Free Republic

WHERE DO FINNS COME FROM? Not long ago, cytogenetic experts stirred up a controversy with their "ground-breaking" findings on the origins of the Finnish and Sami peoples. Cytogenetics is by no means a new tool in bioanthropological research, however. As early as the 1960s and '70s, Finnish researchers made the significant discovery that one quarter of the Finns' genetic stock is Siberian, and three quarters is European in origin. The Samis, however, are of different genetic stock: a mixture of distinctly western, but also eastern elements. If we examine the genetic links between the peoples of Europe, the Samis form...

The Ural family languages are the third after Indo-European and Turkic most common in Northern Eurasia. According to linguists, the Ural family languages were built from a single proto-language 6000-4000 years old, which was divided into two large branches: Finno-Ugric and Samoyed languages. Ural-speaking peoples live on giant territories from Baltics to West Syberia and include Finns and Estonians, Karelians and Hungarians, Mordovian Erzya and Moksha, West Siberian Khanty and Mansi, Nenets and others. Do this different peoples share common roots and biological history? And how did these related languages spread over such a wide territory? This questions are addressed...

Geneticist specialists from the Institute of Biological Problems of the North, Far-East Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, are reconstructing the picture of Eurasia colonization by the Slavs. According to the researchers’ opinion, the Slavonic men and women jointly developed the territory of the south of contemporary Russia. However, after the 9th century, women used to stay at home, and colonization of the east and north was mainly performed by men. This conclusion was made by geneticists through analyzing variable consecutions of DNA of mitochondria and of some sections of Y-chromosome with representatives of 10 Russian populations from the Stavropol...

‘Red Festival’ In Udmurtia 19 November 2010, 07:50 Nadezhda Volokitina The Udmurts are the most red-haired Finno-Ugric people, the most red-haired nation in Russia, and as far as the rest of the world is concerned, they are inferior only to the Irish in this respect. The so-called ‘Red Festival’, which gathers a lot of people, takes place annually in the capital of Udmurtia, Izhevsk. There organized such contests and competitions as ‘Mother, Father and I are a Red Family’ (the most red-haired family contest), ‘Mischievous Gingers’ (the most red-haired child contest), as well as ‘red’ pet contests for cats, dogs,...