PEOPLE & CULTURE There are about 120 ethnic groups in Russia who speak more than a hundred languages. Roughly 80 percent of Russians trace their ancestry to the Slavs who settled in the country 1,500 years ago. Other major groups include Tatars, who came with the Mongol invaders, and Ukrainians.
The Russians were formed from East Slavic tribes, and their cultural ancestry is based in Kievan Rus'. Genetically, the majority of Russians are identical to their East and West Slavic counterparts, unlike Northern Russians, who belong to the Northern European Baltic gene pool.
Genetic studies show that Russians are closest to Poles, Belarusians, Ukrainians and to other Slavs as well as to Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Hungarians.
Customarily, Slavs are subdivided into East Slavs (chiefly Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians), West Slavs (chiefly Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Wends, or Sorbs), and South Slavs (chiefly Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins).
Ethno-cultural subdivisions. West Slavs originate from early Slavic tribes which settled in Central Europe after the East Germanic tribes had left this area during the migration period. They are noted as having mixed with Germanics, Hungarians, Celts (particularly the Boii), Old Prussians, and the Pannonian Avars.
East, West, and South Slavs
Namely, the East Slavs are genetically most homogeneous, the West Slavs are a bit more differentiated, but East and West Slavs are much more similar to each other than they are to the South Slavs.
As an ethnic group, the Slavs entered the history of Europe in the 5th and 6th centuries, when they began to settle intensively in the area of middle and eastern Europe. Some Slavs settled in what are now western Russia and eastern and central Europe.
Russians - 77% (Slavic language, live across Russian territory but most numerous in European Russia)
Ukrainians are an ethnic group of East Slavs who originated in Ukraine. They are Europe's seventh-largest country and the East Slavs' second-largest after the Russians. According to Ukraine's Constitution, the phrase "Ukrainians" refers to all of the country's citizens.
The research showed that inbreeding is particularly common in Russia and Spain.
Russia is a multinational state, home to over 193 ethnic groups nationwide. In the 2021 Census, roughly 81% of the population were ethnic Russians, 19% of the population were ethnic minorities.
The ancestors of ethnic Russians were among the Slavic tribes that separated from the early Indo-European Group, which included ancestors of modern Slavic, Germanic and Baltic speakers, who appeared in the northeastern part of Europe ca. 1500 years ago.
Stereotypical physical characteristics of Russian people include a broader nose, dark blond eyebrows, fair skin, and a round face. There are a number of factors that contribute to these characteristics. In cultural stereotypes, Russian people are also seen as being individualistic, hard-working, honest, and generous.
As of 2020 the largest ethnic Russian diaspora populations outside Russia live in Ukraine and other countries. The populations involved include those in: Ukraine (about 9 million), Kazakhstan (about 3.6 million in 2016), Belarus (about 1.5 million), Uzbekistan (about 650,000) and Kyrgyzstan (about 600,000).
Russia has the highest number of Slavs in the world, totaling 143 million. Poland (38+ million) and Ukraine (45+ million) round out the top three highest Slav populations in the world.
Russians make up the most Slavs, followed by Poles and Ukrainians. There are many small historic Slavic nations like Lusatia (and Lusatian Serbs, typically referred to as Sorbs, who still live in eastern Germany), Rusyn, Kashubia and others.
Overall, 77.8% of Ukraine's population self-identified as ethnically Ukrainian and 17.3% as ethnically Russian.
Polish is a Western Slavic language spoken by approximately 38 million people within Poland. Polish speakers can also be found throughout the globe, especially in hubs of the Polish diaspora such as Chicago, London and New York.
From Middle English, from Old French sclave, from Medieval Latin sclāvus (“slave”), from Late Latin Sclāvus (“Slav”), because Slavs were often forced into slavery in the Middle Ages.
No, Romanians are not a Slavic people. Romanian is a Romance language. It is descended from Latin.
Poles, or Polish people, are a West Slavic ethnic group and nation who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Central Europe.
Historians say that the Finno-Ugric people were the first inhabitants of Russia, with many of our customs and fairytales descending from their civilization: the cult of ancestors, the love of forests and villages, our patience and communality.
Croatian is a part of the South Slavic sub-group of Slavic.