# Pomors

Pomors or Pomory (Russian: помо́ры, lit. 'seasiders', Russian pronunciation:) are an ethnographic group thought to be descended from Russian settlers (primarily from Veliky Novgorod) according to traditional Russian historiography, living on the White Sea coasts and the territory whose southern border lies on a watershed which separates the White Sea river basin from the basins of rivers that flow south. Genetically, though, they are more closely related to indigenous Uralic ethnicities of the area and show no affiliations to Novgorod populations.

## History

As early as the 12th century, explorers from Novgorod entered the White Sea through the Northern Dvina, Mezen, Pechora and Onega estuaries and founded settlements along the sea coasts of Bjarmaland. Kholmogory served as their chief town until the rise of Arkhangelsk in the late 16th century. From their base at Kola, they explored the Barents Region and the Kola peninsula and Novaya Zemlya.
Later the Pomors discovered and maintained the Northern Sea Route between Arkhangelsk and Siberia. With their ships (koches), the Pomors penetrated to the trans-Ural areas of Northern Siberia, where they founded the settlement of Mangazeya east of the Yamal Peninsula in the early 16th century. Tatyana Bratkova has reported that some historians speculate that in the early 17th century, Pomors settled the isolated village of Russkoye Ustye in the delta of the Indigirka, in north-eastern Yakutia.
The name of the Pomors derives from the Pomorsky (literally, "maritime") coast of the White Sea (between Onega and Kem), having the root of more (море, meaning "sea"; derived from an Indo-European root). The same root appears in the toponym Pomerania (Polish: Pomorze) and Armorica (Gaulish: Aremorica) and also in the Gaulish ethnonym Morini.
The term Pomor, which in the 10th–12th centuries meant "a person who lived near sea", gradually was extended into one to apply to this population living relatively far away from the sea. Finally in the 15th century, the people became disconnected from the sea. The sea was not a major part of economy of this region. At the same time, people began using the term Pomor'e to refer to a territory of practically the whole European Russian North, including the Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions; and Karelia and Komi republics.
The traditional livelihoods of the Pomor based on the sea included animal hunting, whaling and fishing; in tundra regions they practiced reindeer herding. The Pomor traded by sea in corn and fish with Northern Norway, which became important to both sides. This trade was so intensive that a kind of Russian-Norwegian pidgin language Moja på tvoja (or Russenorsk) developed on the North Norwegian coast that was used from 1750 to 1920.
In the 12–15th centuries, Pomor'e was considered an extensive colony of the state of Veliky Novgorod. By the early 16th century the annexation of Pomor'e by Moscow was completed. In the 17th century, in 22 Pomor'e districts, the great bulk of the population consisted of free peasants. A portion of the land belonged to monasteries and to the Stroganov merchants. There were no landlords in Pomor'e. The population of Pomor'e districts was engaged in fishing, mica and salt production (Sol'-Kamskay, Sol'- Vychegodskay, Tot'ma, etc.) and other enterprises.
The Russian Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, in its 1890–1907 edition, classified Pomors as Great Russians or referred to them as Russian traders and trappers of the North. To date, no encyclopedia or encyclopedic dictionary refers to the Pomor as a separate ethnic group.
In the 2002 census, respondents had the option to identify as "Pomors", this group being tabulated by the census as a subgroup of the Russian ethnicity. However, only 6,571 persons did so, almost all of them in Arkhangelsk Oblast (6,295) and Murmansk Oblast (127).

## Religion & society

Pomors are mostly Orthodox Christians in faith. Prior to the Revolution of 1917 a large percentage of Russians from Pomorje (or Pomors) were practicing Old Believers, the Pomorian Church still has around 400 thousand members. Pomor Christianity has traditionally coexisted and been infused with an animism, which is based on sacral geography, in a syncretic manner, resulting in a strong environmental ethic. This led to the classification of certain animals like the beluga whale as holy and resistance to modern fishing techniques in the 20th century.

### Pomor worldview

As part of the broader category of "cold societies" that are based around the concept of eternal return like the neighboring Sami, Nenets or Komi the Pomor worldview reflects a complex interaction between ancient piety, shamanism, and ritualistic practices aimed at maintaining homeostasis within their communities. This homeostasis however, is an active and fluid concept called dynamic constancy and does not represent absolute standstill. The Pomors believed that preserving the static structure of their society was essential for survival in the environment of Pomorye, where the poet-storyteller (starinshchik) as a keeper of "deified memory" played a key role in maintaining this balance through mythopoetic expression.
The passage from winter to summer was culturally connected to rebirth and rituals like making a sacrificial vow to the "sea god" Nikola Morsky and celebrating the farewell to sea like a funeral played a key role in the light of these philosophical elements. During the main holiday, the conjunction of Old and New Year, the demiurge defeats the bearer of chaos and death each year anew, emphasizing the concept of cyclical time and eternal return. The total sacrifice and descend into chaos which leads to the poiesis of a new world is all-encompassing and does not only apply to people, but also gods and beasts.
These spiritual beliefs also played a large role in daily life, as it is a part of the "Pomor fate" to actively engage in this battle, which is not only shaped by actions but also the words of the shaman or starinshchik, the person who has knowledge of the ritual turns of speech and sacred formulas. The winter is considered a dreamtime, which is ended by localized celebrations of symbolic rebirth that greet the sun, which plays a key role in Pomor mythology as it is also represented by the Bird of Happiness in Pomor households.
One of the critical aspects of the Pomor spiritual world was the sacred status of the bathhouse, which was viewed as an archaic sanctuary-temple. The bathhouse played a central role in initiatory and medical rituals that symbolized the "second birth" of a person, just like the festivals connected to the sun. The connection between the bathhouse and the forge is notable, as both were considered marginal spaces associated with transformation and rebirth, drawing from their symbolic links to fire and water. The sacred geography of the Pomors placed the bathhouse on the periphery of the settlement, reinforcing its chthonic associations with both life and death.
The sea, central to Pomor life, held a significant mythopoetic meaning as a threshold between the world of the living and the world of the dead. This view of the sea as a boundary endowed navigation with profound religious significance. The Pomors regarded the northeast wind, or "polunoshnik," as a sacred force, connecting the mundane world to the mystical realms of the North, where contact with the otherworldly was inevitable. The sea, with its destructive and creative powers, was perceived as both a source of chaos and a pathway to salvation, reflecting the dual nature of the northern lands adjacent to the Polar Mountain, which were simultaneously regions of heaven and hell.
As the last two elements show, the combination of destruction and creation, life and death, or even the sacred and the mundane at the same time instead of a clear cut separation of dual forces like good and evil, is pivotal to Pomor philosophy, reminiscent of concepts like Yin and Yang. This highlights the importance of liminal spaces and thresholds. Even the sacred always has a dark side which is in this case represented by the "guardians of the threshold" while the "axis of the world" or "northern mountain" which was believed to exist behind the sea was recognized as a paradise. However, it is not possible to enter the realm of the sacred without experiencing its ambivalence and dark aspects, represented by the guardians. Elements like the "wind rose", which helped Pomor sailors navigate, were also considered to be sacred knowledge.
The concept of islands also held a sacred significance in Pomor rituals, particularly in burial and memorial practices. Islands were seen as chthonic spaces that connected the living with the ancestors, ensuring the stability of the ethnic group’s sacred traditions. In Pomor belief, these island-topos served as symbolic models of the universe, where the three co-temporal and co-spatial domains of the dead, the living, and the descendants intersected, creating a space where the past, present, and future were fused into a single continuum. Ritual remembrance, particularly through the act of memorial rites conducted on these islands, reinforced the eternal memory of the ancestors and the sacred geometry of the cosmos, thereby preserving the cultural identity of the Pomors.
These traditions live on in modern Pomor society where a syncretic belief is widespread next to a number of (new) religious movements, that are based on traditional Pomor worldviews, which emerged after the fall of the atheist Soviet Union. Modern Pomor people have a free, fluid and diverse conception of religion and may celebrate traditional holidays like the Pomor New Year in September or the Roe Deer Festival, partake in Orthodox pilgrimages or meditate in places of power where they may also leave ribbons and coins. These traditions are however often combined into a single syncretic worldview with a topographical basis that includes local locus cults and hierotopic practices without clear boundaries between the sacred and the profane. Affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church is low.

### Gender identity

In Pomorye traditionally exists the social role of "raspetushya", persons of indeterminate sex, who can be either born intersex or a biological male with appearance, behavior, lifestyle and occupations that are closer to a woman. According to society, these people did not have a certain gender and therefore had to wander around the villages. However, they were also seen as people with magical knowledge and secret skills like healing. While never being able to be a full part of society outside of intermediate positions, they were able to have social contacts and could for example sing together with the women. Nowadays, the LGBT community of the region embraces the identity instead of the term "third gender" which is seen as a Western or European construct.

### Pomor fairy tales

The culture of neighboring peoples had a significant influence on the fairy tale (bylina) tradition of Pomorye. The most popular ones here are long fairy tales about adventures, in which the action is often connected with the sea. Usually the main character of such tales is a poor man. Fairy tales with a female protagonist are no less common. They share all the trials equally with the men or turn out to be his wonderful assistant. Though, in a number of tales, girls are also innocent victims of a treacherous enemy.

## Current situation

Nowadays the Pomors are a minority in Arkhangelsk Oblast where most people are descendants of non-native Russians but there is still a thriving cultural scene with international outreach. However, the Pomor villages are not protected by the state which has taken the right to fish and hunt animals away from the Pomors, banned the traditional Pomor trade of Greenland seals and expropriates their lands to then auction them to foreign investors, turning traditional houses to firewood and banning the people from entering their ancestral grounds. Russian laws target the indigenous population and even if promised the Pomors do not receive any compensation. This has led to the depopulation of vast areas that are now used for military purposes. By 2012, 50% of all Pomor villages had been destroyed, dubbed a genocide by P. Esipov, the first leader of the Pomor national-cultural autonomy as registered by the Russian Ministry of Justice. Many Pomor villages are only reachable by helicopter and have lacking infrastructure, large parts of Pomorye are now used as garbage dumps. This led to the 2018–2020 Shies protests under the motto “Pomorye is not a trash heap” with more than 30,000 participants that successfully blocked the creation of a landfill at Shiyes station and led to the resignation of Governor of Arkhangelsk Oblast Igor Orlov and Komi Republic Governor Sergei Gaplikov. The movement was influenced by Pomor separatists that seek an independent Pomorye or Biarmia One of the three universities of Arkhangelsk was named the Pomor State University (now merged into Northern (Arctic) Federal University). In line with the current Russian trend towards amalgamating the least populated federal subjects into larger entities, a merger of Arkhangelsk and Murmansk Oblasts, the Komi Republic, and the Nenets Autonomous Okrug has been proposed, one of the possible names of this new territory being the Pomor Krai.

## Notable Pomors

* Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765), polymath, born near Kholmogory
* Fedot Shubin (1740–1805), sculptor, born near Kholmogory
* Valery Leontiev, pop singer (father Pomor, mother Ukrainian)