Meshchyora

The Volga Finns (sometimes referred to as Eastern Finns) are a historical group of indigenous peoples of Russia living in the vicinity of the Volga, who speak Uralic languages. Their modern representatives are the Mari people, the Erzya and the Moksha Mordvins, as well as speakers of the extinct Merya, Muromian and Meshchera languages. The Permians are sometimes also grouped as Volga Finns.

The modern representatives of Volga Finns live in the basins of the Sura and Moksha rivers, as well as (in smaller numbers) in the interfluve between the Volga and the Belaya rivers. The Mari language has two dialects, the Meadow Mari and the Hill Mari.

Traditionally the Mari and the Mordvinic languages ( Erzya and Moksha) were considered to form a ''Volga-Finnic'' or ''Volgaic'' group within the Uralic language family, accepted by linguists like Robert Austerlitz (1968), Aurélien Sauvageot & Karl Heinrich Menges (1973) and Harald Haarmann (1974), but rejected by others like Björn Collinder (1965) and Robert Thomas Harms (1974).
This grouping has also been criticized by Salminen (2002), who suggests it may be simply a geographic, not a phylogenetic, group.

Terminology

The Volga Finns are not to be confused with the Finns. The term is a back-derivation from the linguistic term "Volga-Finnic", which in turn reflects an older usage of the term "Finnic", applying to most or the whole of the Finno-Permic group, while the group nowadays known as Finnic were referred to as "Baltic-Finnic".

Mari

The Mari or ''Cheremis'' (russian: черемисы, Tatar ''Çirmeş'') have traditionally lived along the Volga and Kama rivers in Russia. The majority of Maris today live in the Mari El Republic, with significant populations in the Tatarstan and Bashkortostan republics.
The Mari people consists of three different groups: the Meadow Mari, who live along the left bank of the Volga, the Mountain Mari, who live along the right bank of the Volga, and Eastern Mari, who live in the Bashkortostan republic. In the 2002 Russian census, 604,298 people identified themselves as "Mari," with 18,515 of those specifying that they were Mountain Mari and 56,119 as Eastern Mari. Almost 60% of Mari lived in rural areas.

Merya

The Merya people (russian: меря; also ''Merä'') inhabited a territory corresponding roughly to the present-day area of the Golden Ring or Zalesye regions of Russia, including the modern-day Moscow, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Ivanovo, and Vladimir oblasts. The fact is that by origin the basis of “shim” is Meryan
In the modern Vepsian language, the word meri means "sea"
In the 6th century Jordanes mentioned them briefly (as Merens); later the '' Primary Chronicle'' described them in more detail. Soviet archaeologists believed that the capital of the Merya was Sarskoe Gorodishche near the bank of the Nero Lake to the south of Rostov. It is likely that they were peacefully assimilated by the East Slavs after their territory became incorporated into Kievan Rus' in the 10th century.

One hypothesis classifies the Merya as a western branch of the Mari people rather than as a separate tribe. Their ethnonyms are basically identical, ''Merya'' being a Russian transcription of the Mari self-designation, ''Мäрӹ (Märӛ)''.

The unattested Merya language is traditionally assumed to have been a member of the Volga-Finnic group. This view has been challenged: Eugene Helimski supposes that the Merya language was closer to the "northwest" group of Finno-Ugric ( Balto-Finnic and Sami), and Gábor Bereczki supposes that the Merya language was a part of the Balto-Finnic group.

The Meryans were stated to have fought with the Bolghars in wars against Tatars.

Some of the inhabitants of several districts of Kostroma and Yaroslavl oblasts present themselves as Meryan, although in recent censuses, they were registered as Russians. The modern Merya people have their websites displaying their flag, coat of arms and national anthem, and participate in discussions on the subject in Finno-Ugric networks.

2010 saw the release of the film ''Ovsyanki'' (literal translation: 'The Buntings', English title: ''Silent Souls''), based on the novel of the same name, devoted to the imagined life of modern Merya (or Meadow Mari) people.

In the early 21st century, a new type of social movement, the so-called "Merya Ethnofuturism", has emerged. It is distributed across central regions of Russia, for example, in Moscow, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Kostroma Oblast, and Plyos. In May 2014, the ''New Gallery'' in the city of Ivanovo opened the art project mater ''Volga, Sacrum'' during the "Night of Museums". In October 2014, a presentation of "Merya Language" was held at the III Festival of Languages at Novgorod University.

Meshchera

The Meshchera (russian: мещера, Meshchera or russian: мещёра, Meshchyora) lived in the territory between the Oka River and the Klyazma