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 the minds of people 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 popular 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 Rus' 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 Caucasians (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?
- No.
“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 the 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 neighboring Baltic peoples, and the southern gene pool has similarities with neighboring Eastern Slavs, but also with 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 and even more so 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 ethnic group 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, only one - the male Y chromosome - contains a set of nucleotides that has been passed down 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 together 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 Rus'.
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 Rus' 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 that 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 don’t 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, they tried to present the ethno-demographic structure of our country as a vinaigrette from the Russian “mixture of you don’t understand what” 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, value their reputation, and they have no reason to lie - in such and 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 Rus', 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.
Russian gene pool- this is the totality of all genes belonging to Russian populations living in the territory of the original formation of the Russian people - as well as in other places long settled and inhabited mainly by Russians. It is important that more than half of marriages take place within the population, and children and grandchildren born in these marriages remain within this population. Examples of populations in descending order: humanity, people, a group of neighboring villages or villages.
The logic is simple: since marriages are made between people, then these people form populations. If populations exist, then their gene pools also exist, since the concepts of population and gene pool are inseparable. Since more than half of the marriages are with representatives of their own people, then Russian people are also a population, only large enough. And, finally, since there are ethnic populations, then there are ethnic gene pools - including the Russian gene pool or the Russian gene pool.
Russian gene pool - a set of genes belonging to Russian populations
The gene pool of the Russian people consists of many lower gene pools, while at the same time being part of many other higher gene pools. The Russian gene pool is part of the gene pool of the East Slavic peoples, and part of the gene pool of the peoples of Eastern Europe, and all of Europe, and Eurasia. The Russian gene pool is not a concept of culture or demography. The Russian gene pool exists as an absolutely real biological object, which, although it changes under the influence of shifts in society, but for its part does not change society.
2 Where is the Russian gene pool located?
The most valuable genetic information about the Russian gene pool is stored only by the indigenous rural populations of the original range of the Russian gene pool of Central Russia and the Russian North: that is, in villages, villages, urban-type settlements and small towns. And it is precisely in those places where Russians have been settled since time immemorial. It is interesting to note that this territory coincides with.
The reason for the exceptional importance of the rural population is simple - cities are always characterized by a narrowed reproduction, and no subsidies can change this property. For the stable reproduction of the Russian people, Families must have two or more children, and this pattern is more common in rural areas than in the city.
The demographic picture is simple: the birth rate in the city is not enough even to maintain its population at a constant level. On the other hand, the birth rate in the countryside makes it possible to preserve the rural population itself and to "feed" the cities. In population genetics, it is customary to compare cities with "black holes", where the gene pool is drawn in from the surrounding villages, but where it is not reproduced and from where it does not return.
It is extremely difficult to designate the territory on which the Russian people formed - even historians cannot do this quite unambiguously. However, with a high degree of probability we can talk about a list of 22 areas which are part of the original area of the formation of the Russian people and the Russian gene pool.
The population of the "original Russian" regions is slightly more than 30 million people
The rural population of precisely these regions keeps and reproduces the Russian gene pool, and the demographic situation in their villages is directly related to the future of the Russian gene pool. It is these areas that need to be helped with "subsidies for the Russian gene pool." The Moscow region is deliberately not included in the list: although the indigenous population still remains on its outskirts, the overall population of the region is mixed, subject to frequent migrations, and therefore no longer retains the genetic memory.
If we exclude the cities located in these territories, then the total number of the Russian gene pool in the "original" area will be only 8,790,679 people- you must admit that compared to 116 million of the total Russian population of Russia, this is an extremely small figure. But even worse is the fact that an even smaller part is related to the birth of children - among the rural population of women under the age of 35, there are only 717 thousand people. It is this unjustifiably small part of the Russian population that basically reproduces the Russian gene pool.
The Russian gene pool is reproduced by only 717 thousand people
If "subsidies for the Russian gene pool" are directed precisely to these Russian villages and towns, then this will really contribute to the preservation and multiplication of the Russian gene pool. It is imperative to clarify: we are talking only about the “original historical” area, but not at all about the “original historical” gene pool - there is neither such a concept nor a gene pool!
3 What threatens the Russian gene pool?
- mixing with other populations - the destruction of the structure of the Russian gene pool
- inbreeding - an increase in the load of hereditary diseases
- depopulation - demographic decline in population
Mixing with other populations- for the structure of the gene pool, this is the closest danger. It implies the disappearance, erasure and leveling of the population of ethnic Russians as a result of mixing with neighboring peoples or mixing of regional groups within the people. It is important to clarify
- that for the stability of any population it is necessary that more than half of its marriages take place within it
- for the gene pool, only those marriages are important, whose children and grandchildren remain in this population
If the proportion of marriage migrants increases by more than half, then the population simply disappears, merging into another population. Approximation to a situation where half of the children are born from marriages within the population, and d the other half - from marriages with other populations, signals the danger of destruction of the population. The intensity of migration inherent in the modern world can make this danger very serious for a number of regions - including both the migration of other peoples within the Russian area, and the Russian people outside, but to a greater extent - the migration of the Russian population within the area from village to city. For example, if the entire Russian population comes to Moscow and forms a single homogeneous population, then the structure of the Russian gene pool will disappear.
For the gene pool, only those marriages are important, whose children and grandchildren
remain in this population
Let's give important definition: gene pool structure are the genetic features of each population that are reproduced in generations. Each population occupies its own piece of the common area of the people, and it is the differences between populations that form the structure of the gene pool. The same geographical mosaic that ensures the stability of the gene pool throughout its history. If each glass of a beautiful mosaic is taken out of its place and put in a pile, we will destroy the picture that they formed, and we will no longer be able to restore it.
If the entire Russian population gathers in Moscow and forms a single population,
then the structure of the Russian gene pool will disappear
Inbreeding and as a consequence, an increase in the number of hereditary genetic diseases, does not pose a serious danger to the Russian gene pool. Speaking about the Russian gene pool as a whole, one must remember that the level of hereditary pathology is on average low for Russian populations, especially in comparison with the gene pools of many other peoples.
Depopulation- extremely strong danger. We are talking about the depressing demographic situation in the Russian population - now the Russian people have a birth rate at such a low level that it threatens to reduce the number of carriers of the Russian gene pool. Reducing the number of children born in families where both parents are Russian or in general the refusal of young Russian parents to have children is a danger that requires the closest attention from Russian society and the Russian state.
The medicine that can help the Russian gene pool is obvious - it is necessary to increase the birth rate to the demographic norm. To prescribe this medicine, one does not need to study the Russian gene pool - it suggests itself. But how genogeography can help here is to advise who exactly to prescribe it and how to take it.
4 How to save the Russian gene pool?
In order to preserve the Russian gene pool and give impetus to the increase in the ethnic Russian population of Russia, it is necessary to prevent the population from reducing the reproductive structure of the Russian gene pool. That is, it is imperative to stimulate an increase in the number of children born in families living in rural areas and small towns of the primordially Russian area - in
The way to increase the birth rate is well known - it is subsidies to the family for the birth of a child and his first years of life. cornerstone d rotational program to preserve and increase the gene pool of Russians, as well as one of the ways to reduce its volume, while increasing its effectiveness, is the target orientation: all payments should be applied only in relation to the population of villages, villages and small towns in Central and Northern Russia. Large cities should be excluded from the state " subsidies for the Russian gene pool". In addition to financial stimulation of the birth rate, it is imperative to develop the infrastructure of villages and small towns.
If subsidies are targeted specifically to those mothers who permanently live in the provinces, who raise their children there, if young mothers in the provinces are sure that they will be helped to raise their children, then the demographic problem of preserving the Russian gene pool will be solved.
Assistance plan for the Russian gene pool significantly different from other, more costly, demographic programs. And that difference lies in its limitations. The program to save the Russian gene pool is limited to that small part of the population that is most important for the preservation of the gene pool - these are the villages and small towns of Central Russia and the Russian North.
It should be clarified that in order to preserve the specifically Russian gene pool, as a real biological object recognized by genetic scientists, the birth rate among the Russians of Siberia is not important, since Siberia is outside the "original" range of the Russian gene pool. The same is true in relation to the Russians of Moscow and other metropolitan cities, because the population of such large cities is not rural. All these populations of Russians are outside the historically established structure of the Russian gene pool in its "original" area.
Genetic information about the Russian gene pool is kept only by the indigenous rural populations of the "original" range of Central Russia and the Russian North.
The material was created on the basis of the book "Russian Gene Pool on the Russian Plain".
Authors of the book: E.V. Balanovskaya and O.P. 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 was a dark-haired and black-eyed beauty from the Slavic tribe of Krivichi, and the other - 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 in 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.
28.05.2016 - 11:32
Probably, no other nation on Earth has such a number of myths about its history as the Russians. Some say that “there are no Russians”, others - that the Russians are Finno-Ugric peoples, and not Slavs, others - that we are all Tatars in the depths, if we are scraped, the fourth repeat the mantra that Rus' was founded by the Varangians in general ...
Professor of Moscow State University and Harvard Anatoly Klyosov refuted most of these myths. In this he was helped by the new science of DNA genealogy and its research based on the analysis of genetic data, writes KP.ru.
No matter how much you scrape, you won't find a Tatar
- Anatoly Alekseevich, I want to get an answer already: “so where did the Russians come from?” So that historians, geneticists, ethnographers gather and lay out the truth for us. Can science do it?
Where did the Russians come from? - there can be no exact answer to this question, since the Russians are a big family, with a common history, but separate roots. But the question of the common Slavic origin of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians is closed by DNA genealogy. Answer received. Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians have the same roots - Slavic.
- What are these roots?
The Slavs have three main clans, or haplogroups (a scientific synonym for the concept of "clan"). Judging by the data of DNA genealogy: the dominant clan of the Slavs is the carriers of the haplogroup R1a - they are about half of all the Slavs of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland.
The second genus in terms of numbers is the carriers of the haplogroup I2a - the southern Slavs of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Macedonia, they are up to 15-20% in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus.
And the third Russian genus - haplogroup N1c1 - the descendants of the southern Balts, of which there are about half in modern Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and in Russia an average of 14%, in Belarus 10%, in Ukraine 7%, since it is farther from the Baltic.
The latter are often called Finno-Ugric, but this is not true. The Finnish component is minimal there.
- And what about the saying: "Scratch a Russian - you will find a Tatar"?
DNA genealogy does not confirm it either. The share of "Tatar" haplogroups among Russians is very small. Rather, on the contrary, the Tatars have much more Slavic haplogroups.
There is practically no Mongolian trace, a maximum of four people per thousand. Neither the Mongols nor the Tatars had any influence on the Russian and Slavic gene pool.
Eastern Slavs, that is, members of the genus R1, - and on the Russian Plain, including Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians - these are the descendants of the Aryans, that is, the ancient tribes who spoke the languages of the Aryan group, who lived from the Balkans to the Trans-Urals, and partly moved to India, Iran , Syria and Asia Minor. In the European part of Russia, the ancestors of the Slavs and ethnic Russians separated from them about 4500 years ago.
- Where did Russians come from to Russia?
Presumably, the Eastern Slavs came to the Russian Plain from the Balkans. Although no one knows exactly their paths. And they laid here successively the Tripolskaya and other archaeological cultures. All these cultures are, in fact, the cultures of the Rus, because their inhabitants are the direct ancestors of modern ethnic Russians.
Nationalities are different, but the people are one
- And what are the genetic data for Ukraine?
If we compare Russians and Ukrainians according to the "male" Y-chromosome, then they are almost identical. Yes, and for female mitochondrial DNA, too. The data for Eastern Ukraine are simply identical, without any "practically".
There are slight differences in Lviv, there are fewer carriers of the “Baltic” genus N1c1, but they are there too. There is no difference in the origin of modern Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians, they are historically the same peoples.
- What do Ukrainian scientists think about it?
Unfortunately, those "scientific" historical materials that are sent to me from Ukraine can be described in one word: horror. Either Adam comes from Ukraine, then Noah's Ark moored there, apparently to Mount Hoverla in the Carpathians, or some other "scientific news". And everywhere they try to emphasize the difference between Ukrainians and Russians.
- Sometimes the genus R1a, still dominant in Russia and Ukraine, is called "Ukrainian". This is true?
Rather, they called a few years ago. Now, under the pressure of DNA genealogy data, they have already understood the mistake, and those who called it have slowly "swept it under the rug." We have shown that the genus R1a appeared about 20 thousand years ago, and in Southern Siberia. And then the parent haplogroup was found on Lake Baikal, dating back 24 thousand years ago.
So the genus R1a is neither Ukrainian nor Russian. It is common to many peoples, but numerically it is most pronounced among the Slavs. After their appearance in Southern Siberia, R1a carriers traveled a long migration route to Europe. But part of them remained in Altai, and now there are many tribes that continue to belong to the R1a genus, but speak Turkic languages.
- So all the same, Russians are a nation separate from the rest of the Slavs? And Ukrainians - is it an "invented" nationality or real?
Slavs and ethnic Russians are just different concepts. Ethnic Russians are those for whom Russian is their native language, who consider themselves Russian, and whose ancestors lived in Russia for at least three or four generations. And the Slavs are those who speak the languages of the Slavic group, these are Poles, and Ukrainians, and Belarusians, and Serbs, and Croats, and Czechs with Slovaks, and Bulgarians. They are not Russian.
And Ukrainians in this sense are a separate nation. They have their own country, their own language, citizenship. There are cultural differences.
But as for the people, ethnic group, their genome, then you will not find any differences from Russians. Political borders often divide kindred peoples. And sometimes, in fact, one people.
The Varangians left no traces with us
- There is a generally accepted "Norman" theory, which we all went through at school. She claims that Rus' was founded by the Varangians-Scandinavians. Do Russians have their DNA trace in their blood?
You can name many scientists, starting with Mikhail Lomonosov, who rejected this "Norman" theory. And DNA genealogy completely refuted it. I examined thousands of DNA samples from all over Russia and from Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and nowhere did I find any noticeable presence of Scandinavians. Of the thousands of samples, only four people were found, among whose ancestors there was a Scandinavian by DNA.
And where did these Scandinavians go then? After all, some scientists write that their number in Rus' was tens, or even hundreds of thousands. When you report these data to the supporters of the "Norman" theory, they, speaking in Russian, "pretend to be rags." Or they simply declare that "the data of DNA genealogy cannot be trusted." The "Norman" theory is a concept more from ideology than from science.
- And where did this version about the Varangians, the founders of Rus', come from?
The Russian Academy of Sciences was originally created by German scientists. And in their historical theories there was practically no place for the Slavs. Lomonosov fought with them, wrote to Empress Catherine II, pointed out that the German Miller wrote such a Russian history, where there was not a single good word about Rus', and all the exploits were attributed to the Scandinavians. But in the end, this theory of "Normanism" still entered the flesh and blood of Russian historical science.
The reason is simple - the "Westernization" of many historians, and the fear that they will be considered "nationalists" if they honestly study the history of the Slavs. And then - goodbye Western grants.
Also, some scientists talk about a certain Finno-Ugric substratum in the Russian people. But DNA genealogy does not find this substrate! However, it is repeated and repeated.
No "White Race"
- There seems to be no doubt that Russian culture is part of European culture. But genetically Russians are European, “white race”? Or, as Blok wrote, “Yes, we are Scythians, yes, we are Asians”? Is there a border between Russians and Europe?
First, there is no "white race". There are Europeans. To use the term "white race" in science is bad manners.
The Scythians possessed the haplogroup R1a, but most are believed to have a Mongoloid appearance. So Blok was partly right, only in relation to the Scythians, but his “we” is a poetic fantasy. It is difficult to define the boundaries of races, especially in the modern world, where there is an active mixture of peoples. But the Slavs from other Europeans are easier to separate. Notice, not only Russians, but Slavs in general.
There is a fairly clear boundary between the predominance of the R1a and R1b haplogroups - from the former Yugoslavia to the Baltic. To the West, R1b predominates, and to the east, R1a. This border is not symbolic, but quite real. So, Ancient Rome, which reached Iran in the south, could not overcome it in the north.
For example, recently north of Berlin, on the territory of the early Slavic Lusatian archaeological culture, where almost all settlements still have Slavic names, they found evidence of a grandiose battle that took place 3200 years ago. According to various sources, thousands of people participated in it.
The world press has already dubbed it "The First World War of Civilization", but no one knows who those warriors were. And DNA genealogy on migration routes shows that this, apparently, was the battle of the early Slavs of the R1a haplogroup against the carriers of the R1b haplogroup, which is now worn by 60% of men in Central and Western Europe. That is, the ancient Slavs defended their territories 3200 years ago.
- Can genetics look forward as well as backward? What is your forecast for the gene pool of Europe, the gene pool of Russians in the next 100 years?
As for Europe, we can conclude that its gene pool will change under the pressure of migrants. But no one will publish an article about this there, it will be considered politically incorrect. For example, the press in the United States did not say a single word about the New Year's events in Cologne, because, according to their concepts, such news incites hatred towards migrants.
In Russia, there is much more freedom in science; in Russia, many issues are freely discussed and the authorities are criticized. In the US, this is almost impossible. I have worked both at Harvard as a professor of biochemistry and at large American biomedical companies, and I know how things are. If some conclusions of science turn out to be contrary to US policy, such things will not be published in the West. Even scientific journals.
As for Russia, don't expect anything dramatic. The Russian gene pool will be preserved, and everything will be fine with it. And if we remember that our history is not black or white, but all - without exception - is ours, then everything will be fine with the country.
Interviewed by Yulia Alyokhina
