Finno-Ugric peoples in Russia

The Mari youth movement has started collecting signatures in Mari El to change the national emblem and formally reintroduce the former emblem. To date, 300 signatures have been collected.

On 10 June, the 12th Mari Song Festival took place on Siukhin field in Hill Mari region, Republic of Mari El. The first Mari Song Festival was in 2002 and the song festival tradition has been adopted from Estonia.

On 19 May, President of Russia Vladimir Putin held a session of the Council for Interethnic Relations, where the Russian state national policy strategy, the integration of the newly occupied regions into the socio-cultural space of Russia and changes in the national policy due to "external dangers and threats" were discussed.

Udmurt musicians Maria Korepanova, Pavel Kutergin and Mari Anna Makeev performed at the Ukrainian Freedom School in Tallinn on 8 June. Fenno-Ugria's project manager Anna Kuznetsova talked about the Finno-Ugric peoples.

The seminar "How to conceptualise Russia" was organised by Fenno-Ugria in Maarjamäe Castle in Tallinn on 31 May. The seminar was supported by the Open Estonia Foundation/Active Citizens Fund and it took place within the framework of the project "Democracy School for Finno-Ugric communities in Estonia".

The Saami community in Russia was divided in half after the war in Ukraine began. Some of the Saami have taken part in protests in support of the Russian attack, Justas Stasevskiy reports on YLE.

Since 1993, April 16 has been celebrated as the Erzya Language Day. Some years ago, the day was changed in the Russian Federation to the Mordvin Language Day.

The Sami Language Support Centre has been opened at the Institute of Linguistics of the Murmansk Arctic State University. The university is the only institution in Russia that teaches the Sami language in the master's degree.