The Äyrämöiset or, as the

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

ns call them, Evrimeiset (

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

: Эвремейсы), were a

Finnish language Finnish (endonym: or ) is a Finnic languages, Finnic language of the Uralic languages, Uralic language family, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official langu ...

-speaking people who lived in the Saint Petersburg Oblast and earlier also on the Finnish part of the

Karelian Isthmus The Karelian Isthmus (; ; ) is the approximately stretch of land situated between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga in northwestern Russia, to the north of the River Neva. Its northwestern boundary is a line from the Bay of Vyborg to the we ...

. Äyrämöiset were one of the two groups of

Ingrian Finns Ingrian Finns (, ; ) are the Finnish people, Finnish population of Ingria (now the central part of Leningrad Oblast in Russia), descending from Lutheranism, Lutheran Finnish immigrants introduced into the area in the 17th century, when Finland ...

, the Finnish speaking groups in St. Petersburg Oblast, the other being the Savakot. Most of the Äyrämöiset are

Lutherans Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched the Reformation in 15 ...

. The name Äyrämöiset (äkrämöiset) comes from the ancient county of

Äyräpää Baryshevo (; ) is a rural locality on Karelian Isthmus, in Vyborgsky District of Leningrad Oblast. It is situated on the southern shore of Vuoksi River. Until the Winter War and Continuation War, it had been the administrative center of the ...

(Äkräpää) in the Western part of the Karelian Isthmus - which was a part of the kingdom of Sweden after 1323 AD. In earlier times existed as well an agricultural deity called

Äkräs Äkräs or Äyräs is a haltija or god of various plants in Finnish mythology. She was first mentioned in writing by Mikael Agricola in 1551: "Egres created peas, beans, rutabagas / Brought forth cabbages, flax, hemp" (''Egres hernet Pawudh Naurit ...

(Ägräs), the god of beans, peas and hemp and the mythological forefather of the Äyrämöiset. The Äyrämöiset made up the majority of the population of the Province of Ingria, when it was established in the 17th century. The Äyrämöiset did not mix with the immigrants from Savonia, but by the 20th century, the intermixing between them, the Savonian immigrants and the indigenous

Izhorians The Izhorians (; ; ; ) are a Finnic indigenous people native to Ingria. Small numbers can still be found in the western part of Ingria, between the Narva and Neva rivers in northwestern Russia. They are also referred to as Ingrians, although the ...

was indistinguishable, and the Izhorians came to be known as the indigenous people of Ingria. The Äyrämöiset spoke a dialect belonging to the

South Karelian dialects South Karelian dialects, Karelian dialects or Southeast Finnish dialects () are Eastern Finnish dialects spoken in South Karelia, along with eastern parts of Kymenlaakso ( Virolahti and Miehikkälä). Prior to the Winter War, the dialects were s ...

of Finnish. The villages of Luppolovo, Vartemyagi, Rappolovo,

Toksovo Toksovo (; ) is an urban locality (an urban-type settlement) in Vsevolozhsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located to the north of St. Petersburg on the Karelian Isthmus. It is served by two neighboring stations of the Saint Peters ...

, Baryshevo and Kavgolovo were all traditional areas of habitation of the Evrimeiset.

References

Sources

*Wixman, Ronald. ''The Peoples of the USSR: An Ethnographic Handbook''. (Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc, 1984) p. 17 *Olson, James S., ''An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires''. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1994) p. 59 {{DEFAULTSORT:Ayramoiset Ingrian Finns