Spatial Features of Development of the Contact Zone between Slavic and Finno-Ugric Peoples in the North-West of European Russia

The problem of decline in the number of Finno-Ugric peoples in Russia is discussed in many works by Russian researchers. The factors contributing to the decline in the Finno-Ugric population in the country include natural decline and migration from the main areas of settlement, which leads to accelerated assimilation processes (change of ethnic identity in favor of Russians). The aim of the article is to identify the features of the dynamics of the territorial structure of the contact zone between the Slavic and Finno-Ugric peoples in the north-west of European Russia in the period between the 2010 and 2021 population censuses. The novelty of the study is associated with the use of the meta-ethnic contact index to study two-component ethno-contact zones. In the course of the study, this index was used to determine the external boundaries of the contact zone, stretching from the Barents Sea through Karelia to the upper reaches of the Volga, but having two significant gaps. In the territorial structure of the contact zone, cores with high values of the meta-ethnic contact index were identified. In addition, several local contact zones were identified separately: Slavs with Karelians in the Murmansk Oblast, with Vepsians in the Leningrad and Vologda Oblasts, with Estonians and Setos in the Pskov Oblast. In the period between the 2010 and 2021 censuses, there was a decrease in the index, which meant the dissolution of the contact zone, either with an increase in the proportion of Slavs (in Karelia and the area of settlement of the Tver Karelians), or with a simultaneous decrease in the proportion of the Finno-Ugric and Slavic populations (for example, in the Podporozhskiy district of the Leningrad Oblast). Only two municipal districts experienced an increase in contact between Slavic and Finno-Ugric peoples with an increase in the proportion of the Finno-Ugric population: Lovozerskiy in the Murmansk Oblast and Babaevskiy in the Vologda Oblast.