The Izhma Komi (

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

: ''коми-ижемцы, komi-izhemtsy'';

endonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

: изьватаc, ''iźvatas'';

Nenets The Nenets (; ), in the past also called 'Samoyeds' or 'Yuraks', are a Samoyedic ethnic group native to Arctic Russia, Russian Far North. According to the latest census in 2021, there were 49,646 Nenets in the Russian Federation, most of them l ...

: нысма, ''nysma'') is a sub-group of the much larger

Komi people The Komi ( also ) are a Permian ethnic group who are indigenous to, and primarily inhabit a region around the basins of the Vychegda, Pechora and Kama rivers in northeastern European Russia. They mostly reside in the Komi Republic, Perm Krai, Mur ...

, who traditionally reside in the north of the

Komi Republic The Komi Republic (; ), sometimes simply referred to as Komi, is a republics of Russia, republic of Russia situated in the northeast of European Russia. Its capital city, capital is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Syktyvka ...

, primarily in the Izhemsky District, but also in the

Nenets Autonomous Okrug The Nenets Autonomous Okrug (; ) also known as Nenetsia ( ) is a federal subject of Russia and an autonomous okrug of Arkhangelsk Oblast. Its administrative center is the town of Naryan-Mar. It has an area of and a population of 42,090 ...

and the

Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug The Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (; ) also known as Yamalia () is a federal subject of Russia and an autonomous okrug of Tyumen Oblast. Its administrative center is the town of Salekhard, and its largest city is Novy Urengoy. The 2021 Russian ...

around the borders with the Komi Republic. The beginning of the formation of the Izhma Komi ethnic group is traced to the second half of the 16th century when a group of Komi founded the Izhma ''

sloboda A sloboda was a type of settlement in the history of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. The name is derived from the early Slavic word for 'freedom' and may be loosely translated as 'free settlement'.

'' by the

Izhma River The Izhma () is a river in the Komi Republic of Russia. It is a left tributary of the Pechora. It is long, with a drainage basin of . At a point from its mouth, it has an average discharge of . The river freezes over in November, and stays icebo ...

. The formation of the separate ethnicity finalized during the 17th and 18th centuries. During the 19th century they expanded their area of settlement by settling along the middle

Pechora River The Pechora (; Komi: Печӧра; Nenets: Санэроˮ яха) is the sixth-longest river in Europe. Flowing from Northwest Russia and into the Arctic Ocean, it lies mostly in the Komi Republic but the northernmost part crosses the Nenets A ...

, by the Usa River, in Bolshezemelskaya and

Kanin Peninsula The Kanin Peninsula () is a large peninsula in Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia. Geography It is surrounded by the White Sea to the west and by the Barents Sea to the north and east. Shoyna (also spelled Shoina) is one of the few communities o ...

tundras. They also crossed the

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

and settled by the

Ob River The Ob (; ) is a major river in Russia. It is in western Siberia, and with its tributary the Irtysh forms the world's seventh-longest river system, at . The Ob forms at the confluence of the Biya and Katun which have their origins in the Alta ...

. A group of Izhma Komi settled as far as at the

Kola Peninsula The Kola Peninsula (; ) is a peninsula in the extreme northwest of Russia, and one of the largest peninsulas of Europe. Constituting the bulk of the territory of Murmansk Oblast, it lies almost completely inside the Arctic Circle and is border ...

, where 1,128 were recorded to live in the 2002 census.Yuri Shabayev, Valeri Sharapov,
"The Izhma Komi and the Pomor: Two Models of Cultural Transformation"
''Journal of the Ethnology and Folkloristics'' vol. 5 no 1, 2011, pp.97-122 (retrieved March 22, 2014)David G. Anderson (ed.), "The 1926/27 Soviet Polar Census Expeditions", 2013, , Chapter 6: Igor Semenov, "Statistical Surveys of the Kanin Peninsula and the Samoed Question"
pp.133-179
/ref> Their primary subsistence was based on

reindeer herding Reindeer herding is when reindeer are herded by people in a limited area. Currently, reindeer are the only semi-domesticated animal which naturally belong to the North. Reindeer herding is conducted in nine countries: Norway, Finland, Sweden, Russ ...

, showing similarities between the lifestyles of the

and the Izhma Komi. More cultural interactions and adaptations can be seen in the traditional residences of the Izhma Komi, the chum, which the Nenets and other Samoyedic ethnic groups traditionally reside in.

References

{{authority control Komi peoples Indigenous peoples of Europe Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East