Mansi

The Mansi, known to Russians until modern times as the Voguls, are the western Ob-Ugric people, whose speech is a close relative of Hungarian. Their ancestors lived west of the Urals before crossing into western Siberia in the first millennium BC and merging with local people.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Mansi had principalities, some loosely subject to Moscow, some to the Sibir Khanate. Yermak's Cossack offensive opened decades of war: Kondia, the strongest principality, refused yasak until 1620 and besieged Beryozovo in 1609 with Khanty lords and other Mansi princes. The Bardak princes were crushed after their raid on Surgut in 1691.

The last independent Mansi clans submitted in the eighteenth century, but baptism sat lightly over the old bear cult, with its multi-day celebration of songs, dances and plays after a bear hunt. Hunting, fishing and reindeer remained the base of life.