The Vepsian people living in northern Russia are fighting to preserve their vanishing Finno-Ugric language and traditional culture, according to a report by Lenta.ru.
The minority population lives in the Vepsian Forest, located just 300 kilometres from Saint Petersburg, where residents continue to combine modern lifestyles with beliefs in forest spirits, spells, and witchcraft.
A reporting team from news outlet Lenta.ru visited the region alongside the Mediarazvedka project from travel service Tutu.ru to document cultural preservation efforts among both the Oyat Vepsians and the wealthier Northern Vepsians.
Elderly residents recall dramatic shifts in how the Vepsian language was treated across the twentieth century. A 100-year-old Vepsian woman known as Babushka Shura said the two most impressive events of her lifetime were Yuri Gagarin's spaceflight and the arrival of a school textbook written in Vepsian. She explained that until the textbook appeared, she had only heard and spoken her native language, but was finally able to see it with her eyes.
A written alphabet for Vepsian was first established following a scientific expedition in 1931. Over the subsequent years, educational authorities published approximately 30 textbooks covering various school subjects. However, this initial written period ended abruptly in 1937.
Following the halt of Vepsian education in the late 1930s, local schools transitioned entirely to Russian instruction. Authorities confiscated Vepsian textbooks and banned children from speaking their native tongue in classrooms or during school breaks. Older Vepsians recall being scolded and punished for using Vepsian speech, while children faced teasing for their accents and village origins.
To protect their children from discrimination and help them pursue urban careers, parents increasingly spoke Russian at home, and some Vepsians registered themselves as Russian. As a result, the language largely disappeared from schools, official institutions, and family life as older generations withheld it from their offspring.
Today, language preservation relies on dedicated revivalists. Some residents speak Vepsian with tourists before translating their stories into Russian, while activist Valentina Vasilyevna Lebedeva writes books detailing Vepsian language rules, culinary recipes, customs, and traditional insults.
Traditional Vepsian insults include specific descriptive terms:
- Viseläga, describing a woman who loves to party or wander around
- Haju humbar, meaning a vessel of stench
- Mechine, referring to a forest demon or wood goblin
- Toranik kukoi, describing a pugnacious rooster
- Gaved', meaning a parasite or pest
- Čonžoi, describing a constantly grumbling person
- Must sagarm, meaning a black otter
In Ladva, a remote cluster of settlements along the Oyat River near the border of Leningrad and Vologda Oblasts, traditional culture remains strongly preserved. Mobile phone signals are weak in the area, leaving landlines as the primary communication method. Because the settlements are separated by water and several kilometres of land, elderly female residents in different parts of Ladva use walkie-talkies to converse across the lake in Vepsian.
Preserving Vepsian Heritage Through Art
In Srednyaya village, art curator and museum designer Irina Aktuganova established an unconventional contemporary art gallery called Maripalna's House inside a restored wooden hut. Aktuganova described the project as a deeply personal effort to preserve local history.
The gallery is named after Maria Pavlovna Smirnova, known locally as Marya Palna. Smirnova was an ordinary forestry worker who peeled tree bark, lived in a dormitory, and moved to her brother's house late in life before dying in 1992 without marrying or leaving descendants.
Following Smirnova's death, locals planned to sell the abandoned wooden hut for firewood. Aktuganova purchased the structure for a few thousand rubles to prevent its destruction.
Travel club founder Ilya Zheltyakov of Les i Veter said ordinary village workers usually disappear from history without a trace, leaving only overgrown cranberry patches where their homes once stood. Zheltyakov stated that the project ensures Smirnova's name is spoken every year to honour working-class Vepsian life.
While a small corner of the gallery functions as a traditional museum for Smirnova, the main space features contemporary art installations. Soundscapes recorded in the village play throughout the house, thunder sounds emanate from a barrel, and woven carpet canvases hang from the walls.
In place of the former host's bed, living moss grows over the frame while a digital screen displays footage of a crumbling abandoned house. A digital creature then appears on screen near the stove, representing Pyachinrakhoi, the hearth spirit in Vepsian mythology who inhabits the domestic stove as long as a house remains inhabited.
On the same stove, visitors can view a Vepsian language learning computer code written by a 12-year-old boy. However, local schools face ongoing closures due to declining youth populations. In Yaroslavichi village, where only one school-age child remains, transport collects the student daily, though locals continue to repaint the old bus stop every few years despite the absence of a regular school bus.
In Lukinskaya village, School No. 14 closed in 2008 and its kindergarten shut down in 2009. Zheltyakov stated that the Les i Veter travel club plans to convert the preserved school building into a new cultural project.
Stonemasonry and Architectural Wealth
Beyond the Oyat River and across the Svir River, Northern or Prionezhye Vepsians settled along the south-western shore of Lake Onega in modern Karelia. Reaching these northern settlements requires crossing the Svir River by car ferry.
Northern Vepsians historically achieved greater financial wealth than Oyat Vepsians. While Oyat Vepsians focused on agriculture, forestry, and carpentry, Prionezhye men earned high wages as skilled stonemasons during major construction projects in Saint Petersburg.
Craftsmen brought their earnings back to their native villages, constructing large multi-room homes. Approximately one-quarter of surviving historical houses in the region are two-story structures. Researcher V.V. Volkov recorded in 1946 that locals constructed large houses specifically to display their family wealth.
Zheltyakov noted that prosperous homeowners sometimes covered wooden house exteriors with sheet iron, describing the practice as the historical equivalent of owning a Maybach luxury automobile. Wealthier homes also featured engraved kerosene lamps imported from England in the early twentieth century, framed mirrors, iron-bound storage chests, and Dutch heating stoves.
The financial prosperity of Northern Vepsians stemmed from rich local deposits of decorative stone. Quarries in Shoksha produced raspberry quartzite, while deposits near Rybreka yielded dark gabbro-diabase.
Stone extracted from these Vepsian quarries was used in major national and international monuments. Shoksha quartzite supplied architectural elements for Saint Petersburg, Lenin's Mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow, and Napoleon's sarcophagus at Les Invalides in Paris. Gabbro-diabase from Prionezhye provided paving stones for both Red Square in Moscow and Palace Square in Saint Petersburg.
One Vepsian peasant from Shoksha, Mark Pimenov, moved to Saint Petersburg and rose to become a First Guild merchant and prominent building contractor. In 1841, Pimenov's work crew of Vepsian stonemasons built the Anichkov Bridge across the Fontanka River. Pimenov also contracted for Saint Petersburg bridges, river embankments, and naval fortifications at Kronstadt.
Returning stonemasons also brought urban architectural styles back to Lake Onega. Home facades featured carved volute window casings inspired by Saint Petersburg Baroque architecture. Local carpenters adapted the urban motifs by carving a central female figure, known as a bereginya, into the window trim to serve as a protective household charm similar to traditional Vepsian embroidery patterns.
Prominent sites in the northern Vepsian region include:
- Samboy Lighthouse, an abandoned 23-metre metal tower on Cape Cheynavolok along Lake Onega, accessible via a 40-minute walk through pine forests
- Melkin House in Sheltozero, a large two-story house built by a wealthy stone-supplying family that now houses Russia's only museum dedicated entirely to Vepsian ethnography
- Shoksha and Kvartsitny settlements, where historic raspberry quartzite quarries can be visited on guided industrial tours
Timber Churches and Sacred Traditions
Prionezhye carpenters developed a distinct tradition of wooden church architecture, building tall structures with complex silhouettes, stacked wooden volumes, and intricate roof designs.
In Rodionovo village near Lake Yuksovskoye, the Church of Saint George the Victorious, also known locally as Yegory the Brave, stands as one of Russia's oldest wooden churches remaining on its original site. Historical sources date its original construction to either 1493 or 1543, with documented rebuilding occurring in 1632. The church dome features wooden scales made of short aspen shingles with shaped edges, called lemech, layered over the roof.
In Shcheleyki village, the Church of Saint Demetrius of Thessaloniki, constructed in 1783, features a multi-domed roof structure connected to a tent-roof bell tower by an elevated wooden walkway. The central structure incorporates a crossed barrel roof design with multiple rising domes.
In contrast to major churches, small wooden chapels stand throughout local forests, such as in Shondovichi. These small structures resemble simple outhouses from the exterior but contain small prayer rooms furnished with icons and candles that accommodate a single person.
Built without altar sections or resident priests, local communities constructed the chapels following fires, crop failures, or livestock losses. Community religious traditions also included water-blessing services followed by ritual bathing in the Oyat River or Lake Sarozero.
Worshippers left votive offerings, known as vows, inside the chapels to request divine aid or give thanks. Offerings included towels, headscarves, fabrics, clothing, swaddling clothes, animal wool, milk, cottage cheese, and mittens presented for healing hand ailments.
Traditional Herbalism and Local Beliefs
In Vinnitsy village, traditional herbalist Tatyana maintains folk healing practices inherited from her grandfather, who was a herbalist and healer. Tatyana initially avoided folk medicine until she was diagnosed with advanced cancer in Saint Petersburg. After medical treatments failed and doctors sent her home, her mother prepared a decoction from marsh cinquefoil root gathered in local bogs. Tatyana stated that she recovered fully after drinking the root mixture, remaining free of illness for 30 years and avoiding COVID-19 infection.
Marsh cinquefoil grows exclusively in peat bogs and must be harvested for medicinal use on a single specific day in late autumn between late October and early November. Tatyana gathers and ships the prepared root to clients across Russia, though she cautions that the plant must not be used for general prevention, comparing its effects to a sacred stone in Yaroslavichi that functions only for individuals in severe distress.
Tatyana collects other medicinal herbs after 11 a.m. once morning dew evaporates, drying the plants in attics away from direct sunlight. She ferments select plant leaves and sells her herbal products online.
Tatyana also consults scientific botanical research and collaborates with Dmitry Alekseyev, a candidate of biological sciences and microbiome specialist. After visiting the Vepsian Forest, Alekseyev began incorporating local plants into his commercial cosmetic products in place of Siberian Altai botanicals.
In addition to herbal remedies, Tatyana creates protective amulets, crafting dolls and decorative panels from daylilies and cattails while hanging dried thistle at her entrance. Tatyana stated that a witch lives in the neighbouring house and that she uses thistle to protect herself, adding that local magic only affects those who live within the community and believe in its power.
Today, Vepsian villages exist in varying states of preservation, with native speech continuing in some settlements while other locations retain only a few winter residents or survive solely as historical names on regional maps.
