Mordva is a people speaking one of the Finno-Ugric dialects. He lives in the basins of two rivers, Moksha and Sura, and in the interfluve of the Belaya and Volga. This is one of the indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation. Within the borders of the Republic of Mordovia itself, a third of this people lives, and most of them are settled in neighboring regions of the Russian Federation. By the way, the representatives of this people themselves do not call themselves that. This ethnonym originated from a word that translates as "man, person." Mordvins are divided into two main tribes - Erzya (Erzyat) and Moksha (Mokshet).
Many historians are interested in the origin of the Mordvin people. Their appearance in most cases does not differ from the appearance of their Slavic-speaking neighbors, but they speak the language of a completely different group. Their culture differs from Russian, but not radically. Many historians see the origin of the Mordovians in the ancient people of the so-called "Gorodets culture". In ancient Russian sources, this people has been mentioned since the eleventh century. At the end of the twelfth century, the primitive system disappears among the Mordovians. On its lands, a power is formed, known to the Slavs as the "Purgas volost". Then these territories became part of Russia. Most by religionare Orthodox, however, in recent decades, they have shown interest in the ancient religion of their ancestors.
Ancient traditions have been preserved to this day by Mordva. Appearance of a person from this
people dressed in traditional costume seem very distinctive and colorful. The style of women's and men's suits differs significantly. Traditional cuisine is reminiscent of Russian: cereals, sauerkraut, sour bread, boiled meat. Kvass is popular among drinks.
The Mordovians are a heterogeneous, binary people. Their appearance has the remains of a Mongoloid, and in some cases - its clear signs. This is due to the fact that several thousand years ago the population of the Urals moved towards the West, mixing with the Caucasoid peoples. This is also the reason for the replacement of the language of the people of the ancient Gorodets culture with the language of the Finno-Ugric group. The invaders, who belonged to the Ural race, assimilated the local population, to a large extent mixing with it. This is how the people of the Mordovians were formed. The appearance of its representatives as a whole is a combination of Caucasoid and Mongoloid features with a predominance of the former.
The number of this nation is declining in our time. To a large extent, this is due to the processes of assimilation. A significant part of this nation uses Russian as the language of everyday communication. Assimilation began back in the days of feudal fragmentation of Russia. Since then, the rate of assimilation of the Mordovians has steadily increased. Some of its ethnographic groups have long been Russified and dissolved intomass of Russians.
There is no single, common language of the Mordovians - there are Erzya and Moksha languages. They differ slightly, and there is more in common between them than differences. Once they were just dialects of a single language spoken by the Mordovians. Its origin is Finno-Ugric, with some borrowings from the language of neighboring peoples, in particular, from Tatar and Russian.
