ATDTDA 773

[Ya Sam]

ATDTDA 773

Finnish Tatars

The Finnish Tatar community, about 800 people, is recognized as a national minority by the government of Finland, which considers their language as a non-territorial language under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

Their main organizations are the Finnish Islamic Congregation (Finlandiya Islam Cemaati, founded in 1925), the Union of Finnish Turks (Finlandiya Türkleri Birligi, founded in 1935) and the Yolduz sports club (founded in 1945). They even had the primary education Turkic People's School (Türk Halk Mektebi) in Helsinki from 1948 to 1969.

Their ancestors came to Finland from the 1870s to the mid 1920s from a group of some 20 villages in the Sergach region on the Volga River, to the southeast of Nizhni Novgorod. Those living in the city of Viipuri in Karelia resettled in Western Finland when Karelia was ceded by Finland to the Soviet Union in 1944.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Tatars

http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=26477

"Cossack ice-fishers ar lake Zaisan"

All the routes are in the largest reservoirs in East Kazakhstan, such as Lake Zaisan, Lake Markakol and the Cherny Irtysh River. Lake Zaisan is the largest fresh water reservoir and it abounds in fish. The lake is around 38 km long and 8 m deep and is at a height of over 1800 m. The country around the lake is deserted and severe. There are reserve fishing grounds, where big ten kilo pike can still be found. Also they are abundant in pike-perch and perch. On lucky days every other cast brings a fish. 

http://welcome-ural.ru/news/72/

Irtysh

a river in Siberia, the chief tributary of the river Ob. Its name means White River. It is actually longer than the Ob to their confluence. Irtysh's main affluent is Tobol River. The Ob-Irtysh form a major basin in Asia, encompassing most of Western Siberia and the Altay Mountains.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irtysh_River

Barnaul

city and administrative centre, Altay kray (region), south-central Russia, on the left bank of the Ob River at its confluence with the Barnaulka. In 1738 a silver-refining works was established and the settlement became the hub of the Altay mining region. It was a major trade centre in the second half of the 19th century.

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9013417/Barnaul


"The Paris of Siberia"

According to some sources it was Chekhov who gave Irkutsk this nickname

When Chekov stayed here at the turn of the last century, he dubbed it the ‘Paris of Siberia.’ **

http://www.travelsinrussia.com/decembrists.htm

Irkutsk, just north of Mongolia, is more than 5,000 kilometres by train from Moscow and is one of the largest cities in Siberia, with a population of about 600,000. Anton Chekhov dubbed it the Paris of Siberia. In the early 19th century, the Decembrists staged a revolt in St. Petersburg and Czar Nicholas I sent them to Irkutsk, a prison without bars. Members of the elite group had to give up their titles and claims to nobility, and though their wives could have escaped the threat of Siberia, many of them begged the czar to let them follow their husbands. Because they were allowed to maintain contact with the outside world, they imported all the literary and cultural delights they'd been accustomed to; they transformed the wilderness into a haven filled with classical theatres, golden-domed churches, and gorgeous mansions on tree-lined streets.

http://www.straight.com/article-73913/hospitality-warms-siberian-bicycle-odyssey

vint

Vint is a Russian card-game, similar to both bridge and whist and it is sometimes referred to as Russian whist. Vint means a screw in Russian, and the name is given to the game because the four players, each in turn, propose, bid and overbid each other until one, having bid higher than the others care to follow, makes the trump, and his vis-a-vis plays as his partner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vint

kupechestvo  merchant class, the merchants

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/