Tatars

The Tatars of Finland are a Turkic people who espouse the Islamic faith. They number about 900 and form a homogeneous religious, cultural and linguistic minority. During the early years of Finland’s status as an autonomous Grand Duchy under the Russian Tsars, Tatars were already being employed by the Russians on the construction of the Bomarsund fortress in Åland and the Suomenlinna/Sveaborg island fortress off Helsinki. Most of them returned to Russia. For the ones who did not, only an Islamic cemetery in Bomarsund bears witness to their presence ien Finland. The ancestors of the present-day Tatars came to Finland from a group of some 20 villages in the Sergatch region on the Volga River, south-east of Nizhni-Novgorod (Gorki) from the 1870s to the mid 1920s. They were merchants trading in furs and textiles who settled initially in Helsinki and its surrounding area. In 1925, the first Islamic congregation. Tatars from Viipuri, situated in a part of Finland ceded to the Soviet Union, resettled in Tampere and Helsinki following the loss of their home city after World War II. The second congregation of Tatars was established in Tampere in 1943. Smaller groups of Tatars live in the towns of Kotka, Turku, Rauma, Pori, Järvenpää, Lappeenranta and Kuopio. There are Tatar Islamic cemeteries in Helsinki and Turku.

The Tatars are fully integrated into Finnish society, but they have nevertheless maintained a genuine distinct identity. They have managed to keep their Turkic Tatar language alive by using it in family and private circles and also in their organisations. Since 1935 the Tatar Cultural Society (Finlandiya Türkleri Birligi) has organised cultural events in Tatar, with plays, folk music, folk dancing and poetry recitals. There are no Tatar primary or secondary schools left in Finland but during autumn and spring terms the Islamic Congregation provides teaching in Tatar for one hour a week in the afternoon or evening, in language and culture, religion and history. A Tatar kindergarten has existed since the 1950s.

Newly immigrated Tatars will be accepted as members of the Tatar community provided they master the Tatar language (Virtual Finland, 2001, electronic).