Siberia is a vast region spanning the northern part of the Asian continent and forming the Asiatic portion of Russia. As a result of the Russian conquest of Siberia (16th to 19th centuries) and of the subsequent population movements during the Soviet era (1917–1991), the modern-day demographics of Siberia is dominated by ethnic Russians (Siberiaks) and other Slavs. However, there remains a slowly increasing number of Indigenous groups, accounting for about 5% of the total Siberian population (about 1.6–1.8 million), some of which are closely genetically related to Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

History

In Kamchatka, the Itelmens' uprisings against Russian rule in 1706, 1731, and 1741, were crushed. During the first uprising the Itelmen were armed with only stone weapons, but in later uprisings they used gunpowder weapons. The Russian Cossack mercenaries faced tougher resistance from the Koryaks, who revolted with bows and guns from 1745 to 1756, and were even forced to give up in their attempts to wipe out the Chukchi in 1729, 1730–1731, and 1744–1747. After the Russian defeat in 1729 at Chukchi hands, the Russian commander Major Dmitry Pavlutsky was responsible for the Russian war against the Chukchi and the mass slaughters and enslavement of Chukchi women and children in 1730–1731, but his cruelty only made the Chukchi fight more fiercely.Forsyth 1994, pp. 145-6.

A war against the Chukchi and Koryaks was ordered by Empress Elizabeth in 1742 to totally expel them from their native lands and erase their culture through war. The command was that the natives be "totally extirpated" with Pavlutskiy leading again in this war from 1744 to 1747 in which he led to the Cossacks "with the help of Almighty God and to the good fortune of Her Imperial Highness", to slaughter the Chukchi men and enslave their women and children as booty. However this phase of the war came to an inconclusive end, when the Chukchi forced them to give up by killing Pavlutskiy and successfully decapitating him.Forsyth 1994, p. 146.

The Russians launched wars and conducted mass slaughters against the Koryaks in 1744 and 1753–1754. After the Russians attempted to force the natives to convert to Christianity, different native peoples such as the Koryaks, Chukchi, Itelmens, and Yukaghirs all united to drive the Russians out of their land in the 1740s, culminating in the assault on Nizhnekamchatsk fort in 1746 and the utter destruction of the Russian forces.Forsyth 1994, p. 147. After its annexation by Russia in 1697, around 100,000 of 150,000 Itelmen and Koryaks died due to infectious diseases such as smallpox, mass suicides and the mass slaughters perpetrated by the Cossacks throughout the first decades of Russian rule.Jack 2008, p. 388.

The genocide by the Russian Cossacks devastated the native peoples of Kamchatka and exterminated much of their population."Condé Nast's Traveler, Volume 36" 2001, p. 280."Yearbook" 1992, p. 46. In addition to committing genocide, the Cossacks also devastated the wildlife by slaughtering massive numbers of animals for fur.Mote 1998, p. 44. Ninety percent of the Kamchadals and half of the Voguls were killed from the 18th to 19th centuries. The rapid genocide of the Indigenous population led to entire ethnic groups being entirely wiped out, with around 12 exterminated groups which were named by Nikolai Yadrintsev as of 1882. Much of the slaughter was brought on by the Siberian fur trade.Etkind 2013, p. 78.

In the 17th century, Indigenous peoples of the Amur region were attacked and colonized by Russians who came to be known as "red-beards".Stephan 1996, p. 64. The Russian Cossacks were named luocha (羅剎) or rakshasa by Amur natives, after demons found in Buddhist mythology. The natives of the Amur region feared the Russian invaders as they ruthlessly colonized the Amur tribes, who were tributaries of the Qing dynasty during the Sino–Russian border conflicts. Qing forces and Korean musketeers who were allied with the Qing defeated the Cossacks in 1658, which kept the Russians out of the inner reaches of the Amur region for decades.

The regionalist oblastniki were, in the 19th century, among the Russians in Siberia who acknowledged that the natives were subjected to violence of almost genocidal proportions by the Russian colonization. They claimed that they would rectify the situation with their proposed regionalist policies. The colonizers used massacres, alcoholism, and disease to bring the natives under their control. Some small nomadic groups essentially disappeared, and much of the evidence of their obliteration has itself been destroyed, with only a few artifacts documenting their presence remaining in Russian museums and collections.

The Russian colonization of Siberia and conquest of its Indigenous peoples has been compared to European colonization in the United States and its natives, with similar negative impacts on the natives and the theft of their land at the hands of European imperialists.

From 1918 to 1921, there was a violent revolutionary upheaval in Siberia during the Russian Civil War. Russian Cossacks under Captain Grigori Semionov established themselves as warlords by crushing the Indigenous peoples who resisted them. The Czechoslovak Legion initially took control of Vladivostok and controlled all of the territory along the Trans-Siberian Railway by September 1918.Brent Mueggenberg, Czecho-Slovak Struggle, p. 161–177, 188–191. The Legion later declared its neutrality and was evacuated via Vladivostok.

Today, Kamchatka is largely populated by a Russian majority, although decreasing, with a slowly increasing indigenous population. The Slavic Russians outnumber all of the native peoples in Siberia and its cities except in Tuva and Sakha (where the Tuvans and Yakuts serve as the majority ethnic groups respectively), with the Slavic Russians making up the majority in Buryatia and the Altai Republic, outnumbering the Buryat and Altai natives.

Overview

Siberia is a sparsely populated region. Historically it has been home to a variety of different linguistic groups. According to some estimates, by the beginning of the 17th century, Indigenous peoples numbered 160,000. In the 1897 census, their number was 822,000. The 2010 census recorded 1,608,000 Indigenous SiberiansEthnic groups in Russia , 2010 census, Rosstat. Retrieved 15 February 2012 and the 2021 census recorded 1,635,000 Indigenous Siberians.

Indigenous peoples of SiberiaEthnic groupPopulation (2021)Population (2010) Turkic 963,256935,744Siberian Turkic956,959928,965Yakuts478,409478,085Tuvans295,384263,934Altai78,12574,238Khakas61,36572,959Shors10,50712,888Dolgans8,1577,885Tozhu Tuvans7,2781,858Soyot4,3683,608Tubalars3,6201,965Telengits2,7303,712Kumandins2,4082,892Teleuts2,2172,643Chelkans1,2901,181Tofalar719762Chulyms382355Kipchak (Siberian Tatars)*6,2976,779 Mongolic 460,060461,403Buryats460,053461,389Daurs714Uralic 97,68992,592Samoyedic53,99449,380Nenets49,64644,640Selkup3,4583,649Nganasan687862Enets201227Kamasins**22Ob-Ugric43,69543,212Khanty31,46730,943Mansi12,22812,269Tungusic 75,84478,462Evenki39,22638,396Evens19,91322,383Nanai11,62312,003Ulchs2,4722,765Udege1,3251,496Orochs527596Negidals481513Oroks268295Manchus915Paleosiberian 36,27237,571Chukotko-Kamchatkan27,94728,985Chukchi16,20015,908Koryaks7,485 + 96 Alyutors7,953Itelmens2,5963,193Kamchadals1,5471,927Kereks234Nivkh (Nivkh)3,8424,652Ainu (Ainu)300109Yukaghir2,7022,605Yukaghir1,8021,603Chuvans9001,002Yeniseian1,0951,220Kets1,0881,219Yughs71Eskaleut 2,0542,220Siberian Yupik (+ Sireniks)1,6571,738Aleuts397482Sino-Tibetan 235274Taz235274Total 1,635,0241,608,266% of Russia 1.13%1.13% * Some estimates put the population of Siberian Tatars at 200,000.Сибирские татары // Российский этнографический музей. ** Some estimates put the population of Kamasins at 21.

Ainu people

Ainu languages are spoken in Sakhalin, Hokkaido, the Kurils, and the Kamchatka Peninsula, as well as in the Amur region. Today, Ainu is nearly extinct, with the last native speakers remaining in Hokkaido and on Kamchatka.

Mongolic peoples

The Buryats number 461,389 in Russia according to the 2010 census, which makes them the second largest ethnic minority group in Siberia. They are mainly concentrated in their homeland, the Buryat Republic, a federal subject of Russia. They are the northernmost major group of the Mongols.The New Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th Edition. (1977). Vol. II, p. 396. .

Buryats share many customs with their Mongolian cousins, including nomadic herding and erecting huts for shelter. Today, the majority of Buryats live in and around Ulan Ude, the capital of the republic, although many live more traditionally in the countryside. Their language is called Buryat.

In Zabaykalsky Krai of Russia, in Mongolia and China, there are also the Hamnigans—a Mongolic ethno-linguistic (sub)group as Mongolized Evenki.

In Altai Republic and Altai Krai of Russia there exists a community of Altai Oirats. The government does not write them in as a distinct ethnic group and misidentify them as Altaians or Kalmyks. They mostly live in the steppe part of the Altai Republic or around Barnaul in the Altai Krai. They number about 2,000-4,500.

Paleosiberian peoples

Four small language families and isolates, not known to have any linguistic relationship to each other, compose the Paleo-Siberian languages:

Chukotko-Kamchatkan 1. The Chukotko-Kamchatkan family, sometimes known as Luoravetlan, includes Chukchi and its close relatives, Koryak, Alutor, and Kerek. Itelmen, also known as Kamchadal, is also distantly related. Chukchi, Koryak and Alutor are spoken in easternmost Siberia by communities numbering in the dozens (Alutor) to thousands (Chukchi). Kerek is now extinct, and Itelmen is now spoken by fewer than 10 people, mostly elderly, on the west coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Nivkh 2. Nivkh is spoken in the lower Amur basin and on the northern half of Sakhalin island. It has a recent modern literature and the Nivkhs have experienced a turbulent history in the last century.

Yeniseian 3. Ket is the last survivor of the Yeniseian family along the middle of the Yenisei River and its tributaries. It has recently been claimed to be related to the Na-Dene languages of North America, though this hypothesis has met with mixed reviews among historical linguists. In the past, attempts have been made to relate it to Sino-Tibetan, North Caucasian, and Burushaski.

Yukaghir 4. Yukaghir is spoken in two mutually unintelligible varieties in the lower Kolyma and Indigirka valleys. Other languages, including Chuvantsy, spoken further inland and further east, are now extinct. Yukaghir is held by some to be related to the Uralic languages.

Tungusic peoples

The Evenki live in the Evenk Autonomous Okrug of Russia.

The Udege, Ulchs, Evens, and Nanai (also known as Hezhen) are also Indigenous peoples of the Russian Far East, and are known to share genetic affinity to Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Turkic peoples

The Turkic peoples include the following ethnic groups: Altaians Chelkans Kumandins Telengits Teleuts Tubalars Chulyms Dolgans Khakas Shors Siberian Tatars Baraba Tatars Chat Tatars Eushta Tatars Kalmak Tatars Zabolotnie Tatars Tyumen-Tura Tatars Tobol Tatars Kurdak-Sargat Tatars Tara Tatars Soyots Tofalar Tuvans Tozhu Tuvans Yakuts

Uralic peoples

Ob-Ugrians

The Khanty (obsolete: Ostyaks) and Mansi (obsolete: Voguls) live in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia. By 2013, oil and gas companies had already devastated much of the Khanty tribes' lands. In 2014 the Khanty-Mansi regional parliament continued to weaken legislation that had previously protected Khanty and Mansi communities. Tribes' permission was required before oil and gas companies could enter their land.

Samoyeds

Samoyedic peoples include: Northern Samoyedic peoples Nenets Enets Nganasan Southern Samoyedic peoples Selkup