Udmurt

The Udmurts are a Permian people of the Uralic family, the autochthonous forest dwellers of the middle Kama and Vyatka basins, whose name odo-mort means meadow people and whom Russian sources long called Votyaks. Their line runs from the Iron Age Ananyino culture through the Pyanobor and Azelino cultures.

Their southern kin paid tribute to the Volga Bulgars and served the governors of the Golden Horde. Moscow's annexation of Vyatka in 1489 brought the northern Udmurts under its rule, and after the fall of Kazan in 1552 the southern Udmurts were enrolled as yasak tribute-payers.

Clan-organised, they lived as semi-nomadic hunters and riverside farmers, served by a pagan priesthood of the sky god Inmar and hearth spirit Voršud in sacred groves. Under the Vyatka governorate from 1796, they kept their grove rites even after Orthodox feast days entered their calendar.