Russian genetic roots. What scientists say

By nature, the genetic code of all people is arranged in such a way that each has 23 pairs of chromosomes, which store all the hereditary information inherited from both parents. The formation of chromosomes occurs at the time of meiosis, when, in the process of crossing over, each randomly takes about half from the maternal chromosome and half from the paternal, which specific genes will be inherited from the mother and which from the father is not known, everything is decided by chance.

Only one male chromosome, Y, does not participate in this lottery, it is completely transmitted from father to son like a baton. I will clarify that women do not have this Y chromosome at all.
In each subsequent generation, mutations occur in certain regions of the Y chromosome, called loci, which will be transmitted to all subsequent generations by male gender. It was thanks to these mutations that it became possible to reconstruct the genus. There are only about 1000 loci on the Y chromosome, but only a little more than a hundred are used for the comparative analysis of haplotypes and the reconstruction of genera.
In the so-called loci, or they are also called STR-markers, there are from 7 to 42 tandem repeats, the overall pattern of which is unique for each person. After a certain number of generations, mutations occur and the number of tandem repeats changes up or down, and thus it will be seen on the common tree that the more mutations, the older the common ancestor for the haplotype group.

The haplogroups themselves do not carry genetic information, because genetic information is located in autosomes - the first 22 pairs of chromosomes. You can see the distribution of genetic components in Europe. Haplogroups are just markers of bygone days, at the dawn of the formation of modern peoples.

What haplogroups are most common among Russians?

peoples	qty, Human	R1a1,	R1b1,	I1,	I2,	N1c1,	E1b1b1,	J2,	G2a,
Eastern, Western and Southern Slavs.
Russians(north)	395	34	6	10	8	35	2	1	1
Russians(center)	388	52	8	5	10	16	4	1	1
Russians(south)	424	50	4	4	16	10	5	4	3
Russians (all Great Russians)	1207	47	7	5	12	20	4	3	2
Belarusians	574	52	10	3	16	10	3	2	2
Ukrainians	93	54	2	5	16	8	8	6	3
Russians(together with Ukrainians and Belarusians)	1874	48	7	4	13	16	4	3	3
Poles	233	56	16	7	10	8	4	3	2
Slovaks	70	47	17	6	11	3	9	4	1
Czechs	53	38	19	11	12	3	8	6	5
Slovenians	70	37	21	12	20	0	7	3	2
Croatians	108	24	10	6	39	1	10	6	2
Serbs	113	16	11	6	29	1	20	7	1
Bulgarians	89	15	11	5	20	0	21	11	5
Balts, Finns, Germans, Greeks, etc.
Lithuanians	164	34	5	5	5	44	1	0	0
Latvians	113	39	10	4	3	42	0	0	0
Finns (east)	306	6	3	19	0	71	0	0	0
Finns (west)	230	9	5	40	0	41	0	0	0
swedes	160	16	24	36	3	11	3	3	1
Germans	98	8	48	25	0	1	5	4	3
Germans (Bavarians)	80	15	48	16	4	0	8	6	5
English	172	5	67	14	6	0.1	3	3	1
Irish	257	1	81	6	5	0	2	1	1
Italians	99	2	44	3	4	0	13	18	8
Romanians	45	20	18	2	18	0	7	13	7
Ossetians	359	1	7	0		0	1	16	67
Armenians	112	2	26	0	4	0	6	20	10
Greeks	116	4	14	3	10	0	21	23	5
Turks	103	7	17	1	5	4	10	24	12

Particularly noteworthy are the 4 most common haplogroups among Russians:
R1a1 47.0%, N1c1 20.0%, I2 10.6%, I1 6.2%
In simple words: genetic makeup Russians along the straight male lines of the Y-chromosome is as follows:
Eastern Europeans - 47%
Baltics - 20%
And two haplogroups of original Europeans since the Paleolithic
Scandinavians - 6%
Balkans - 11%

The names are conditional and given in accordance with the territorial maximums European subclades for haplogroups R1a1, N1c1, I1 and I2. The fundamental point is that there were no descendants of the Mongols after the two hundred year Tatar-Mongol yoke. Either left, but a very small number of direct genetic heirs from such relationships. With these words, I do not want to question the historical sources about the Mongols in Russia, but only to pay attention to the supposed genetic influence from the Mongol-Tatars on the Russians - it does not exist, or it is insignificant. By the way, there are also a large number of carriers in the genome of the Bulgar Tatars haprogroups R1a1(about 30%) and N1c1(about 20%), but they are mostly non-European.

Another important point, the southern Russians do not differ from the Ukrainians within the margin of error, and the northern Russians, having one of the predominant haplogroup R1a1, also have a higher percentage of the haplogroup N1c1. But the percentage of N1c1 haplotypes is on average 20% in Russians.

Emperors. Nicholas 2
The first known ancestor of the Grand Ducal House of Oldenburg was Egilmar, Count of Lerigau (d. 1108), mentioned in the annals for 1091.
Nicholas II turned out to be the carrier of the haplogroup R1b1a2- a representative of the Western European line, from the Holstein-Gottorp dynasty. This German dynasty is characterized by the terminal snip U106, which is most common in northwestern Europe in the places of settlement of Germanic tribes. It's not exactly typical Russian people DNA marker, but its presence among Russians could also be associated with early contacts between Germans and Slavs.

natural princes. Rurikovichi
Vladimir Monomakh and his descendants, called "Monomachis" belong to the haplogroup N1c1-L550, which is widespread in the South Baltic region (subclade L1025) and in Fennoscandia (subclades Y7795, Y9454, Y17113, Y17415, Y4338). The Rurik dynasty is characterized by the terminal snip Y10931.
Some of those whom historians call the Olgoviches (named after Oleg Svyatoslavich - the main rival of Vladimir Monomakh in the feudal struggle - and, as all sources assure, his cousin) are not related to the Rurikovichs from the Monomashich family (in a direct male line). These are the descendants of Yuri Tarussky

Russians, Slavs, Indo-Europeans and haplogroups R1a, R1b, N1c, I1 and I2

In ancient times, about 8-9 millennia ago, there was a linguistic group that laid the foundation for the Indo-European family of languages ​​(at the initial stage, these are most likely haplogroups R1a and R1b). The Indo-European family includes such linguistic groups as Indo-Iranians (South Asia), Slavs and Balts (Eastern Europe), Celts (Western Europe), Germans (Central, Northern Europe). Perhaps they also had common genetic ancestors, who about 7 thousand years ago, as a result of migrations, ended up in different parts of Eurasia, some went south and east (R1a-Z93), laying the foundation for the Indo-Iranian peoples and languages ​​(largely taking part in the ethnogenesis of the Turkic peoples), and part remained on the territory of Europe and laid the foundation for the formation of many European peoples (R1b-L51), including the Slavs and Russians in particular (R1a-Z283, R1b-L51). At different stages of formation, already in antiquity there were intersections of migration flows, which caused the presence of a large number of haplogroups in all European ethnic groups.

The Slavic languages ​​emerged from the once unified group of Balto-Slavic languages ​​(presumably the archaeological culture of the late Corded Ware). According to the calculations of the linguist Starostin, this happened about 3.3 millennia ago. Period from the 5th century BC to the 4th-5th century AD can be considered conditionally Proto-Slavic, tk. The Balts and Slavs had already split up, but there were no Slavs themselves yet, they will appear a little later, in the 4th-6th centuries AD. At the initial stage of the formation of the Slavs, probably about 80% were haplogroups R1a-Z280 and I2a-M423. At the initial stage of the formation of the Balts, probably about 80% were haplogroups N1c-L1025 and R1a-Z92. The influence and intersection of the migrations of the Balts and Slavs was from the very beginning, because in many respects this division is arbitrary, and in general reflects only the main trend, without details.

The Iranian languages ​​are Indo-European, and their dating is as follows - the most ancient, from the 2nd millennium BC. to the 4th century BC, the middle one - from the 4th century BC. to the 9th century AD, and a new one - from the 9th century AD. Until now. That is, the most ancient Iranian languages ​​appear after the departure of part of the tribes who spoke Indo-European languages ​​from Central Asia to India and Iran. Their main haplogroups were probably R1a-Z93, J2a, G2a3. The Western Iranian group of languages ​​appeared later, around the 5th century BC.

Thus, the Indo-Aryans, Celts, Germans and Slavs in academic science became Indo-Europeans, this term is the most adequate for such a vast and diverse group. This is absolutely correct. In the genetic aspect, the heterogeneity of the Indo-Europeans is striking both in Y-haplogroups and in autosomes. The Indo-Iranians are characterized to a greater extent by the Western Asian genetic influence of BMAC.

According to the Indian Vedas, it was the Indo-Aryans who came to India (South Asia) from the north (from Central Asia), and it was their hymns and legends that formed the basis of the Indian Vedas. And, continuing further, let's touch on linguistics, because this is the Russian language (and its related Baltic languages, for example, Lithuanian as part of the once existing Balto-Slavic linguistic community) is relatively close to Sanskrit along with the Celtic, Germanic and other languages ​​of the large Indo-European family . But in the genetic plan, the Indo-Aryans were already to a greater extent Western Asians, as they approached India, the Vedoid influence also intensified.

So it became clear that haplogroup R1a in DNA genealogy, this is a common haplogroup for part of the Slavs, part of the Turks and part of the Indo-Aryans (because naturally there were representatives of other haplogroups in their environment), part haplogroup R1a1 during migrations along the Russian Plain, they became part of the Finno-Ugric peoples, for example, the Mordovians (Erzya and Moksha). Part of the tribes (for haplogroup R1a1 this is a subclade of Z93) during migrations they brought this Indo-European language to India and Iran about 3500 years ago, that is, in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. In India, by the labors of the great Panini, it was converted into Sanskrit in the middle of the 1st millennium BC, and in Persia-Iran, the Aryan languages ​​became the basis of a group of Iranian languages, the oldest of which date back to the 2nd millennium BC. These data are confirmed: DNA genealogy and linguistics are correlated here.

Large part haplogroups R1a1-Z93 even in ancient times, they joined the Turkic ethnic groups and today mark the migration of the Turks in many ways, which is not surprising in view of antiquity haplogroup R1a1 while the representatives haplogroups R1a1-Z280 were part of the Finno-Ugric tribes, but during the settlement of the Slavic colonists, many of them were assimilated by the Slavs, but even now among many peoples, for example, the Erzya is still the dominant haplogroup R1a1-Z280.
All this new data was able to provide us DNA genealogy, in particular, the approximate dates of the migrations of haplogroup carriers in the territory of the modern Russian Plain and Central Asia in prehistoric times.
So scientists to all Slavs, Celts, Germans, etc. gave the name of the Indo-Europeans, which is true from the point of view of linguistics.
Where did these Indo-Europeans come from? In fact, there were Indo-European languages ​​long before the migrations to India and Iran, all over the Russian Plain and as far as the Balkans in the south, and as far as the Pyrenees in the west. In the future, the language was spread to South Asia - both to Iran and India. But in genetic terms, the correlations are much smaller.
“The only justified and accepted at the present time in science is the use of the term “Aryans” only in relation to the tribes and peoples who spoke the Indo-Iranian languages.”

So in which direction did the Indo-European flow go - to the west, to Europe, or vice versa, to the east? According to some estimates, the Indo-European language family is about 8500 years old. The ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans has not yet been determined, but according to one of the versions it could be the Black Sea region - southern or northern. In India, as we already know, the Indo-Aryan language was introduced about 3500 years ago, presumably from the territory of Central Asia, and the Aryans themselves were a group with different genetic Y-lines, like R1a1-L657, G2a, J2a, J2b, H, etc.

Haplogroup R1a1 in Western and Southern Europe

Analysis of 67 marker haplotypes haplogroup R1a1 from all European countries made it possible to determine the approximate path of migration of R1a1 ancestors in the direction of Western Europe. And calculations showed that almost throughout Europe, from Iceland in the north to Greece in the south, the common ancestor of the haplogroup R1a1 was one approximately 7000 years ago! In other words, the descendants, like a relay race, passed on their haplotypes to their own descendants from generation to generation, diverging in the process of migration from the same historical place - which turned out to be presumably the Urals or the Black Sea Lowland. On a modern map, these are countries mainly in Eastern and Central Europe - Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia. But the range of more ancient haplotypes of the haplogroup R1a1 leads to the east - to Siberia. And the lifetime of the first ancestor, which is indicated by the most ancient, most mutated haplotypes, is 7.5 thousand years ago. In those days there were no Slavs, no Germans, no Celts.

The disadvantage of the method
If you did the test, and it pleased you greatly, then I hasten to bring in my ladle of tar. Yes, the Y chromosome is transmitted from father to son practically unchanged, but there is no actually genetically useful information in it, there are much more genes in other pairs of chromosomes.
And these other 22 are shuffled in a very random way, with no trace of such mixing left on Y.
Imagine. Anglo-Saxon sailors captured the Negro state. Women are not taken on such trips, and you have to establish contact with the local population. What are the options?
1) The Anglo-Saxons have children from black women, but the nationality is transferred only to boys. In this case, the Y chromosome will be transferred to the European one, but the proportion of actually significant European genes will decrease. The first generation will be half blacks and the former "aristocracy" in such a case will quickly dissolve, although Y will be from this ethnic group. It just won't make much sense. Perhaps something similar happened to the Finns and Indians. The Yakuts and Finns have the highest percentage of the N1c1 haplogroup characteristic of them, but genetically these are completely different peoples with different subclades of the N1c1 haplogroup with their own unique history, separated more than 6 millennia ago. And vice versa, Indians - having a high percentage haplogroup R1a1 genetically they have very little in common with the European representatives of this haplogroup, tk. also various subclades with their own history, separated more than 6 millennia ago.
2) Indo-Aryans arrange a caste system. The first generation will also be semi-Negro, but then, if the aristocracy interbreeds only among themselves, then the percentage of original genetics will float around 50%. But in practice, marriages will be mainly with local women, and even more so it will be impossible to get the original gene pool of the conquerors. And this happened in the history of the Earth. The upper castes of Hindus from 20% to 72% have haplogroup R1a1(an average of 43%), but genetically they have very little in common with the European or Turkic representatives of the same haplogroup R1a1, and again the reason is the various subclades with their own special history.
A similar situation probably occurred in Cameroon, a Central African country where Y is up to 95% common. haplogroup R1b-V88, but at the same time among a typical anthropologically African Negroid population.
It can be concluded that the presence of a marker and a haplogroup is an important condition for determining nationality, but not sufficient. To determine the national-territorial origin of a person, Family Tree DNA has an autosomal test called Family Finder

Alexey Zorrin

For a long time, the main method of distinguishing between different ethnic groups of human civilization was the comparison of languages, dialects and dialects used by certain populations. A fundamentally different approach in determining the kinship of certain peoples is demonstrated by genetic genealogy. She uses the information hidden in the Y chromosome, passed from father to son almost unchanged.

Thanks to this feature of the male chromosome, a team of Russian scientists from the Medical Genetic Research Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, in collaboration with Estonian and British geneticists, managed to identify a significant heterogeneity of the native Russian population of our country and trace the patterns of development of the history of the formation of Russia from prehistoric times to the era of rule.

In addition, scientists were able to show that differences in the genetic structure of the Y-chromosome of northerners and southerners cannot be explained only by the gradual drift of genes due to the isolation of small populations due to geographical conditions. Comparison of the variability of the male chromosome of Russians with the data of neighboring peoples revealed great similarities between northerners and Finnish-speaking ethnic groups, while the inhabitants of the center and south of Russia turned out to be genetically closer to other peoples who communicate in Slavic dialects. If the former often has the “Varangian” haplogroup N3, which is widespread in Finland and northern Sweden (as well as throughout Siberia), then the latter is characterized by the haplogroup R1a, characteristic of the Slavs of Central Europe.

Thus, another factor that determines, according to scientists, the differences between the Russian northerners and our southern population, is the assimilation of the tribes that lived on this land long before our ancestors came to it. The option of their cultural and linguistic "Russification" without significant genetic mixing is not excluded. This theory is also confirmed by the data of linguistic surveys, which describe the Finno-Ugric component of the northern Russian dialect, which is practically not found among southerners.

Genetically, assimilation was expressed in the presence in the Y-chromosome of the population of the northern regions of the family of N-haplogroups. These same haplogroups are also common to most peoples of Asia, however, Russian northerners, in addition to this haplogroup, almost never show other genetic markers that are widespread among Asians, such as C and Q.

This suggests that there was no significant migration of people from Asian regions in the prehistoric times of the existence of the Proto-Slavic peoples in Eastern Europe.

Another fact was not surprising for scientists: the genetic variations of the Y-chromosome of the inhabitants of the central and southern regions of Ancient Russia turned out to be not only almost identical to those of the "Slav brothers" - Ukrainians and Belarusians, but also very close in structure to the variations of the Poles.

Scientists believe that this observation can be interpreted in two ways. Firstly, such closeness of the genetic structure may mean that the process of Russian advancement to the east was not accompanied by the assimilation of local peoples - at least those that had strong differences in the structure of the male genetic line. Secondly, this may mean that the Slavic tribes had already mastered these lands long before the mass migration to them in the 7th-9th centuries of the main part of the ancient Russians (more precisely, the East Slavic people, not yet divided into Russians and other peoples). This point of view is in good agreement with the fact that the Eastern and Western Slavs show great similarity and smooth regular changes in the structure of the male genetic line.

"Map" of the genetic proximity of the peoples of Europe and individual populations within ethnic groups // ajhg.org/"Gazeta.Ru"

It should be noted that in all cases, genetically identified subpopulations do not go beyond the ethnic groups defined from linguistic positions. However, this rule has one very curious exception: four large groups of Slavic peoples - Ukrainians, Poles and Russians, as well as Belarusians not shown in the diagram - show great closeness both in the genetic structure of the male hereditary line and in language. At the same time, the Russian northerners are significantly removed from this group on the multidimensional scaling diagram.

It would seem that such a situation should conflict with the thesis that geographical factors have a greater influence on Y-chromosome variations than linguistic ones, since the territory occupied by Poland, Ukraine and the central regions of Russia extends almost from the center of Europe to its eastern border. . The authors of the work, commenting on this fact, note that genetic variations, apparently, have much in common even for remote territorial ethnic groups, provided that their languages ​​are close.

Summing up the article, the authors conclude that, despite the widespread opinion about the strong Tatar and Mongolian admixture in the blood of Russians, inherited by their ancestors during the time of the Tatar-Mongol invasion, the haplogroups of the Turkic peoples and other Asian ethnic groups practically did not leave a trace on the population of the modern northwestern , central and southern regions.

Instead, the genetic structure of the paternal line of the population of the European part of Russia shows a smooth change when moving from north to south, which indicates two centers of formation of Ancient Russia. At the same time, the movement of the ancient Slavs to the northern regions was accompanied by the assimilation of local Finno-Ugric tribes, while in the southern territories individual Slavic tribes and nationalities could exist long before the Slavic “great migration”.

P.S. This article caused a lot of feedback from readers, many of which we did not publish because of the unacceptably harsh position of their authors. To avoid inaccuracies in the wording, which could at least partially cause a misinterpretation of the scientists' conclusions, we talked with Oleg Balanovsky, the lead author of the work on the genetic structure of the Russian ethnos, and, if possible, corrected the wording that could cause a double interpretation. In particular, we excluded the mention of Russians as a “monolithic” ethnic group, added a more accurate description of the interaction between Mongoloids and Caucasoids in Eastern Europe, and clarified the causes of genetic drift in populations. In addition, the unfortunate comparison of mtDNA with DNA of nuclear chromosomes has been excluded from the text.

It is also important to note that the “ancient Russians” who moved to the east in the 7th-13th centuries were not yet divided into three East Slavic peoples, so calling them Russians may not seem entirely appropriate. You can read the full interview with Oleg Balanovsky.

Why, despite the long Mongol-Tatar yoke, the Asian trace did not affect the Russian gene pool.

Oleg Balanovsky spoke about the genes and roots of the Russian and some other peoples inhabiting Russia.

We choose to study villages and small towns. We tell each volunteer about the goals of the study, write down his pedigree and take a blood sample. As a rule, people are keenly interested in genetics. Moreover, we promise everyone to send his personal results - a “genetic passport”. Such analyzes are carried out by many Western companies, and they are expensive, but our surveyed receive them completely free of charge. Right now, we have to send out more than a thousand letters, telling people which version of the Y-chromosome they received from their ancestors and where, in what area, these ancestors could live.

And you know, the same story is repeated almost everywhere - nurses who take blood ask at the end: “Although you don’t take samples from women, take samples from my brother (son, father). By their analysis, I also learn about my ancestors. ” So our work is interesting not only to scientists.

Why, despite the long Mongol-Tatar yoke, did this trace not affect the Russian gene pool?

Oddly enough, it did not particularly affect the Tatars. After all, even in their appearance, the Tatars of the Volga region are more like Europeans than Mongols. The differences between the Russian gene pool (almost completely European) and the Mongolian (almost completely Central Asian) are really great - they are, as it were, two different worlds. But if we are not talking about the Mongols, but about the Tatars, with whom the Russian principalities most often dealt, then the differences between their gene pool and the Russian one are not so big. The Tatar gene pool is perhaps even more complex and interesting than the Russian one, we have already begun to study it. It contains, of course, a share of the Mongoloid gene pool that came from Central Asia. But an even greater share of the same Finno-Ugric. The population that lived on these lands even before the Slavs and Tatars. Just as the Slavs assimilated the western Finno-Ugric tribes, so the ancestors of the Tatars, Chuvashs and Bashkirs assimilated the eastern Finno-Ugric peoples.

So, although there are differences between the Russian and Tatar gene pool, they are not at all colossal - Russian is completely European, and Tatar is mostly European. This, by the way, complicates our work - small differences are more difficult to measure.

With whom else, besides the Tatars, could the Russian gene pool mix?

In addition to the Tatar-Mongol yoke, which covered the eastern half of present-day Central Russia, the entire western half was part of the Commonwealth - why not look for traces of Polish rule in the Russian gene pool? And the Caucasian war? How many mountaineers became the wives of the Cossacks, how many mountaineers served in the Russian army? A peaceful neighborhood, more than any war, contributes to the interpenetration of gene pools.

We concluded, and it has been repeatedly confirmed, that there are practically no traces from Asia, because of the Urals, in the Russian gene pool. But within Europe, whether Poles, Finno-Ugric peoples, peoples of the North Caucasus or modern Tatars (not Mongols), genetic influences are numerous. Some of them have been discovered, others are being studied, and still others are the work of the future - history, even genetic history, is written for a long time.

Do modern Tatars have Slavic genes?

There are no Slavic genes, no Tatar genes - the genes are older than the Slavs and Tatars ... That haplogroup, which is characteristic of the Slavs in Europe (although it is also found among other Europeans), is also very common in ... India. This haplogroup was born thousands of years ago and was very common among the ancestors of the Scythians. Some of these Pra-Scythians, who lived in Central Asia, conquered India, establishing a caste system there (the conquerors themselves became the highest caste). Another part of the Pra-Scythians lived in the Black Sea region (present-day Ukraine). These genes have reached the Slavs. And the third part of the Pra-Scythians lived in the east, in the foothills of the Altai and Tien Shan, and their genes are now found in every second Kirghiz or Altaian. So it turned out that this haplogroup is as Slavic as the Kyrgyz or Indian. All peoples are related to each other to some extent.

As for the Tatars, this haplogroup (ancient Scythians) does not make up half of the gene pool, like the Russians, but about a quarter. But now they got it from the west (from the Slavs) or from the east (from the Altaians), so far we do not know. Over time, genetics will answer this question.

And this daring couple is a south-central Russian type, often found, for example, in the Kuban.

Has the gene pool of modern Finno-Ugric peoples living in Russia Russified?

Let's look at it differently. Just a few centuries ago, the Russians came to the "Finno-Ugrians" and, having mixed with most of the local tribes, formed a single Russian people. Any grandmother in the village will tell you that she is Russian. And the fact that one great-great-grandmother had a dark-haired and black-eyed beauty from the Slavic tribe of Krivichi, and the other had a fair-haired and blue-eyed beauty from the Muroma tribe, is no longer important. Geneticists can sometimes establish such features, but only along two lines from the entire huge pedigree (one is purely maternal - mother's mother, etc., the other is purely paternal - father's father, etc.), and along all other lines the genes of both tribes have been mixed up for a long time.

But the influence of the Russian principalities did not reach some Finno-Ugric tribes, and these tribes did not become Russian. Yes, they became part of the Moscow kingdom, and after that - the Russian Empire, but they retained their language and self-consciousness of the people. These are Mordovians, Maris, Udmurts, Karelians... Of course, there are more Russians in terms of numbers - even in our Finno-Ugric republics, marriages with Russians are very frequent. If children from such marriages consider themselves, for example, Mari, this strengthens the Russian component in the Mari gene pool. But we know that the Russian component itself at one time included a powerful Finno-Ugric layer. And such Russification is in many respects the return to the Finno-Ugric gene pool of the same Finno-Ugric genes that have been Russian for some time. There are no "pure" peoples, just as there are no ethnic genes. And if children from such marriages consider themselves Russians, this is just a modern continuation of the entry of the Finno-Ugric layer into the Russian gene pool, which began a thousand years ago.

And the famous calm, Nordic character of our northerners is connected precisely with the Finno-Ugric heritage?

Nordic - this after all and means northern? But seriously, there is no connection between the national character and the gene pool. Many geneticists - both ours and Western ones - are trying to find a connection between human genes and his psychophysiology. But the successes here are very modest, to say the least. And is there such a connection? I doubt.

But there are still Russians from the central and southern regions of Russia, their ancestors did not master the North and did not interfere with their blood with the Finno-Ugric. Who are they genetically close to? Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles?

These are just those peoples who are genetically very close to each other. So close that it is very difficult to establish any special degree of similarity. We are now carrying out this great work, analyzing all the Eastern Slavs. If we manage to understand the structure of their common gene pool, we will be happy to share with your readers.

Are Western Ukrainians different from Eastern ones?

A dissertation was recently defended on this topic in our laboratory. There are differences, of course. If there is a geographical distance, then there will certainly be differences in the gene pool. With regard to Eastern Ukrainians, genetics only confirmed what anthropologists already knew: their gene pool is similar to southern Russians and Cossacks (especially on the maternal side), and similar to other Ukrainians (especially on the paternal side). But it is still unclear with Western Ukrainians: according to different genes, they turn out to be similar either to central Ukrainians, or to eastern Russians, or even to individual peoples of Europe, and not even neighboring ones. It seems that in Western Ukraine, as at a crossroads, several different gene pools of ancient tribes converged. Therefore, research needs to be continued. So far, we have studied only two areas there, but if the Ukrainian authorities are interested and provide support, we could study this mysterious region in more detail.

Here are the characteristic representatives of the northern Russian type, which is widespread from Arkhangelsk to Vologda.

How similar is the genotype of northern Russians to foreign Finno-Ugrians - modern Finns, Estonians? And with the descendants of the Scandinavian Varangians - Swedes, Norwegians?

It's different for different genes. According to the Y-chromosome (paternal line), the population of the Russian North is equally similar to Finns, Estonians, and Mordovians - those who speak Finno-Ugric languages. But with the German-speaking Scandinavia - the Swedes and Norwegians - there is no particular similarity.

But there is another genetic system - mitochondrial DNA (maternal line), and according to it the picture is almost the opposite: the northern Russians are not very similar to the Finno-Ugric peoples. They are not very similar to the southern and central Russians, but almost the same genes are found in women in Scandinavia and Poland. This would give some novelist a reason to come up with a story about the daring bands of the northern Finno-Ugric tribes (the Slavs called them Chud), who got themselves brides from the distant Baltic, neglecting the neighboring peoples. And then, for no reason at all, they called themselves Russians and joined the Novgorod Republic. But from the point of view of history, this is nonsense. So it is better to wait for the analysis not on two, but on ten genetic systems: then it will become clearer who resembles whom.

How does the role of language, way of thinking correlate with the gene pool?

The connection here is only historical. If I was born in a village in Central Russia, then I wear bast shoes and I am Orthodox - simply because it is traditional clothing and religion. That's how it happened historically. And if I was born in Central China, then I wear a rice straw hat, and my faith is different. The connection is obvious, but you must admit that it is not bast shoes that determine religion. Genes are exactly the same "bast shoes" - they are characteristic of the indigenous population of some land. These people certainly have features in the language (after all, each locality has its own dialects), but the cause of all these features is not in the genes.

How the study was done

Scientists for their study selected samples of the Y-chromosome from 1228 Russian men living in small towns and villages of 14 regions of Russia (on the territory of the Old Russian principalities), and at least in the fourth generation.

The Y chromosome has been passed down the male line for thousands of years, almost unchanged. Very rarely, changes do occur, and as a result of these random mutations, stable signs of different variants of this chromosome, the haplogroup, have appeared. In the population of different parts of the planet, haplogroups are completely different. And by the variety of the haplogroup, one can judge from which geographical region the distant ancestor on the paternal line comes from.

INSTEAD OF AFTERWORD

Older people and the Pepsi generation share the same genes

I had one story, - says Oleg Balanovsky. - On the train, a fellow traveler talked to me and, having learned what I was doing, began to convince me how important it was to preserve the Russian gene pool - after all, how many grandmothers from the Swan Lake generation kept Russian traditions, and their granddaughters from the Pepsi generation are only interested in Western fashion . I had to explain that the grandmother and granddaughter have the same genes, the genes do not change from the fashion for ballet or Pepsi. The fellow traveler immediately understood everything, became sad and said: “If the gene pool does not affect anything, why should such a gene pool be preserved!”

I think the gene pool needs to be preserved. He can preserve - within ourselves - the memory of our history. Maintain a margin of safety for the health of future generations. Do not let us forget that all people are brothers in the literal, genetic sense.

But in solving social or momentary political problems, the gene pool is useless. That's not why he exists.

Genetic studies have shown that Russians are one of the purest peoples in Eurasia. Recent joint research by Russian, British and Estonian genetic scientists put a big fat cross on the common Russophobic myth that has been inculcated in people's minds for decades - they say, "scratch a Russian and you will definitely find a Tatar."
The results of a large-scale experiment published in the scientific journal "The American Journal of Human Genetics" clearly state that "despite the widespread opinion about the strong Tatar and Mongolian admixture in the blood of Russians, inherited by their ancestors during the time of the Tatar-Mongol invasion, the haplogroups of the Turkic peoples and other Asian ethnic groups left virtually no trace on the population of the modern northwestern, central and southern regions.

Like this. In this long-term dispute, we can safely put an end to it and consider further discussions on this issue simply inappropriate.

We are not Tatars. We are not Tatars. No influence on the so-called Russian genes. "Mongol-Tatar yoke" did not have.
We, Russians, did not have any admixture of Turkic "Horde blood" and do not have.

Moreover, genetic scientists, summing up their research, declare the almost complete identity of the genotypes of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, thereby proving that we were and remain one people: “genetic variations of the Y-chromosome of the inhabitants of the central and southern regions of Ancient Russia turned out to be practically identical to those of Ukrainians and Belarusians.”

One of the project leaders, Russian geneticist Oleg Balanovsky, admitted in an interview with Gazeta.ru that Russians are practically a monolithic people from a genetic point of view, destroying another myth: “everyone has mixed up, there are no more pure Russians.” On the contrary, there were Russians and there are Russians. A single people, a single nation, a monolithic nationality with a clearly defined special genotype.

Further, examining the materials of the remains from the most ancient burials, the scientists found that "the Slavic tribes mastered these lands (Central and South Russia) long before the mass migration of the main part of the ancient Russians to them in the 7th-9th centuries." That is, the lands of Central and Southern Russia were inhabited by Russians (Rusichs) already, at least in the first centuries A.D. If not before.

This allows us to debunk another Russophobic myth - that Moscow and the surrounding regions, allegedly, have been inhabited by Finno-Ugric tribes since ancient times and Russians there are “aliens”. We, as geneticists have proven, are not aliens, but completely autochthonous inhabitants of Central Russia, where the Russians have lived since time immemorial. “Despite the fact that these lands were inhabited even before the last glaciation of our planet about 20 thousand years ago, there is no evidence directly indicating the presence of any “primordial” peoples living in this territory,” the report states. That is, there is no evidence that any other tribes lived on our lands before us, which we supposedly ousted or assimilated. If I may say so, we have been living here since the creation of the world.

The scientists also determined the distant boundaries of the habitat of our ancestors: “an analysis of the bone remains indicates that the main contact zone of Caucasians with people of the Mongoloid type was located on the territory of Western Siberia.” And given that the archaeologists who unearthed the oldest burials of the 1st millennium BC. on the territory of Altai, found there the remains of pronounced Caucasoids (not to mention the world-famous Arkaim) - then the conclusion is obvious. Our ancestors (ancient Russians, Proto-Slavs) originally lived throughout the territory of modern Russia, including Siberia, and quite possibly the Far East. So the campaign of Ermak Timofeevich and his comrades for the Urals from this point of view was a completely legitimate return of previously lost territories.

That's it, friends. Modern science is destroying Russophobic stereotypes and myths, knocking the ground out from under the feet of our "friends" liberals.

Genogeographer Oleg Balanovsky: “Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians at the level of the gene pool sometimes fail to distinguish”

Five years have passed since KP, in the article “Sensational Discovery of Scientists: The Secret of the Russian Gene Pool Revealed,” spoke about the work of gene geographer Oleg Pavlovich Balanovsky and colleagues and their research into the gene pool of the Russian people.

“I would like to know how the Russian gene pool works and try to restore its history according to modern features,” the scientist said at the time. Today, in the light of new scientific data, we will return to this conversation.

DON'T SCRAPE THE RUSSIANS

- Oleg Pavlovich, where did the Russian people come from? Not the ancient Slavs, namely the Russians?
“As for the Russians, we can only say for sure that the Mongol conquest of the 13th century, contrary to popular belief, did not affect the gene pool — Central Asian gene variants are practically not found in Russian populations.
- That is, the well-known expression of the historian Karamzin "scratch a Russian - you will find a Tatar" is not confirmed by science?
- Not.
“Before geneticists, the Russian people were studied by anthropologists for a long time. To what extent do your results and theirs agree or disagree?
— Genetic studies of peoples are often taken as the final word of science. But it's not! Before us worked mainly anthropologists. By studying the appearance of the population (as we study genes), they described the similarities and differences between the populations of different regions, and from this they reconstructed their ways of origin. Our entire field of science has grown out of ethnic, racial anthropology. Moreover, the level of work of the classics in many respects remains unsurpassed.
— By what parameters?
- For example, on the details of the study of the population. Anthropologists examined more than 170 populations within the historical territory of the settlement of the Russian people. And we in our studies - so far 10 times less. Perhaps that is why Viktor Valeryanovich Bunak (an outstanding Russian anthropologist, one of the founders of the Soviet anthropological school. - Ed.) was able to identify as many as 12 types of the Russian population, and we only three (northern, southern and transitional).

Anthropologists, linguists and ethnographers have collected information about almost all the peoples of the world. Huge amounts of information have been accumulated about the physical appearance of the Russian population (the science of somatology deals with this) and about skin patterns on the fingers and palms (dermatoglyphics, which reveals differences among different peoples). Linguistics has long been studying data on the geography of Russian dialects and on the distribution of thousands of Russian surnames (anthroponymy). One could enumerate many examples of the coincidence of the results of modern genetic research and the classical research of anthropologists. But I can’t name a single insurmountable contradiction.

That is, the answer of scientists is unequivocal - Russians exist as a nation.
— This question is not for scientists, but for those people who identify themselves with the Russian people. As long as there are such people, scientists will record the existence of the people. If these people from generation to generation still speak their own language, then attempts to declare such a people non-existent are ridiculous. So, for example, there is no need to worry about Russians and Ukrainians.

SLAVES - THE CONCEPT IS NOT GENETIC, BUT LINGUISTIC

- And yet, how homogeneous is the Russian genotype?
- Differences between populations of different regions INSIDE one people (in this case, Russian) are almost always less than differences BETWEEN different peoples. The variability of Russian populations turned out to be higher than, for example, the populations of Germans, but less than the variability of many other European peoples, such as Italians.
- That is, the Russians differ from each other more than the Germans, but less than the Italians?
- Exactly. At the same time, genetic variability within our European subcontinent is much less than that within, for example, the Indian subcontinent. Simply put, Europeans, including Russians, are much more similar to each other than neighboring peoples in many regions of the planet, it is much easier to detect genetic similarities between European peoples and it is more difficult to find differences.
- Now many people question the existence of "fraternal Slavic peoples" - Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian ... They say that these are completely different peoples, completely different.

- “Slavs” (as well as “Turks” and “Finno-Ugrians”) are not genetic concepts at all, but linguistic ones! There are Slavic, Turkic and Finno-Ugric groups of languages. And within these groups genetically distant peoples get along quite well. For example, it is difficult to find genetic similarities between Turks and Yakuts who speak Turkic languages. Finns and Khanty speak Finno-Ugric languages, but are genetically distant from each other. So far, not a single linguist has doubted the close relationship of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages ​​and their belonging to the Slavic group.

As for the similarity of the gene pools of the three East Slavic peoples, the initial studies showed that they are so similar that sometimes it is not possible to distinguish them. However, these years we have not stood still and now we have learned to see the subtle differences in the Ukrainian gene pool. Belarusians from the northern and central regions are still indistinguishable from Russians for the entire set of studied genes, only the Belarusians of Polesye are shown to be unique.

WHERE DOES THE RUSSIAN NATION GET TWO FOREFATHERS?

Are Russians Slavs? What is the real share of the "Finnish heritage" in the Russian gene pool?
Russians are, of course, Slavs. The similarity of the northern Russian populations with the Finns is very small, while with the Estonians it is quite high. The problem is that exactly the same genetic variants are found among the Baltic peoples (Latvians and Lithuanians). Our study of the northern Russian gene pool showed that it would be an unreasonable simplification to interpret its features as inherited from the Finno-Ugrians assimilated by Russians. There are features, but they connect the northern Russians not only with the Finno-Ugric peoples, but also with the Balts, and with the German-speaking population of Scandinavia. That is, these genes - I would venture to guess - could have been inherited by the ancestors of northern Russians from such ancient times, when neither the Slavs, nor the Finno-Ugric peoples, nor the Germans, nor the Tatars simply existed yet.

You write that for the first time the two-component nature of the Russian gene pool has been shown for Y-chromosome markers (that is, along the male line). What are these two forefathers of the Russian gene pool?
- One genetic "father" of the Russian people is northern, the other is southern. Their age is lost in the centuries, and their origin is in the fog. But in any case, a whole millennium has already passed since the inheritance of both "fathers" became the common property of the entire Russian gene pool. And their current settlement is clearly visible on the map. At the same time, the northern Russian gene pool has similarities with the neighboring Baltic peoples, and the southern gene pool has similarities with the neighboring Eastern Slavs, but also with the Western Slavs (Poles, Czechs and Slovaks).

Are political passions raging around the study? Is there pressure? Who and how distorts your data? And for what purposes?
“Fortunately, we have never met with politics, let alone with pressure. But there are a lot of distortions. Everyone wants to fit scientific data to their usual views. And our data, with an honest approach, is not adjusted to them. That is why our conclusions in their entirety do not please both parties - both those who say that the Russian gene pool is "the best" in the world, and those who say that it does not exist.

The January issue of The American Journal of Human Genetics published an article about a study of the Russian gene pool conducted by Russian and Estonian geneticists. The results were unexpected: in fact, the Russian ethnos genetically consists of two parts - the indigenous population of South and Central Russia is related to other peoples who speak Slavic languages, and the inhabitants of the North of the country are related to the Finno-Ugric peoples. And the second rather surprising and, one might even say, sensational moment - a set of genes typical of Asians (including the notorious Mongol-Tatars) was not found in sufficient quantities in any of the Russian populations (neither in the north nor in the south). It turns out that the saying "scratch a Russian - you will find a Tatar" is not true.

Secret secret or gene of "Russianness"

The scientific data below is a terrible secret. Secret secrets.

Formally, these data are not classified, since they were obtained by American scientists outside the field of defense research, and even published in some places, but the conspiracy of silence organized around them is unprecedented. What is this terrible secret, the mention of which is a worldwide taboo?
This is the secret of the origin and historical path of the Russian people. Paternal kinship Why information is hidden - more on that later. First, briefly about the essence of the discovery of American geneticists. There are 46 chromosomes in human DNA, half inherited from the father and half from the mother. Of the 23 chromosomes inherited from the father, one and only - the male Y chromosome - contains a set of nucleotides that has been passed from generation to generation without any changes for thousands of years. Geneticists call this set a haplogroup. Every man living now has exactly the same haplogroup in his DNA as his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, etc. in many generations.

So, American scientists found that one such mutation occurred 4,500 years ago on the Central Russian Plain. A boy was born with a slightly different haplogroup than his father, to which they assigned the genetic classification R1a1. The paternal R1a mutated and a new R1a1 arose. The mutation turned out to be very viable. The genus R1a1, which was initiated by this very boy, survived, unlike millions of other genera that disappeared when their genealogical lines were cut off, and bred over a vast area. Currently, the owners of the haplogroup R1a1 make up 70% of the total male population of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and in ancient Russian cities and villages - up to 80%. R1a1 is a biological marker of the Russian ethnic group. This set of nucleotides is "Russian" in terms of genetics.

Thus, the Russian people in a genetically modern form was born in the European part of present-day Russia about 4,500 years ago. The boy with the R1a1 mutation became the direct ancestor of all men living on earth today, in whose DNA this haplogroup is present. All of them are his biological or, as they used to say, blood descendants and among themselves - blood relatives, collectively making up a single people - Russian. Realizing this, American geneticists, with the enthusiasm inherent in all emigrants in matters of origin, began to roam the world, take tests from people and look for biological "roots", their own and others. What they have achieved is of great interest to us, since it sheds true light on the historical paths of our Russian people and destroys many established myths.

Now men of the Russian genus R1a1 make up 16% of the total male population of India, and in the higher castes they are almost half - 47% Our ancestors migrated from the ethnic focus not only to the east (to the Urals) and south (to India and Iran), but also to west - to where European countries are now located. In the western direction, geneticists have complete statistics: in Poland, the owners of the Russian (Aryan) haplogroup R1a1 make up 57% of the male population, in Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia - 40%, in Germany, Norway and Sweden - 18%, in Bulgaria - 12 %, and in England - the least (3%).

The settlement of Russian-Aryans to the east, south and west (there was simply nowhere to go further north; and so, according to the Indian Vedas, before coming to India they lived near the Arctic Circle) became the biological prerequisite for the formation of a special language group - Indo-European. These are almost all European languages, some languages ​​of modern Iran and India, and, of course, the Russian language and ancient Sanskrit, which are closest to each other for an obvious reason: in time (Sanskrit) and in space (Russian) they stand next to the original source - Aryan the parent language from which all other Indo-European languages ​​\u200b\u200bhave grown. “It is impossible to dispute. You need to shut up"

What has been said above is irrefutable natural-science facts, moreover, obtained by independent American scientists. Challenging them is like disagreeing with the results of a blood test at a clinic. They are not disputed. They are simply hushed up. They are hushing up amicably and stubbornly, they are hushing up, one might say, totally. And there are reasons for that. For example, we will have to rethink everything that is known about the Tatar-Mongol invasion of Russia.

The armed conquest of peoples and lands was always and everywhere accompanied at that time by the mass rape of local women. Traces in the form of Mongolian and Turkic haplogroups should have remained in the blood of the male part of the Russian population. But they are not! Solid R1a1 - and nothing else, the purity of the blood is amazing. This means that the Horde that came to Russia was not at all what it is customary to think about it: if the Mongols were present there, then in statistically insignificant numbers, and who was called "Tatars" is not at all clear. Well, which of the scientists will refute the scientific foundations, supported by mountains of literature and great authorities?!

The second reason, incomparably more weighty, relates to the sphere of geopolitics. The history of human civilization appears in a new and completely unexpected light, and this cannot but have serious political consequences. Throughout modern history, the pillars of European scientific and political thought proceeded from the idea of ​​Russians as barbarians, recently off the Christmas trees, backward by nature and incapable of creative work. And suddenly it turns out that the Russians are the very Aryans who had a decisive influence on the formation of great civilizations in India, Iran and in Europe itself!

That Europeans owe a lot to Russians in their prosperous life, starting with the languages ​​they speak. It is no coincidence that in recent history, a third of the most important discoveries and inventions belong to ethnic Russians in Russia itself and abroad. It is no coincidence that the Russian people were able to repel the invasions of the united forces of continental Europe led by Napoleon, and then by Hitler. Etc.

Great historical tradition It is no coincidence, because behind all this is a great historical tradition, thoroughly forgotten for many centuries, but remaining in the collective subconscious of the Russian people and manifesting itself whenever the nation faces new challenges. Manifested with iron inevitability due to the fact that it has grown on a material, biological basis in the form of Russian blood, which has remained unchanged for four and a half millennia. Western politicians and ideologists have something to think about in order to make their policy towards Russia more adequate in the light of the historical circumstances discovered by geneticists. But they do not want to think and change anything, hence the conspiracy of silence around the Russian-Aryan theme. The collapse of the myth of the Russian people The collapse of the myth of the Russian people as an ethnic mixture automatically destroys another myth - the myth of Russia's multinationality.

Until now, attempts have been made to present the ethno-demographic structure of our country as a vinaigrette from a Russian “you can’t understand what mixture” and many indigenous peoples and alien diasporas. With such a structure, all its components are approximately equal in size, so Russia is allegedly "multinational". But genetic studies paint a very different picture. If you believe the Americans (and there is no reason not to believe them: they are authoritative scientists, they value their reputation, and they have no reason to lie - in such a pro-Russian way), then it turns out that 70% of the entire male population of Russia are purebred Russians.

According to the data of the penultimate census (the results of the latter are not yet known), 80% of the respondents identify themselves as Russians; 10% more are Russified representatives of other peoples (it is in these 10% that if you “scratch” you will find non-Russian roots). And 20% falls on the remaining 170-odd peoples, nationalities and tribes living on the territory of the Russian Federation. In summary: Russia is a mono-ethnic, albeit multi-ethnic, country with an overwhelming demographic majority of natural Russians. It is here that the logic of Jan Hus begins to work.

About backwardness Next - about backwardness. The clergy thoroughly had a hand in this myth: they say that before the baptism of Russia, people lived in it in complete savagery. Wow "wildness"! They mastered half the world, built great civilizations, taught the natives their language, and all this long before the birth of Christ ... The real story does not fit, does not fit in any way with its church version. There is in the Russian people something primordial, natural, which cannot be reduced to religious life. In the north-east of Europe, in addition to the Russians, many peoples lived and still live, but none of them created anything even remotely similar to the great Russian civilization. The same applies to other places of civilizational activity of Russian-Aryans in antiquity. Natural conditions are different everywhere, and the ethnic environment is different, therefore the civilizations built by our ancestors are not the same, but there is something in common for all of them: they are great in terms of the historical scale of values ​​and far exceed the achievements of their neighbors.

Photofit of a typical Russian person,
created by the artists of "Power" on
image-based typical
representatives of the population
different regions of Russia

Russian gene pool

Russian scientists have completed and are preparing for publication the first large-scale study of the gene pool of the Russian people. Vlast correspondents Daria Laane and Sergey Petukhov got acquainted with the results of this study and realized that their disclosure could have unpredictable consequences for Russia and the world order.

The self-identification of the Russian people for a long time was hampered by the Soviet state ideology of internationalism. An additional obstacle was the defeat of genetics as a science in the Soviet Union and its replacement by Michurin's pseudoscience, according to which heredity did not exist at all in nature. The situation began to change only in the late 1960s, when American scientists published sensational results of a study of the genotype of a typical American. The result of genetic screening of the US population really went beyond the scope of academic science and caused a real shock among American citizens. It turned out that in less than 200 years of American statehood, its reference citizen - white, of Anglo-Saxon origin and Protestant religion - has become genetically 30% black. The results of the Americans interested Soviet officials, so the first laboratories for human population genetics were created in the USSR. They were engaged exclusively in the study of the heredity of small peoples, and most of the results obtained immediately received the stamp "for official use." Studies of the titular nation could only be carried out by anthropological methods.

Entertaining anthropology

Typical representatives
Vologda-Vyatka zone

Anthropologists have been able, over several decades of intense research, to reveal the appearance of a typical Russian person. To do this, they had to translate into a single scale all the photographs from the photo library of the Museum of Anthropology with full-face and profile images of typical representatives of the population of the Russian regions of the country and, combining them in the pupils of the eyes, overlay each other. The final photo portraits turned out, of course, blurry, but they gave an idea of ​​the appearance of the reference Russian people. This was the first truly sensational discovery. Indeed, similar attempts by French scientists led to a result that they had to hide from the citizens of their country: after thousands of combinations with the received photographs of the reference Jacques and Marianne, gray faceless ovals of faces looked. Such a picture, even among the French most distant from anthropology, could cause an unnecessary question: is there a French nation at all?

Unfortunately, anthropologists did not go further than creating photographic portraits of typical representatives of the Russian population in different regions of the country and did not superimpose them on top of each other in order to obtain the appearance of an absolute Russian person. They explained this to the “authorities” by the supposedly scientific lack of information of such work, but in the end they were forced to admit that they could get into trouble at work for such a photograph. By the way, the "regional" sketches of Russian people were published in the general press only in 2002, and before that they were published in small editions only in scientific publications for specialists. Only in this issue Vlast fills this gap in Russian anthropology and for the first time publishes photographic portraits of absolutely Russian people, obtained by us by superimposing the faces of “regional” Russian people on top of each other. Now you can judge for yourself how similar they are to the typical cinematic Ivanushka and Marya.

Unfortunately, mostly black and white old archival photos of the faces of Russian people do not allow us to convey the height, physique, skin color, hair and eyes of a Russian person. However, anthropologists have created a verbal portrait of Russian men and women. These are of medium build and medium height, light brown-haired with light eyes - gray or blue. By the way, in the course of the research, a verbal portrait of a typical Ukrainian was also obtained. The reference Ukrainian differs from the Russian only in the color of his skin, hair and eyes - he is a swarthy brunette with regular features and brown eyes. A snub nose turned out to be absolutely uncharacteristic for an Eastern Slav (found only in 7% of Russians and Ukrainians), this feature is more typical for Germans (25%).

However, anthropological measurements of the proportions of the human body are not even the last, but the century before last, of science, which has long received at its disposal the most accurate methods of molecular biology, which allow you to read all human genes. And the most advanced methods of DNA analysis today are sequencing (reading by letter of the genetic code) of mitochondrial DNA and DNA of the human Y-chromosome. Mitochondrial DNA has been passed down the female line from generation to generation, virtually unchanged since Eve, the progenitor of mankind, climbed down from a tree in East Africa. And the Y-chromosome is present only in men and therefore is also transmitted to male offspring practically unchanged, while all other chromosomes, when transmitted from father and mother to their children, are shuffled by nature, like a deck of cards before distribution. Thus, unlike indirect signs (appearance, body proportions), sequencing of mitochondrial DNA and DNA of the Y-chromosome indisputably and directly indicates the degree of relationship between people.

Entertaining genogeography

In the West, human population geneticists have been successfully using these methods for two decades. In Russia, they were used only once, in the mid-1990s, when identifying the royal remains. The turning point in the situation with the use of the most modern methods for studying the titular nation of our country occurred only in 2000. The Russian Foundation for Basic Research allocated about half a million rubles from state budget funds for the study of the gene pool of the Russian people. It is impossible to implement a serious program with such funding. But it was more of a landmark than just a financial decision, indicating a change in the country's scientific priorities. For the first time in Russian history, scientists from the Laboratory of Human Population Genetics of the Medical Genetic Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, who received a grant from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, were able to fully concentrate on studying the gene pool of the Russian people, and not small peoples, for three years. And limited funding only spurred their ingenuity. They supplemented their molecular genetic studies with an analysis of the frequency distribution of Russian surnames in the country. This method was very cheap, but its information content exceeded all expectations: a comparison of the geography of surnames with the geography of genetic DNA markers showed their almost complete coincidence.

Unfortunately, the interpretations of family analysis that appeared in the media this summer (after the first publication of the data in a specialized scientific journal) could give a false impression of the goals and results of the huge work of scientists. As Elena Balanovskaya, the head of the project, doctor of sciences, explained to Vlast, the main thing was not that the surname Smirnov turned out to be more common among Russian people than Ivanov, but that for the first time a complete list of truly Russian surnames was compiled by regions of the country. At the same time, scientists had to spend a lot of time collecting Russian surnames on their own. The Central Election Commission and local election commissions flatly refused to cooperate with scientists, citing the fact that only if the voter lists are secret can they guarantee the objectivity and honesty of elections to federal and local authorities. The criterion for inclusion in the list of a surname was very lenient: it was included if at least five carriers of this surname lived in the region for three generations. First, lists were compiled for five conditional regions - Northern, Central, Central-Western, Central-Eastern and Southern. In total, about 15 thousand Russian surnames were accumulated in all regions, most of which were found only in one of the regions and were absent in others. When regional lists were superimposed on each other, scientists identified a total of 257 so-called "all-Russian surnames". Interestingly, at the final stage of the study, they decided to add the names of residents of the Krasnodar Territory to the list of the Southern Region, expecting that the predominance of Ukrainian surnames of the descendants of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks evicted here by Catherine II would significantly reduce the all-Russian list. But this additional restriction reduced the list of all-Russian surnames by only 7 units - to 250 (see the list). From which followed the obvious and not for everyone pleasant conclusion that Kuban is inhabited mainly by Russian people. And where did the Ukrainians go and whether there were Ukrainians here at all is a big question.

For three years, project participants
"Russian gene pool" (in the photo - his
head Elena Balanovskaya)
bypassed with a syringe and a test tube a little
or not the entire European territory of the Russian Federation
and made a very representative
sample of Russian blood

An analysis of Russian surnames generally provides food for thought. Even the simplest act performed by Vlast—a search in it for the names of all the country's leaders—gave an unexpected result. Only one of them was included in the list of top 250 all-Russian surnames - Mikhail Gorbachev (158th place). The surname Brezhnev takes 3767th place in the general list (found only in the Belgorod region of the Southern region). The surname Khrushchev is in 4248th place (found only in the Northern region, Arkhangelsk region). Chernenko took 4749th place (only the Southern region). Andropov - 8939th place (only the Southern region). Putin took 14,250th place (only the Southern region). But Yeltsin was not included in the general list at all. Stalin's surname - Dzhugashvili - for obvious reasons was not considered. But on the other hand, the pseudonym Lenin got into the regional lists under the number 1421, second only to the first president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev.

The result amazed even the scientists themselves, who believed that the main difference between the bearers of South Russian surnames was not the ability to lead a huge power, but the increased sensitivity of the skin of their fingers and palms. A scientific analysis of dermatoglyphics (papillary patterns on the skin of the palms and fingers) of Russian people showed that the complexity of the pattern (from simple arcs to loops) and the accompanying skin sensitivity increase from north to south. “A person with simple patterns on the skin of his hands can hold a glass of hot tea in his hands without pain,” Dr. Balanovskaya clearly explained the essence of the differences. “And if there are a lot of loops, then unsurpassed pickpockets came out of such people.” However, "Vlast" in an interview with the country's chief geneticist Academician Sergei Inge-Vechtomov (see # 24, 2004) has already warned that underestimating the genetics of a person in his career guidance has brought and continues to bring huge losses to the country. And again he draws attention to this: it is absolutely clear that from the point of view of increasing labor productivity it is more profitable to locate thin high-tech assembly plants in the south of Russia, where the fingers of the population are most adapted for assembling microprocessors, and hot and not requiring fine motor skills of the hands of the production (steel and similar type) - in the north.

The elusive gene pool

However, cheap indirect methods for studying the genetics of the Russian people (by surnames and dermatoglyphics) were only auxiliary for the first study in Russia of the gene pool of the titular nationality. His main molecular genetic results are now being prepared for publication in the form of the monograph "Russian Gene Pool", which will be published at the end of the year by the Luch publishing house. Unfortunately, part of the study, due to the lack of government funding, scientists had to carry out jointly with foreign colleagues, who a moratorium was imposed on many results until joint publications in the scientific press. The reason is good, and Vlast, unfortunately, cannot provide original graphs and flowcharts of DNA analysis of Russian people and their neighbors in the Russian Federation, CIS countries and some European countries. But nothing prevents us from describing these data (which are at the disposal of Vlast) in words. So, according to the Y-chromosome, the genetic distance between Russians and Finns is 30 conventional units. And the genetic distance between a Russian person and the so-called Finno-Ugric peoples (Mari, Veps, etc.) living on the territory of the Russian Federation is 2-3 units. Simply put genetically they are almost identical. And the harsh statement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia on September 1 at the EU Council in Brussels (after the denunciation of the treaty on the state border with Estonia by the Russian side) about discrimination against Finno-Ugric peoples allegedly related to Finns in the Russian Federation loses its meaningful meaning. But due to the moratorium of Western scientists, the Russian Foreign Ministry could not reasonably accuse Estonia of interfering in our internal, one might even say closely related, affairs. The results of mitochondrial DNA analysis also fall under the same moratorium, according to which Russians from Tatars are at the same genetic distance of 30 conventional units that separate us from Finns, but between Ukrainians from Lvov and Tatars the genetic distance is only 10 units. And at the same time Ukrainians from left-bank Ukraine are genetically as close to Russians as Komi-Zyryans, Mordovians and Maris. You can react in any way you like to these strictly scientific facts, which show the natural essence of the reference electorates of Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych. But it will not be possible to accuse Russian scientists of falsifying these data: then the accusation will automatically extend to their Western colleagues, who have been delaying the publication of these results for more than a year, each time extending the moratorium.

The only thing Vlast can do for the Russian people today is to publish a map indicating the area where truly Russian genes are still preserved. Geographically, this territory coincides with Russia during the time of Ivan the Terrible and clearly shows the conditionality of some state borders.

In conclusion, Russian scientists asked to publish their appeal to President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. “Huge megacities are, in fact, black holes that suck in the gene pool of the Russian people and destroy it without a trace,” says Dr. Balanovskaya. “Now the borders have become known, within which the original Russian genes are still preserved in villages and small towns. But even there, due to lack of money, mothers give birth to fewer and fewer children. Meanwhile, against the backdrop of huge government spending on other needs, the targeted allocation of material assistance for children to these women can save the Russian gene pool from further degradation.”

250 most Russian surnames

1 Smirnov
2 Ivanov
3 Kuznetsov
4 Popov
5 Sokolov
6 Lebedev
7 Kozlov
8 Novikov
9 Morozov
10 Petrov
11 Wolves
12 Solovyov
13 Vasiliev
14 Hares
15 Pavlov
16 Semenov
17 pigeons
18 Vinogradov
19 Bogdanov
20 Sparrows
21 Fedorov
22 Mikhailov
23 Belyaev
24 Tarasov
25 Belov
26 Komarov
27 Orlov
28 Kiselev
29 Makarov
30 Andreev
31 Kovalev
32 Ilyin
33 geese
34 Titov
35 Kuzmin
36 Kudryavtsev
37 Rams
38 Kulikov
39 Alekseev
40 Stepanov
41 Yakovlev
42 Sorokin
43 Sergeev
44 Romanov
45 Zakharov
46 Borisov
47 Queens
48 gerasims
49 Ponomarev
50 grigoriev
51 Lazarev
52 Medvedev
53 Ershov
54 Nikitin
55 Sobolev
56 Ryabov
57 Polyakov
58 Flowers
59 Danilov
60 Zhukov
61 Frolov
62 Zhuravlev
63 Nikolaev
64 Krylov
65 Maksimov
66 Sidorov
67 Osipov
68 Belousov
69 Fedotov
70 Dorofeev
71 Egorov
72 Matveev
73 Bobrov
74 Dmitriev
75 Kalinin
76 Anisimov
77 Roosters
78 Antonov
79 Timofeev
80 Nikiforov
81 Veselov
82 Filippov
83 Markov
84 Bolshakov
85 Sukhanov
86 Mironov
87 Shiryaev
88 Alexandrov
89 Konovalov
90 Shestakov
91 Kazakov
92 Efimov
93 Denisov
94 thunders
95 Fomin
96 Davydov
97 Melnikov
98 Shcherbakov
99 pancakes
100 Kolesnikov
101 Karpov
102 Afanasiev
103 Vlasov
104 Maslov
105 Isakov
106 Tikhonov
107 Aksenov
108 gavrilov
109 Rodionov
110 cats
111 hunchbacks
112 Kudryashov
113 Bulls
114 Zuev
115 Tretyakov
116 Saveliev
117 pans
118 Fishermen
119 Suvorov
120 Abramov
121 Ravens
122 Mukhin
123 Arkhipov
124 Trofimov
125 Martynov
126 Emelyanov
127 pots
128 Chernov
129 Ovchinnikov
130 Seleznev
131 Panfilov
132 Kopylov
133 Mikheev
134 galkin
135 Nazarov
136 Lobanov
137 Lukin
138 Belyakov
139 Potapov
140 Nekrasov
141 Khokhlov
142 Zhdanov
143 Naumov
144 Shilov
145 Vorontsov
146 Ermakov
147 Drozdov
148 Ignatiev
149 Savin
150 Logins
151 Safonov
152 Kapustin
153 Kirillov
154 Moiseev
155 Eliseev
156 Koshelev
157 Costin
158 gorbachev
159 nuts
160 Efremov
161 Isaev
162 Evdokimov
163 Kalashnikov
164 Boars
165 socks
166 Yudin
167 Kulagin
168 Lapin
169 Prokhorov
170 Nesterov
171 Kharitonov
172 Agafonov
173 Ants
174 Larionov
175 Fedoseev
176 Zimin
177 Pakhomov
178 Shubin
179 Ignatov
180 Filatov
181 Kryukov
182 Horns
183 Fists
184 Terentyev
185 Molchanov
186 Vladimirov
187 Artemiev
188 gouryev
189 Zinoviev
190 grishin
191 Kononov
192 Dementiev
193 Sitnikov
194 Simonov
195 Mishin
196 Fadeev
197 Commissars
198 mammoths
199 Noses
200 walkers
201 Balls
202 Ustinov
203 Vishnyakov
204 Evseev
205 Lavrentiev
206 Bragin
207 Konstantinov
208 Kornilov
209 Avdeev
210 Zykov
211 Biryukov
212 Sharapov
213 Nikonov
214 Shchukin
215 Deacons
216 Odintsov
217 Sazonov
218 Yakushev
219 Krasilnikov
220 Gordeev
221 Samoilov
222 Knyazev
223 Bespalov
224 Uvarov
225 Checkers
226 Bobylev
227 Doronin
228 Belozerov
229 Rozhkov
230 Samsonov
231 Butchers
232 Likhachev
233 Burov
234 Sysoev
235 Fomichev
236 Rusakov
237 Riflemen
238 thick
239 Teterin
240 Kolobov
241 Subbotin
242 Fokin
243 Blokhin
244 Seliverstov
245 Pestov
246 Kondratiev
247 Silin
248 Merkushev
249 Lytkin
250 Tours

Magazine Kommersant "POWER" No. 38 (641) dated September 26, 2005: PERSON OF THE RUSSIAN NATIONALITY: http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=611986