Russians should disavow themselves of the indigenous peoples elimination policy

The Udmurt language belongs to the group of the Finno-Ugric languages. Although the Udmurts have been living in close interrelationship with Turkishlanguage (Tartar, Baskir, Chuvash) and Slavonic-language (Russian) speaking people for centuries, they preserved their linguistic (and cultural) independence until recent times. However, due to the social and political changes in the last century practically the entire Udmurt-language speaking community has become (at least) bilingual (trilingual with Tartar in the Southern areas). In the generation of the present grandparents there still can be found, albeit very rarely, monolingual (Udmurt) speaking people. Consequently, present-day speakers are indigenous, bi- or trilingual people living in minority position.

On March 21, 2018, a press conference of representatives of indigenous peoples of the Volga region was held in Kyiv. Participants of the event announced the creation of the public movement Free Idel-Ural which would seek real sovereignty for the republics of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, Udmurtia, Mari El and Mordovia.