Polekhs (russian: Полехи) are a sub

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

Russians , native_name_lang = ru , image = , caption = , population = , popplace = 118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate) , region1 = , pop1 ...

settled along the

Desna River The Desna (russian: Десна́; uk, Десна) is a river in Russia and Ukraine, a major left-tributary of the Dnieper. Its name means "right hand" in the Old East Slavic language. It has a length of , and its drainage basin covers .

and

Seym River The Seim (also transcribed as Seym and Sejm, in ; ) is a west-flowing river in Russia and Ukraine. Its length is (250 km within Ukraine) and its basin area about . It is the largest tributary of the Desna. Places on the river are: Kursk, Kurch ...

and mixed with local populations of

Belarusians , native_name_lang = be , pop = 9.5–10 million , image = , caption = , popplace = 7.99 million , region1 = , pop1 = 600,000–768,000 , region2 = , pop2 ...

and

Lithuanians Lithuanians ( lt, lietuviai) are a Baltic ethnic group. They are native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,378,118 people. Another million or two make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the United States, Uni ...

. Most of them retained the

Russian Orthodox religion , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...

References

Russian sub-ethnic groups Ethnic groups in Russia {{ethnic-stub