Bisermän
From Freepedia
The Bisermän are a group of Udmurt people. There were 100,000 Bisermän in 1926. According to the 2002 census, there were 3122 of them in Russia.They live in the Yukamen, Glazov, Balezino and Yar Districts of Udmurtia. There are 10 villages with pure Bisermän and 41 villages with a mixed Bisermän population in Russia. They speak a Tatar-ified dialect of the Udmurt language. They migrated to the banks of the Cheptsa river (a tributary of the Vyatka) at the time of the Kazan Khanate. Their ancestors are thought to have been the tribes of Volga Bulgaria who spoke Finno-Ugric languages, were subsequently partly Tatar-ified and converted to Islam. After the conquest of Kazan in 1552 they were converted to Christianity by Ivan Grozny.
This article was originally translated from:
"Bisermän". Tatar Encyclopedia. Kazan: Tatarstan Republic Academy of Sciences Institution of the Tatar Encyclopaedia, 2002.
