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HomeExhibitionsEcho of the Urals

Echo of the Urals

"Echo of the Urals" is the permanent exhibition of the Estonian National Museum, offering insight into how the Finno-Ugric peoples might think as well as their culture, languages and genetic background. The exhibition also briefly explores how the tiny Finno-Ugric nation groups are doing today.

The exhibition is dedicated to the Finno-Ugric indigenous peoples without their own statehood who inhabit an immense swath of land from Scandinavia in the northern part of Eurasia and the Baltic Sea to the Taymyr Peninsula and Yenisei River in Siberia. The Finno-Ugric are settled down to – in some areas – the Danube and the Volga River, in the south. The central idea of the exhibition is inspired by the differences between the daily activities, rituals and traditional art of Finno-Ugric women and men.

The exhibition displays about one tenth of the collection of Finno-Ugric artefacts that the Museum owns. The viewers are invited to dive into explanations, explore different maps, play games, enjoy animations based on Finno-Ugric fairy tales and watch how the nation groups are living today. An exhibition of this size, based on the Finno-Ugric nations, has never been produced before. The central points of the display are Finno-Ugric settlements on one hand – a Komi hut, an Udmurtian shed, a Karelian sauna, a Sámi house, a Khanty forest camp – and several rituals on the other: the coming of age, weddings, honouring the forbears.

In addition, the exhibition offers an excellent display of Finno-Ugric clothing, daily tools and equipment. The most valuable part of the Finno-Ugric collection was compiled by the Museum 100 years ago; the exhibition combines the archaicness of the Finno-Ugric nations with a surprising design language, a futuristic, yet culturally sensitive spatial design and passionate aesthetics. 

Read more at The Best in Heritage.

The Permians

The Komis (Komi-Zyrians and Komi-Permyaks) and the Udmurts (including the Besermyan) live in the foothills of the Ural mountains, on the border between Europe and Asia. Their settlements stretch from the arctic tundra to the steppes. The diversity of natural settlement area conditions has shaped these people’s traditional forms of subsistence. Hunting and fishing as well as reindeer and cattle herding have been the indigenous activities of the northern Komis, while the Udmurts, Besermyans and southern Komis have predominantly pursued agriculture and animal husbandry. Historically, Komis have been known as skilful traders who participated in the exploration and colonisation expeditions of Siberia that were organised by the Russians. The Udmurts have been highlighted by numerous researchers for their love of home and their settled way of life.

The Komi and Udmurt languages are very close. Linguists estimate that 80 percent of the origins of their vocabularies overlap. However, the differences between Komi and Udmurt are marked enough to preclude mutual intelligibility.

Today the Komis and Udmurts are predominantly Orthodox. The Christianisation of the Komis began in the 14th century. Their baptiser, Stephen of Perm, created a special alphabet for the Komi language, which was used for many centuries. A vigorous Udmurt baptismal campaign was enacted in the 18th century, but in comparison with the Komi, the Christianity of the Udmurts is, to a large extent, interlaced with ancient belief conceptions. In certain areas, the old religious practices and places of worship have survived.



The Volga Finns

Maris and Mordvins who live in the middle reaches of the Volga River and in the vicinity of its tributaries are one of the largest Finno-Ugric groups in Russia. The name Mordvins actually denotes two closely related peoples: the Mokshas and the Erzyas. The latter have for some time now been under considerable Russian influence, while Mari culture has rather been influenced by that of the Tatars.

The Erzya and the Moksha are the most scattered of the Finno-Ugric peoples – fewer than half of them live in the Republic of Mordovia. Their villages are dispersed over a large area and are mixed with the villages of other peoples, primarily Russian, as well as those of the Tatar and Chuvash peoples. Both the Mari and the Erzya and the Moksha have traditionally been farmers. Beekeeping has also played a major role in the economy of the Volga Finns. The Erzya and the Moksha are considered to be particularly skilful beekeepers.

The faith traditions of Erzyas and Mokshas honour both the Orthodox saints and pagan deities, who are mainly female. The Mari live between Orthodox Russians and Muslim Tatars, but their animistic religion has retained its vitality. The Mari native religion is officially recognised in the Republic of Mari El in conjunction with Orthodoxy. Because of their peculiar religion, Maris are known as “Europe’s last pagans”.

The Baltic Finns

 
The Baltic-Finnic languages are similar enough that they are, to some extent, mutually intelligible. There are also many overlaps in the traditional culture, folk poetry and pre-Christian religion of the Baltic-Finnic indigenous farmers, hunters and fishermen. Were they a single people at some point? It is not unequivocally clear when, why and how this unity came about. It has been suggested that Baltic Finns were separated from the rest of the Finno-Ugric peoples by virtue of their early contacts with Baltic- and Ger­manic-speaking populations. About one thousand years ago, different tribes and groups had already emerged, some of them connected more to the coast and sea, others to the inland and forest areas.

The eastern Baltic Finns – Votians, Izhorians, Vepsians and Karelians, and probably another now vanished little-known Chud’ tribe – participated in establishing Russian statehood in the 9th century together with the Varyags and eastern Slavs. They became Orthodox and have remained within Russia to this day. Assimilation threatens the cultural survival of all eastern Baltic Finns, and in the near future, with the continuation of the current ethnic processes, the numerous Finnic place names in northeastern Russia will be the only trace that remains of them.
The Livonians, Estonians and Finns living further west, closer to the sea, remained stateless pagans until the 13th century, when they came under the power of German, Danish and Swedish feudal lords. They adopted Catholicism, and later Lutheranism, and the areas of their settlements came to mark the eastern border of the Occident. Livonians, who once inhabited northern Latvia, are now almost extinct, while Estonians and Finns have succeeded in obtaining sovereignty.
 

The Northern Peoples

 
The Arctic is a place of chimerical dreams and reveries. For months at a time, men and women live in the snowy twilight of the polar night. Like polar foxes, they can unerringly find their way in the endless tundra expanses, sharing the swamps and forests with birds, ancestors and spirits. The people of the north are taciturn in nature, although once they begin to sing myths in incantatory voices, they can go on for days.

The Sami, Khanty, Mansi, Nenets, Enets, Selkup and Nganasan living in the tundras and forests, form an ancient unbroken chain of Uralic peoples that stretches from Scandinavia to the Taymyr Peninsula in Siberia. They hunt, fish and raise reindeer.
The northern people’s world perception impels them to get along with the gods and therefore they must arrange sacrificial rites. One has several souls and after death, one is reborn. Over the centuries, the northern peoples of Russia have been converted to the Orthodox faith, and in Scandinavia the Sami have been led to Lutheranism. The protestant missionary efforts among the Sami enjoyed success, but there are only scant traces of Orthodoxy in the religion of the Ob-Ugrian and Samoyed peoples.
For over a century, the Scandinavian Sami have fought for their rights as an indigenous people and today their neighbours acknowledge them as equal partners. The culture and languages of the Uralic northern peoples living in Russia, however, are severely endangered. The proportion of the Khanty and Mansi in the population of their settlement areas is infinitesimal, and the ecological condition of their living environment is catastrophic because of the expanding oil and natural gas industry.
 
 


The virtual exhibition "Dowry of the Future" is a three-part digital exhibition created for the VIII World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples, exploring different spheres of heritage and cultural sustainability in fashion. The exhibition, curated by Prof. Piret Puppart, provides an overview of ethnography-inspired works of the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA) fashion students over recent years. As eloquent examples of the exhibition, Karl Joonas Alamaa's installation "Underneath the Apple Tree – An Homage to Care" and Lisette Sivard's performance "VÖÖ" present how knowing better one's roots can empower creative processes on a deeper level.