Permic

The Permic group includes the Komi, who lived in the Vychegda, Pechora and Kama basins, the Udmurts of the Kama and Vyatka country, and the small Besermyan people, probably Tatars absorbed by the Udmurts. From the twelfth century traders from Novgorod came north for furs, and Komi dukes united Great Perm around the stronghold of Cherdyn.

In 1372 the missionary Stephen of Perm devised a Komi alphabet. The duke of Perm was baptised in 1470, Moscow seized Cherdyn in 1472, and in 1505 a Russian governor replaced the last duke; Russian settlers began moving in.