Национальный состав России

Согласно данным переписи населения 2002 года, в России проживают представители более 180 национальностей. Важность этого факта отображена в преамбуле к Конституции РФ.

Около 80% населения России составляют русские. Русские расселены по территории страны неравномерно: в некоторых регионах, таких как Ингушетия, составляют менее 5% населения.

Text 7. VOLGA REGION (ПОВОЛЖЬЕ)

Assignment 1. Translate the text into Russian and analyze the way the Russian xenonyms transliterated/transcribed in the text. Explain the ways of introducing xenonyms into the text.

Volga region (Povolzhye - literally ‘Along the Volga River’) is the heartland of Russia. ‘Mother Volga’, the majestic river that dominates the region, is one of the nation’s most enduring and endearing symbols. The cultural legacies of Russian merchants, Tatar tribes and German colonists are displayed in the ancient kremlins, spire-topped mosques and Lutheran churches along the river banks. The Volga was the site of WWII’s fiercest battle, now marked by a jaw-dropping monument.

The Volga River is immortalised in the Song of the Volga Boatmen: ‘Mighty stream so deep and wide. Volga, Volga our pride.’ Today the river’s lush environs attract boaters, bathers, hikers, birders and fishermen.

The Volga is Europe’s longest river at 3700 km. Its headwaters lie in the Valdai Hills northwest of Moscow. The river flows eastwards to Kazan, from where it bends southwards, making its way unhurriedly to the brackish delta of the Caspian Sea.

Bisecting the Eurasian continent, the Volga has brought together different peoples and cultures throughout the centuries. It now almost resembles a chain of ethnic republics, a political legacy of Soviet federalism. After the Russians, the most prominent group is the Volga Tatars (6.6 million). The Volga Germans remain widely dispersed, although a small enclave still exists near Saratov.

Since ancient times, the Volga has supported agricultural settlements and served as a main link in transcontinental commerce. More than a thousand years ago, the Vikings plied its waters, establishing a trade route between Baghdad and the Baltic.

In the Middle Ages, the Lower Volga was dominated by the Khazars, notable among the Turkic tribes for religious tolerance. The Khazar capital stood at Itil (present-day Astrakhan). The Middle Volga was the domain of another Turkic tribe, the Bulgars. Descendants of the Huns and distant relatives of the Balkan Bulgarians, they migrated eastwards, mixed with local tribes and adopted Islam in the 10th century. Their feudal state was northeastern Europe’s most advanced economic and cultural centre at that time. The forests of the Upper Volga were originally settled by Ugro-Finnic tribes, who were eventually displaced by the migrating Slavs. The river was also a vital conduit in the lucrative fur trade for Novgorod’s merchants.

In the 13th century, the entire Volga region was conquered by the heirs of Chinggis (Genghis) Khaan, the Mongol-led Golden Horde, who made Sarai (near present-day Volgograd) their capital. For the next 200 years, the Volga’s Slavic and Turkic communities swore allegiance and paid tribute to the great khan, or suffered his wrath. Challenged by Tamerlane’s marauder armies in the south and upstart Muscovite princes in the north, the Golden Horde eventually fragmented into separate khanates: Kazan, Astrakhan, Crimea and Sibir. In the 1550s Ivan the Terrible razed Kazan and Astrakhan, and claimed the Middle and Lower Volga for Muscovy (modern-day Moscow), the capital of the new Russian state.

While the river trade was a rich source of income for Muscovy, it also supported gainful bandit and smuggling ventures. Hostile steppe tribes continued to harass Russian traders and settlers and the region remained an untamed frontier for many years.

In response, the tsar ordered the construction of fortified outposts at strategic points on the river. Serfs, paupers and dropouts fled to the region, organising semiautonomous Cossack communities. The Cossacks elected their own atamans (leaders) and pledged their swords in service to tsar and Church. The Cossacks not only defended the frontier for the tsar, but also operated protection rackets, plundered locals, and raided Russia’s southern neighbours.

Cossacks conducted large-scale peasant uprisings. In 1670 Stepan Razin led a 7000-strong army of the disaffected, which moved up the Lower Volga before meeting defeat at Simbirsk (Ulyanovsk). In 1773 Yemelyan Pugachev declared himself tsar and led an even larger contingent of Cossacks and runaway serfs on a riotous march through the Middle Volga region. The bloody revolt was forever romanticised by Alexander Pushkin in his novel The Captain’s Daughter.

Astounded by the scale of rebellion, Catherine the Great responded with a plan for economic development in the region, particularly cultivation of the fertile southern river basin. In 1763 she issued an invitation to Germany’s peasants to colonise the region. Eager to escape economic hardship and religious persecution, German Lutherans relocated to settlements along the Volga, with the largest concentration near Saratov. By end of the 19th century, the population had reached over 1.5 million ethnic Germans.

In the 1920s a German autonomous republic was established along the Lower Volga. Hitler’s 1941 blitzkrieg across the USSR’s western border prompted a wave of persecution against the Volga Germans, who were branded ‘enemies of the state’. The German autonomous republic was eliminated, residents were forced into exile and their citizenship was revoked. After Stalin’s death, nearly a million survivors were liberated from Siberian labour camps, but were not allowed to return to their old villages.

The USSR harnessed the mighty Volga for its ambitious development plans. Eight complexes of dams, reservoirs and hydroelectric stations were constructed between the 1930s and 1960s. A network of canals connected Russia’s heartland to Moscow, and the Baltic and Black Seas. Smoke-stacked factories, sulphurous petrochemical plants, sprawling collective farms and secret military complexes sprang up along its shores. Provincial trading towns, such as Nizhny Novgorod and Samara, grew into urban industrial centres and were closed to outsiders.

The river continues to convey as much as two-thirds of all Russia’s overland cargo freight. The Volga Basin supplies one-quarter of all Russia’s agricultural output and one-fifth of its total fish catch; however, the accumulated effects of Soviet-era development inflicted severe harm on the river’s fish stocks and posed serious health risks to adjacent communities.

Fundamentally transformed bycommunism, the Volga has recently reclaimed some of its historic identity. Closed cities have reopened and river trade has resurfaced. The frontier images of yore have reappeared in contemporary guise with organised crime and regional separatists; local khans have revived tribal customs and even the Cossacks have suited up in traditional regalia. Tatarstan, heir to the Kazan khanate, declared sovereignty and challenged Moscow’s authority along the Middle Volga.