. This nationality belongs to the eastern group of the Mari people, and after resettlement they began to be called Perm Mari. Their representatives live not only here, but also in the Sverdlovsk region, and in Bashkiria. According to the literary norm, their language does not differ from the general Mari language; it arose in the same way from a meadow dialect.
In the Perm Territory, the number of permanently Mari residents is small, only 0.2% of the population, that is, approximately six and a half thousand people were in 1989. Now much less - just a little over four thousand. They settled compactly in Kuedinsky, Chernushinsky, Oktyabrsky, Kishertsky and Suksunsky districts. They also keep the traditions of the Mari people, which is manifested in the manner of dressing, in holding religious holidays, in everyday life they use their native language.
Turkic peoples
Tatars form a large group of indigenous Kama population. When the Kazan Khanate fell, the Volga Tatars rushed to populate the South Prikamye. Their greatest concentration is on the rivers Tulva, Sylva, Iren and in all territories adjacent to them. Siberian Tatars joined the Volga and migrated much earlier to these lands. Perm Tatars are very heterogeneous. Researchers have identified several territorial ethnic groups: Bashkirs, Tulvin, Mullinsky and Sylven-Irene Tatars. At the beginning of the nineties of the twentieth century, one hundred fifty and a half thousand people lived in the Perm Territory, that is, almost five percent of the total population. They settled compactly in twelve territories of the region. First of all, in cities. These are Gremyachinsk, Kizel, Lysva, Chusova. Tatars also live in the districts - Chernushinsky, Uinsky, Suksunsky, Perm, Orda, Oktyabrsky, Kungursky and Kuedinsky. In the Oktyabrsky district, for example, Tatars make up almost thirty-three percent of the population.
Bashkirs came to these lands in the thirteenth century as part of several clans and settled in the Osinsky and Bardymsky districts, formed a compact group and actively assimilated the local Finno-Ugric ancient population. The districts of the Perm region, where the Turkic peoples settled, have survived to this day from the sixteenth century. The interaction between different peoples was intense, and therefore the purely Bashkir population was declining more and more. By the beginning of the twentieth century, many Bashkirs had lost a pronounced ethnic identity. Tatar influence through culture and language forced them to relate to the Tatars. Censuses of past times do not show the true picture. Even in 1989, thirty thousand people in the census indicated themselves as Bashkirs, and Tatar as their native language. The population of Russia is rapidly declining. In 1989, there were fifty-two thousand Bashkirs in the Perm Territory, and the 2010 census showed only thirty-two thousand.
Besides
The Chuvashs began to move to the Perm Territory at the beginning of the twentieth century from various places in Chuvashia, since there was overpopulation with a lack of land, forests and grasslands. The second wave of migration went in the fifties. At the end of the eighties, the Chuvashs were almost eleven thousand, and in 2010 - only four. More Germans lived in the Perm Territory - more than fifteen thousand, and they settled here in the nineteenth century. At the beginning of the twentieth, there were about one and a half thousand, and deportation after the Great Patriotic War added even more than forty thousand people. Most of it is from the Volga region. And in the postwar period, the Germans for some reason willingly settled in these northern places. Now, of course, almost everyone has left for their historical homeland. In 2010, there were about six thousand of them.
Jews came to Prikamye from Belarus in the middle of the nineteenth century, Nicholas I gave them lands here "below the Pale of Settlement". In 1864, about fifty families lived in Perm. These were artisans, doctors, pharmacists, engineers, musicians, who constituted the Perm intelligentsia by the beginning of the twentieth century. Already in 1896 there were about a thousand people in Perm alone. In 1920, three and a half thousand. In 1989, five and a half thousand. Then, after waves of emigration, by 2002 the census showed 2.6 thousand Jews in the Perm Territory. Also in the nineteenth century, Caucasians appeared here. Then there were, of course, a few of them. But the results of the 2002 census may be surprising. Formed new diasporas - Transcaucasia and Central Asia. The number of Tajiks, for example, has increased several times. In 2002, there were five thousand Armenians, 5.8 thousand Azerbaijanis, 1.6 Georgians. There are two thousand Tajiks and Uzbeks, almost one thousand Kazakhs, and, of course, slightly less than the Kyrgyz. These are all refugees from the time of the creation of the CIS. But the Koreans began to settle here at the end of the nineteenth century, however, in much smaller numbers.
Cities of Perm region
The capital of the Perm Territory is the wonderful city of Perm - a large transport hub with a port and the Trans-Siberian Railway. The population is more than a million people - 1, 041, 876, according to 2016. Glorious is the city of Chernushka, which received its status in 1966. Since 2006, it has been the center of an urban settlement. Nearly thirty-three thousand people live in Chernushka, located in the south of the Perm Territory. This is an industrial center where oil is extracted and refined, and the construction industry is very well developed.
The population is growing slightly due to the migration influx, and there is also some natural increase: in 2009, for example, the latter amounted to one hundred twenty-four people. Fifteen and a half thousand men and almost eighteen thousand women live here. That's the whole population of Chernushka. The Perm Territory as a whole is also experiencing high mortality among the male population. The city is young, with an average age of thirty-four years. The national composition is very heterogeneous, almost all of the above nationalities are present here.
