Төрки халыкларым гомерем минем

China, 1979

The Tatars are a Turkic-speaking people living mainly in Russia and other Post-Soviet countries. Historically, the term Tatars was applied to anyone originating from the vast Northern and Central Asian landmass then known as the Tartary, which was dominated by various mostly Turco-Mongol semi-nomadic empires and kingdoms. More recently, however, the term refers more narrowly to people who speak one of the Turkic languages. 

If you always thought that only Russian is spoken in Russia, I hasten to please you – you are wrong!

Actually, 193 ethnic groups live on the territory of Russia.

They speak 277 languages and dialects (somewhere there is information that as many as 295). There are more languages than there are the ethnic groups because some have as many as 2 languages.

The most interesting thing is that the dialects in the Russian language do not differ much from each other. For example, a person from Vladivostok (near Japan) will perfectly understand everything that a person from Kaliningrad (near Poland) talks about.

But the ethnic groups who live throughout the territory often speak their own languages in addition to the Russian language.

Here are they (the most significant ones)

Tatar – is spoken by about 5.5 million residents of Russia. These are mainly residents of the Republic of Tatarstan, the city of Kazan.

Ukrainian – 1.8 million people.

Chechen – 1.3 million people. Republic of Chechnya, the city of Grozny.

Bashkir – 1.3 million people. The Republic of Bashkiria, the city of Ufa.

Chuvash – 1.3 million people. The Republic of Chuvashia, the city of Cheboksary.

There are only the largest languages in terms of population.

By the way, the rarest dialect is Baraba or Baraba Sybyr. This is a kind of Tatar language. (Siberian Tatar language). It is spoken by only 8 thousand people.

Konstantin Kryzhitsky - Forest in winter, 1906.