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Kimchi-slap t1_j5jbmmi wrote

Reply to comment by leela_martell in [OC] Ethnic Russians in the Russian Federation, 2021 Census by greensino

Well here I am on the receiving end of my own stick. Had to google about Ingrians. Realised that I heard about them but didn't know how they are called in English. We call them Ижорцы, but beside that my knowledge was limited. Haven't realised that population was that small though or that they were victims of repressions, not that I am surprised though.

I am myself is kore-saram (Soviet Korean), my people had some history with USSR "relocation" history. And just like crimean tatars we happened to be in Uzbekistan. That's why I am kinda biased at this topic. I just thought you are another white knight who heard about injustice, quickly googled it and went on moral spree to defend the downthrodden. I apologize for misjudging you and for my indecent behaviour towards your person.

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leela_martell t1_j5jjodv wrote

Sometimes it's easy to assume people on places like Reddit are Americans or Brits or something like that, just going by probability haha. No offense taken on my part, sorry for being snappy as well.

But thank you for telling me, I in turn don't know much about Korean people in the USSR, besides having seen mentioned that they existed. I'll definitely look more into their history! Izhorians and Ingrians are slightly different people, though Izhorians also lived in Ingria (Leningrad oblast now) even before Ingrian Finns migrated there.

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Kimchi-slap t1_j5jqbvg wrote

Well I for one glad that we could broaden each other's views a bit more. Any opportunity to learn a new thing is a blessing of some sort.

It's a bit hard to find sources on Ingrians, google always drops me either to finnish Ingrians if I search in English or to Izhorians if I search in Russian. If you have any credible sources, I would love to read them.

Info on Soviet koreans are obtainable quite easy, although it varies as well from source to source. Much of it is biased of course but mostly accurate. It also varies which Soviet koreans they are. There are migrants (voluntary) in Far East who had their own diaspora and those who were forcefully moved like crimean tatars with same "benefits" of being untrustworthy people during Stalin reign to Central Asia, Uzbekistan becoming our new home for 4 generations. Must also mention the generosity and hospitality of uzbek people which became legendary in USSR and officially recognized by crimean tatars and my people.

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leela_martell t1_j5nkmle wrote

Likewise!

As for sources about things on Ingrians, it’s a bit difficult. I don’t know anything in English, all I know is based on Finnish articles, books, one TV documentary and some stuff my grandma told me. Maybe there is something in Russian but I don’t speak it so I wouldn’t know where to start looking.

I’ve never been to Uzbekistan, but it sounds lovely. I just read a book last week that took place partly in Tashkent (is Tashkent or Toshkent the right name? In Finnish it’s Taškent but don’t know if that comes through Russian.) Incidentally it’s about this same subject as the writer is a Russian-Finnish author (Anna Soudakova) whose grandfather was displaced to Uzbekistan from the Leningrad region in the 1930s when his parents were executed as “enemies of the people” and she wrote the book based on his life. I don’t think the grandfather was Ingrian though, as far as I’ve understood one of his parents was a Finnish migrant to Canada, from where they moved to the USSR.

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Kimchi-slap t1_j5numg2 wrote

Ah, that's a shame. But I will keep an eye out from now on. If my trip to Karelia this spring will be possible, it will be a great opportunity to check out local culture besides gorgeous views.

Uzbekistan is a lovely country. Quite harsh climate though. Insanely hot summer (+45°C easily) and quite cold winters (-15°C this winter, which may not sound too much for Finland, but thats feels like -30 in Siberia). Tashkent or Toshkent depends on which language you speak, uzbeks say Toshkent (Tosh - stone, Kent - city), but again those who speak Russian do call it Tashkent so both ways are appropriate. It's the capital and very beautiful at that with more then 2000 years of history. But the real troves of history are big old cities like Bukhara Khiva and Samarkand. They are even older with carefully preserved historic buildings going way back to glorious days of Amir Temur. The most impressive display is the paint which still hold its original colour. It's quite amazing to see contrast of nearby desert and cloudless sky with buildings that sport blue and green colours. The secret of that paint sadly is lost but most popular theory is that valuable gems were grinded to dust and used for that purpose, which I believe myself to be true, as that was created at peak of Timurid Empire and it had resources for that kind of showoff. Tashkent hovewer have much less of those historic building left as it was devastated by earthquake which leveled most of the city in 1966. It's quite a historic event and one of the reason why many uzbeks remember USSR fondly, as the call was made to rebuild Tashkent and it was answered. In 3 years city was complely rebuilt and modernized, many of those who helped later stayed as well and formed new local intelligence which is never bad to have young blood with knowledge.

The book you mentioned is from memories of much darker times. Uzbeks themselves don't really like to remember those. Even history books in schools were quite short on that subject.

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leela_martell t1_j5nyav3 wrote

Oh cool, where in Karelia are you planning to go? My grandma is from Petrozavodsk and my grandpa is from Koivisto (Primorsk) (they evacuated during WWII). I always wanted to visit there, unfortunately I never got around to it and now travelling to Russia is out of the question. Koivisto especially sounds so pretty to me and there are these big islands on its shore, I’m from a coastal town myself (Turku, which lost its own oldest buildings in a massive fire in the 1800s so my sympathies for Toshkent for the earthquake) so archipelagos always call to me.

I googled and Samarkand looks absolutely stunning, wow! Thanks for the description, those blue buildings especially are so beautiful. There’s no architecture like that here in Finland.

And yes, the book was definitely from dark times.

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Kimchi-slap t1_j5o95dz wrote

Oh yeah, Putin sure did wonders to international tourism, although Russia didnt really banned any countries from visiting, it's unadvisable to do so while war is waging. Whether I travel myself is highly debatable, as I plan to do so with my best friends on their car and they always laugh how I am such a city boy and will not survive the trip. Primorsk is surely to be one of the destinations as I do like idea of having an access to big water. Also fish... I am a sucker for a fresh fish.

That earthquake was indeed horrible, but it also shaped Tashkent to its current state of modern city. You have my sympathy for that fire as well. It's always a great shame to lose historic buildings.

You should definitely try visiting Uzbekistan as tourist. Well maybe not now as prices went up thanks to all the Russians who hide from mobilization there, but it is a great experience nevertheless. Well unless you are vegetarian or vegan. Local food is unfriendly to vegetarians and completely incompatible to vegans. Although there are adaptations but they are not the same obviously. One good demonstration of uzbek food are easily found on YouTube as our tourism ministry finally realised that power of food bloggers is considerable one and invited every big shot like Mark Wiens and Sonny from Best Ever Food review show. They filmed excellent high quality production videos, interest to Uzbekistan finally plummeted and BAAAM. CORONOVIRUS In all its glory. Timing was so bad that I literally cried.

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