Inhabitants of Mezensky District (northern Archangelsk Oblast)

[Ymyyakhtakh]

The Mezen district is part of the core Pomor area. Here's a map of Pomor settlements, which include Mezen and Koyda (https://books.google.com/books?id=zvYF5F5fUY0C&pg=PA3):



In the 2002 census, 6,571 people identified as Pomor, out of whom 6,295 lived in the Arkhangelsk Oblast and 127 lived in the Murmansk Oblast (http://www.perepis2002.ru/index.html?id=17, table 3).

Below is a map of the area of Pomor dialects, which includes the area of all four settlements covered by this thread. You can see that the lower Mezen River is Pomor territory, but the upper Mezen River is Komi territory.



In the first map above, the two Pomor settlements that are marked on the southern coast of the Kola Peninsula are Umba and Varzuga. They were the first documented permanent Russian settlements on the Kola Peninsula (in the 1400s). Umba is connected to the road network through all-seasonal roads but Varzuga is not. The population of Umba was listed as 5,532 in the 2010 census, but the population of Varzuga was listed as only 363, so Varzuga is probably more purely Pomor.

The area of Varzuga used to be inhabited by Karelians until the 1400s, when it was destroyed by "Murman sea robbers" (i.e. Norse vikings). Novgorodians then resettled the area of Varzuga. (http://web.archive.org/web/201203041...l/ushakov1.htm, Google translation)

Russian people first became acquainted with the Terek land (as the Kola Peninsula was called in the old days) as early as the XII century, and since the beginning of the XIII century, as the annals testify, it was already a part of Novgorod possessions. However, for a long time, the Russians did not settle on the Tersky coast, but came to crafts from the villages of the southwestern coast of the White Sea, where the descendants of peasants who came from Novgorod land lived. They were engaged in fishing and hunting for sea animals. Their whole life was connected with the sea. Hence - their ethnographic name "Pomors".

In the XIV century, shipbuilding, various crafts and trade successfully developed in Pomorie, and the population grew. When, through trade, it became possible to obtain from inner Russia everything necessary for life in the Far North, Russian villages arose on the Tersky coast. The immigrants from Kemsky Pomerania chose for themselves the Umbu and Varzuga rivers - places at some distance from the sea for fear of the then attacks of the Scandinavian robbers.

Karelians lived in the lower reaches of the Varzuga River. In 1419, according to the First Novgorod Chronicle, the Korelsky Pogost in Varzug was ruined. He was smashed by the sea robbers, sailing on the "screws" - the "Murman". "Korela Varzugskaya" is also mentioned in the treaty of 1471 of Moscow Prince Ivan III with Novgorod. Pomor aliens occupied empty land, and bought some "plots" from the settlers.

The exact time of arrival of Russian pomors to live in Varzuga is unknown. The earliest evidence of their settlement on the Tersky coast dates back to 1466, when the Varzuzhan Timofey Yermolinich, as the preserved letter says, transferred his lands in the Varzug River and along the seashore - traps and forests to the Solovetsky Monastery. Four years later, the famous Novgorod noblewoman Martha Boretskaya issued a similar letter to her "patrimony of the sea coast, fish traps, land and water, and reaping (hayfields), and the forest from the Umba meadows from Kashkaransky stream to Krasnye Shchelyki and I'm sinking: Stone, sinking Kashkara pillowcase, sinking Sharpening stream."

In the late sixties of the 15th century, the second generation of Russian settlers lived in Varzug. In the letters of deposit of Makarii and Nestor Ivanovich, "plots" are called "fatherlands," that is, possessions received from the fathers by inheritance, but not one of the depositors had "grandfathers," as is the case in deeds of letters and donations of the Dviny. Most likely, the Pomors settled on the Tersky coast in the second quarter of the 15th century.

In the early period of Varzuga's existence, the Solovetsky Monastery played an important role in the life of the village, which built a courtyard in Varzug, began fishing salmon in the river, and also set up a church in the name of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors. On March 15, 1491, the Abbot Isaiah of Solovetsky received a letter of honor from the Bishop of Gennady from Novgorod, exempting the clergy from paying all duties and the court of the "tithes" (governors of the archbishop).

The St. Nicholas Church on the left bank of the Varzuga River became the first Orthodox church on the Kola Peninsula.

This is semi-OT, but here's girls from Varzuga (https://vk.com/search?c%5Bcity%5D=10...5Bcountry%5D=1):

Spoiler!

There's some freakishly Finnish-looking faces in Varzuga too:

Spoiler!

I wonder what would be the settlements where the largest percentage of the population are Pomors?

[Borealis]

crazy