Ainu, white race, indigenous people of the Japanese islands. The Japanese are not the natives of Japan.

In the heat of the ongoing dispute between Russia and Japan for the right to own the Kuril Islands, it is somehow forgotten that the true owners of these lands are the Ainu. Few people know that this mysterious people created one of the most ancient cultures in our world. According to some scholars, the Ainu culture is older than the Egyptian one. The average layman knows that the Ainu are an oppressed minority in Japan. But few people know that there are Ainu in Russia, where they also do not feel comfortable. Who are the Ainu, what kind of people are they? What is their difference from other nations, to whom they are related on this Earth by origin, culture and language.

The oldest population of the Japanese archipelago

Ainu, or Ainu, literally means "man". The names of many other peoples, such as, for example, "Nanai", "Mansi", "Hun", "Nivkh", "Turk" also mean "man", "people", "people". The Ainu are the oldest population of the Japanese islands of Hokkaido and a number of nearby islands. Once they also lived on the lands that now belong to Russia: in the lower reaches of the Amur, i.e. on the mainland, in the south of Kamchatka, on Sakhalin and the Kuriles. At present, the Ainu have remained mainly only in Japan, where, according to official statistics, there are about 25,000 people, and according to unofficial data, more than 200,000. There they are mainly engaged in the tourism business, serving and entertaining tourists who are thirsty for the exotic. In Russia, according to the results of the 2010 census, only 109 Ainu were recorded, of which 94 Ainu were in the Kamchatka Territory.

Origin mysteries

Europeans who encountered the Ainu in the 17th century were surprised by their appearance. Unlike Asian Mongoloids, i.e. with a Mongolian fold of the eyelid, sparse facial hair, the Ainu were very "hairy and shaggy", had thick black hair, large beards, high but wide noses. Their Australoid facial features were similar to European ones in a number of ways. Despite living in a temperate climate, the Ainu wore loincloths in the summer like equatorial southerners. The existing hypotheses of scientists about the origin of the Ainu as a whole can be combined into three groups.

Ainu are related to the Indo-Europeans / Caucasian race- J. Bachelor, S. Murayama and others adhered to this theory. But recent DNA studies have decisively removed this concept from the agenda of scientists. They showed that no genetic similarity with the Indo-Europeans and Caucasian populations was found among the Ainu. Is it a “hairy” resemblance to Armenians: the world maximum hairiness among Armenians and Ain is under 6 points. Compare photos - very similar. The world minimum growth of a beard and mustache, by the way, belongs to the Nivkhs. In addition, the Armenians and the Ainu are brought together by another external similarity: the consonance of the ethnonyms Ai - Ain (Armenians - Ai, Armenia - Hayastan).

Ainu are related to the Austronesians and came to the Japanese islands from the south- this theory was put forward by Soviet ethnography (author L.Ya. Shternberg). But this theory has not been confirmed either, because it is now clearly proven that the culture of the Ainu in Japan is much older than the culture of the Austronesians. Nevertheless, the second part of the hypothesis - about the southern ethnogenesis of the Ainu - survived due to the fact that the latest linguistic, genetic and ethnographic data suggest that the Ainu may well be distant relatives of the Miao-Yao people living in Southeast Asia. East Asia and South China.

The Ainu are related to the Paleo-Asiatic peoples and came to the Japanese islands from the north and / or from Siberia- this point of view is held mainly by Japanese anthropologists. As you know, the theory of the origin of the Japanese themselves is also repelled from the mainland, from the Tungus-Manchurian tribes of the Altai family of Southern Siberia. "Paleo-Asiatic" means "the oldest Asiatic". This term was proposed by the Russian researcher of the peoples of the Far East, academician L. I. Shrenk. In 1883, in the monograph “On the Aliens of the Amur Territory,” Schrenk outlined an interesting hypothesis: once in ancient times, almost all of Asia was inhabited by peoples who differed from representatives of the Mongoloid race (Mongols, Turks, etc.) and spoke their own special languages.

Then the Paleo-Asians were supplanted by the Mongoloid Asians. And only in the Far East and North-East of Asia did the descendants of the Paleo-Asians remain: the Yukaghirs of Kolyma, the Chukchi of Chukotka, the Koryaks and Itelmens of Kamchatka, the Nivkhs at the mouth of the Amur and on Sakhalin, the Ainu in northern Japan and Sakhalin, the Eskimos and Aleuts of the Commander and Aleut and other areas Arctic. The Japanese consider the Ainu mestizo Australoids and Paleoasians.

Ancient inhabitants of Japan

According to the main anthropological features, the Ainu are very different from the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Mongols-Buryats-Kalmyks, Nivkhs-Kamchadals-Itelmens, Polynesians, Indonesians, natives of Australia and, in general, the Far East. It is also known that the Ainu are close only to the people of the Jomon era, who are the direct ancestors of the Ainu. Although it is not known where the Ainu came from to the Japanese Islands, it is proved that in the Jomon era, the Ainu inhabited all the Japanese islands - from Ryukyu to Hokkaido, as well as the southern half of Sakhalin, the southern third of Kamchatka and Kurile Islands.

This was proved by archaeological excavations and the Ainu names of places: Tsushima - "distant", Fuji - the deity of the hearth of the Ainu, Tsukuba (tu ku pa) - "the head of two bows", Yamatai - "the place where the sea cuts the land", Paramushir - "wide island", Urup - salmon, Iturup - jellyfish, Sakhalin (Sakharen) - undulating land in Ainu. It has also been established that the Ainu appeared on the Japanese islands about 13 thousand years BC. and created a very highly developed Neolithic Jomon culture (12-3 thousand years BC). So, Ainu pottery is considered the oldest in the world - 12 thousand years.

Some believe that the legendary Yamatai state of the Chinese chronicles is the ancient Ainu state. But the Ainu are a non-literate people, their culture is the culture of hunters, fishermen and gatherers of the primitive system, who lived dispersed in small settlements at a great distance from each other, who did not know agriculture and cattle breeding, however, they already had onions and ceramics. They practically did not engage in agriculture and nomadic cattle breeding. The Ainu created an amazing system of life: in order to maintain harmony and balance in the natural environment, they regulated the birth rate, preventing population explosions.

Due to this, they never created large villages, and their main units were small settlements (in Ainu - utar / utari - “people living in one place by the same river”). They, gatherers, fishermen and hunters, needed a very large territory to survive, so the small villages of the Neolithic primitive Ainu were far removed from each other. This type of economy in ancient times forced the Ainu to settle scattered.

Ainu as an object of colonization

From the middle of the Jomon era (8-7 thousand years BC), groups from South-East Asia who spoke Austronesian languages. Then they were joined by colonists from southern China, who brought the culture of agriculture, primarily rice - a very productive crop that allows you to live very a large number people in a small area. At the end of Jomon (3 thousand BC), Altaic-speaking pastoralists arrived on the Japanese islands, who gave rise to Korean and Japanese ethnic groups. The established state of Yamato is pressing the Ainu. It is known that both Yamatai and Yamato considered the Ainu as savages, barbarians. The tragic struggle of the Ainu for survival went on for 1500 years. The Ainu were forced to migrate to Sakhalin, Amur, Primorye and the Kuriles.

Ainu - the first samurai

Militarily, the Japanese were inferior to the Ainu for a very long time. Travelers XVII-XIX centuries. noted the amazing modesty, tact and honesty of the Ainu. I.F. Kruzenshtern wrote: “The Ainu people are meek, modest, trusting, polite, respectful of property ... disinterestedness, frankness are their usual qualities. They are truthful and do not tolerate deceit." But this characterization was given to the Ainu when they lost all fighting spirit after only three centuries of Russian colonization. Meanwhile, the Ainu in the past were a very warlike people. For 1.5-2 thousand years they heroically fought for the freedom and independence of their homeland - Ezo (Hokkaido).

Their military detachments were led by leaders, in Peaceful time former heads of villages - "utar". Utar had a paramilitary organization, like the Cossacks. Of the weapons, the Ainu loved swords and bows. In battle, they used both armor-piercing arrows and spiked arrowheads (for better cutting through armor or getting an arrow stuck in the body). There were also tips with a Z-shaped section, apparently adopted from the Manchus / Jurgens. The Japanese adopted from the warlike, and therefore invincible, Ainu the art of combat, the code of honor of the samurai, the cult of the sword, the hara-kiri ritual. The swords of the Ainu were short, 50 cm long, adopted from the Tonzi, also warlike aborigines of Sakhalin, conquered by the Ainu. The Ainu warrior - dzhangin - famously fought with two swords, not recognizing shields. Interestingly, in addition to swords, the Ainu wore two daggers on their right hips ("cheiki-makiri" and "sa-makiri"). The cheiki-makiri was a ritual knife for making sacred shavings "inau" and performing the rite of ritual suicide - hara-kiri. The Japanese, having only adopted from the Ainu many techniques of war and the spirit of a warrior, finally inventing cannons, turned the tide and established their dominance.

The fact that Japanese domination in Ezo (Hokkaido), despite the injustice of any colonial administration, was still not as wild and cruel as on the northern islands subject to Russia, is noted by almost all researchers, including Russians, pointing to waves of flight Ainu from Sakhalin, the Kuriles and other lands of Russia to Japan, to Hokkaido-Ezo.

Ainu in Russia

Ainu migrations to these territories began, according to some sources, in the 13th century. How they lived before the arrival of the Russians is a practically unexplored question. The Russian colonization of the Ainu was no different from the Siberian conquest: pogrom, subjugation, taxation with yasak. The abuses were also of the same type: the repeated imposition and knocking out of yasak by new detachments of Cossacks, and so on. The Ainu, a proud people, flatly refused to pay yasak and accept Russian citizenship. By the end of the XVIII century. the fierce resistance of the Ainu was broken.

Doctor Dobrotvorsky wrote that in the middle of the XIX century. in South Sakhalin, near Busse Bay, there were 8 large Ainu settlements, with 200 people in each at least. In 25 years there was not a single village. Such an outcome was not uncommon in the Russian area of the Ainu villages. Dobrotvorsky saw the reasons for the disappearance in devastating wars, an insignificant birth rate “due to the infertility of the Ainok” and in diseases: syphilis, scurvy, smallpox, which “mowed down” precisely small peoples. Under Soviet rule, the Ainu were subjected to political persecution - before and after the war, they were declared "Japanese spies." The most "smart" Ainu corresponded in the Nivkhs. Nevertheless, they were caught, moved to Komandory and other places where they assimilated, for example, with the Aleuts and other peoples.

“At present, the Aino, usually without a hat, barefoot and in ports tucked up above the knees, meeting you along the way, curtsies to you and at the same time looks affectionately, but sadly and painfully, like a loser, and as if he wants to apologize that the beard he has grown big, but he still has not made a career for himself, ”the humanist A.P. wrote with great bitterness. Chekhov in his Sakhalin Island. Now there are 109 Ainu people left in Russia. Of these, there are practically no purebreds. Chekhov, Kruzenshtern, and the Polish exile Bronislaw Pilsudsky, a volunteer ethnographer and patriot of the Ainu and other small peoples of the region, are a small handful of those who raised their voice in defense of this people in Russia.

Ainu in Japan

In Japan, according to unofficial data, 200,000 Ainu. On June 6, 2008, the Japanese Parliament recognized the Ainu as a separate national minority. Now various events are being held here, state assistance is being provided to these people. The life of the Ainu in material terms is practically no different from the life of the Japanese. But the original culture of the Ainu practically serves only tourism and, one might say, acts as a kind of ethnic theater. The Japanese and the Ainu themselves exploit ethno-exotics for the needs of tourists. Do they have a future if there is no language, ancient, guttural, but native, millennial, and if the spirit is lost? Once warlike and proud. A single language as the code of the nation, and the proud spirit of self-sufficient fellow tribesmen - these are the two fundamental bases of the nation-people, two wings that lift into flight.

There is one ancient people on earth that has been simply ignored for centuries, and more than once was subjected to persecution and genocide in Japan due to the fact that by its existence it simply breaks the established official false history of both Japan and Russia.

Now, there is reason to believe that not only in Japan, but also on the territory of Russia, there is a part of this ancient indigenous people. According to the preliminary data of the latest population census, held in October 2010, there are more than 100 Ainu people in our country. The fact itself is unusual, because until recently it was believed that the Ainu live only in Japan. This was suspected, but on the eve of the population census, employees of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences noticed that, despite the absence of Russian peoples in the official list, some of our fellow citizens stubbornly continue to consider themselves Ainami and have good reasons for this.

As studies have shown, the Ainu, or Kamchadal smokers, did not disappear anywhere, they simply did not want to be recognized for many years. But even Stepan Krasheninnikov, an explorer of Siberia and Kamchatka (XVIII century), described them as Kamchadal smokers. The very name "Ainu" comes from their word for "man", or "worthy man", and is associated with military operations. And according to one of the representatives of this nationality in an interview with the well-known journalist M. Dolgikh, the Ainu fought the Japanese for 650 years. It turns out that this is the only people left to this day, who from ancient times held back the occupation, resisted the aggressor - now the Japanese, who were, in fact, Koreans with perhaps a certain percentage of the Chinese population who moved to the islands and formed another state.

It has been scientifically established that already about 7 thousand years ago the Ainu inhabited the north of the Japanese archipelago, the Kuriles and part of Sakhalin and, according to some sources, part of Kamchatka and even the lower reaches of the Amur. The Japanese who came from the south gradually assimilated and forced out the Ainu to the north of the archipelago - to Hokkaido and the southern Kuriles.

Hokaido now hosts the largest concentrations of Ainu families.

According to experts, in Japan, the Ainu were considered "barbarians", "savages" and social marginals. The hieroglyph used to denote the Ainu means "barbarian", "savage", now the Japanese also call them "hairy Ainu" for which the Ainu do not like the Japanese.
And here the policy of the Japanese against the Ainu is very well traced, since the Ainu lived on the islands even before the Japanese and had a culture many times, or even orders of magnitude higher than that of the ancient Mongoloid settlers.

But the topic of the Ainu's dislike for the Japanese probably exists not only because of the ridiculous nicknames addressed to them, but also probably because the Ainu, let me remind you, have been subjected to genocide and persecution by the Japanese for centuries.

IN late XIX V. about one and a half thousand Ainu lived in Russia. After the Second World War, they were partly evicted, partly left on their own along with the Japanese population, others remained, returning, so to speak, from their hard and protracted service for centuries. This part mixed with the Russian population of the Far East.

In appearance, representatives of the Ainu people very little resemble their closest neighbors - the Japanese, Nivkhs and Itelmens.
Ainu is the White Race.

According to the Kamchadal Kurils themselves, all the names of the islands of the southern ridge were given by the Ainu tribes who once inhabited these territories. By the way, it is wrong to think that the names of the Kuriles, Kuril Lake, etc. arose from hot springs or volcanic activity. It’s just that the Kurils, or Kurilians, live here, and “kuru” in Ainu means the People.

It should be noted that this version destroys the already flimsy basis of the Japanese claims to our Kuril Islands. Even if the name of the ridge comes from our Ainu. This was confirmed during the expedition to about. Matua. There is an Ainu bay, where the oldest Ainu site was discovered.

Therefore, according to experts, it is very strange to say that the Ainu have never been in the Kuriles, Sakhalin, Kamchatka, as the Japanese are doing now, assuring everyone that the Ainu live only in Japan (after all, archeology says otherwise), so they, the Japanese, allegedly need to give the Kuril Islands. This is pure untruth. In Russia there are Ainu - the indigenous White People, who have a direct right to consider these islands their ancestral lands.

American anthropologist S. Lauryn Brace, from the University of Michigan, in the journal Horizons of Science, No. 65, September-October 1989, writes: “a typical Ainu is easy to distinguish from the Japanese: he has lighter skin, thicker body hair, beard , which is unusual for the Mongoloids, and a more protruding nose.

Brace studied about 1,100 Japanese, Ainu, and other tombs and concluded that the upper class samurai in Japan were actually descendants of the Ainu, and not the Yayoi (Mongoloids), the ancestors of most modern Japanese.

The history of the Ainu estates resembles the history of the higher castes in India, where the highest percentage of the White man haplogroup R1a1

Brace further writes: “... this explains why the facial features of the representatives of the ruling class are so often different from modern Japanese. The real Samurai, the descendants of the Ainu warriors, gained such influence and prestige in medieval Japan that they intermarried with the rest of the ruling circles and introduced Ainu blood into them, while the rest of the Japanese population was mainly descendants of the Yayoi.

It should also be noted that, in addition to archaeological and other features, the language was partially preserved. There is a dictionary of the Kuril language in the "Description of the Land of Kamchatka" by S. Krasheninnikov. In Hokkaido, the dialect spoken by the Ainu is called saroo, but in SAKHALIN it is reychishka.
As it is not difficult to understand, the Ainu language differs from the Japanese language in terms of syntax, phonology, morphology and vocabulary, etc. Although there have been attempts to prove that they are related, the vast majority of modern scholars reject the suggestion that the relationship between languages goes beyond contact relationships, involving mutual borrowing of words in both languages. In fact, no attempt to tie the Ainu language to any other language has been widely accepted.

In principle, according to the well-known Russian political scientist and journalist P. Alekseev, the problem of the Kuril Islands can be solved politically and economically. To do this, it is necessary to allow the Ainam (partially evicted to Japan in 1945) to return from Japan to the land of their ancestors (including their original habitat - the Amur Region, Kamchatka, Sakhalin and all the Kuriles, creating at least following the example of the Japanese (it is known that the Parliament of Japan only in 2008 did he still recognize the Ainu as an independent national minority), the Russian dispersed autonomy of an “independent national minority” with the participation of the Ainu from the islands and the Ainu of Russia.

We have neither people nor funds for the development of Sakhalin and the Kuriles, but the Ainu have. The Ainu who migrated from Japan, according to experts, can give impetus to the economy of the Russian Far East, namely by forming not only in the Kuril Islands, but also within Russia, national autonomy and reviving their family and traditions in the land of their ancestors.

Japan, according to P. Alekseev, will be out of work, because. the displaced Ainu will disappear there, and here they can settle not only in the southern part of the Kuriles, but throughout their original range, our Far East, eliminating the emphasis on the southern Kuriles. Since many of the Ainu deported to Japan were our citizens, it is possible to use the Ainu as allies against the Japanese by restoring the dying Ainu language.

The Ainu were not allies of Japan and never will be, but they can become allies of Russia. But unfortunately this ancient People is ignored to this day.

According to the leading researcher of the Institute Russian history RAS, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Academician K. Cherevko, Japan exploited these islands. In their law there is such a thing as "development through trade exchange." And all the Ainu - both conquered and unconquered - were considered Japanese, were subject to their emperor. But it is known that even before that, the Ainu gave taxes to Russia. True, it was irregular.

Thus, it is safe to say that the Kuril Islands belong to the Ainu, but, one way or another, Russia must proceed from international law. According to him, i.e. Under the San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japan renounced the islands. There are simply no legal grounds for revising the documents signed in 1951 and other agreements today. But such matters are resolved only in the interests of big politics, and I repeat that only its Fraternal people, that is, We, can help this people from the outside.

Twenty years ago, the magazine "Vokrug Sveta" published an interesting article "Arrived from heaven, "Real people"". Here is a small snippet from this most interesting material:

“... The conquest of huge Honshu progressed slowly. As early as the beginning of the 8th century AD, the Ainu held their entire northern part. Military happiness passed from hand to hand. And then the Japanese began to bribe the Ainu leaders, reward them with court titles, relocate entire Ainu villages from the occupied territories to the south, and create their own settlements in the vacant place. Moreover, seeing that the army was unable to hold the occupied lands, the Japanese rulers decided on a very risky step: they armed the settlers leaving for the north. This was the beginning of the service nobility of Japan - the samurai, who turned the tide of the war and had a huge impact on the history of their country. However, the 18th century still finds in the north of Honshu small villages of incompletely assimilated Ainu. Most of the indigenous islanders partly died, and partly managed to cross the Sangar Strait even earlier to their fellow tribesmen in Hokkaido, the second largest, northernmost and most sparsely populated island of modern Japan.

Until the end of the 18th century, Hokkaido (at that time it was called Ezo, or Ezo, that is, “wild”, “land of barbarians”) was not very interested in the Japanese rulers. Written at the beginning of the 18th century, the Dainniponshi (History of Great Japan), consisting of 397 volumes, mentions Ezo in the section on foreign countries. Although already in the middle of the 15th century, the daimyo (large feudal lord) Takeda Nobuhiro decided at his own peril and risk to press the Ainu of southern Hokkaido and built the first permanent Japanese settlement there. Since then, foreigners have sometimes called Ezo Island otherwise: Matmai (Mats-mai), after the name of the Matsumae clan founded by Nobuhiro.

New lands had to be taken with a fight. The Ainu offered stubborn resistance. People's memory has preserved the names of the most courageous defenders of their native land. One such hero is Shakushayin, who led the Ainu uprising in August 1669. The old leader led several Ainu tribes. In one night, 30 merchant ships arriving from Honshu were captured, then the fortress on the Kun-nui-gawa river fell. Supporters of the House of Matsumae barely had time to hide in the fortified town. A little more and...

But the reinforcements sent to the besieged arrived in time. The former owners of the island retreated behind Kun-nui-gawa. The decisive battle began at 6 o'clock in the morning. Japanese warriors clad in armor looked with a grin at the attacking crowd of hunters untrained in the regular formation. Once upon a time, these screaming bearded men in armor and hats made of wooden plates were a formidable force. And now who will be afraid of the glitter of the tips of their spears? The cannons answered the arrows falling at the end...

(Here I immediately recall the American film "The Last Samurai" with Tom Cruise in the title role. Hollywood obviously knew the truth - the last samurai was really a white man, but distorted it, turning everything upside down, so that people would never recognize her. The last the samurai was not a European, did not come from Europe, but was a native of Japan.His ancestors lived on the islands for thousands of years! ..)

The surviving Ainu fled to the mountains. The fights continued for another month. Deciding to hurry things up, the Japanese lured Syakusyain, along with other Ainu commanders, into negotiations and killed him. The resistance was broken. From free people who lived according to their customs and laws, all of them, young and old, turned into forced laborers of the Matsumae clan. The relations established at that time between the winners and the vanquished are described in the diary of the traveler Yokoi:

“... The translators and overseers did many bad and vile deeds: they mistreated the elderly and children, raped women. If the Ezos began to complain about such atrocities, then in addition they received punishment ... "

Therefore, many Ainu fled to their fellow tribesmen on Sakhalin, the southern and northern Kuriles. There they felt relatively safe - after all, there were no Japanese here yet. We find indirect confirmation of this in the first description of the Kuril ridge known to historians. The author of this document is the Cossack Ivan Kozyrevsky. He visited in 1711 and 1713 in the north of the ridge and asked its inhabitants about the entire chain of islands, up to Matmai (Hokkaido). The Russians first landed on this island in 1739. The Ainu who lived there told the expedition leader Martyn Shpanberg that on the Kuril Islands "... there are many people, and those islands are not subject to anyone."

In 1777, the Irkutsk merchant Dmitry Shebalin was able to bring 1,500 Ainu into Russian citizenship in Iturup, Kunashir, and even in Hokkaido. The Ainu received from the Russians durable fishing gear, iron, cows, and eventually rent for the right to hunt near their shores.

Despite the arbitrariness of some merchants and Cossacks, the Ainu (including the Ezos) sought protection from the Japanese from Russia. Perhaps the bearded, big-eyed Ainu saw in the people who came to them natural allies, so sharply different from the Mongoloid tribes and peoples living around. After all, the outward resemblance of our explorers and the Ainu was simply amazing. It fooled even the Japanese. In their first reports, Russians are referred to as “red-haired Ainu” ... "

"The Ainu people are meek, modest, good-natured, trusting, polite,
sociable, respecting property, on the hunt - bold.
Belief in friendship and generosity, disinterestedness, frankness are their usual qualities.
They are truthful and do not tolerate deceit."
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov.

"I consider the Ainu the best of all the peoples that I know"
Russian navigator Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenshtern

Hokaido and all the Northern Islands belong to the Ainu, as the navigator Kolobov, the first Russian to visit there, wrote in 1646.

The indigenous people of Japan were the Ainu, who appeared on the islands about 13 thousand years ago.

In the IV-I centuries BC. migrants began to invade the lands of the Ainu - tribes that poured at that time from the Korean Peninsula to the east, which were later destined to become the basis of the Japanese nation.

For many centuries, the Ainu fiercely resisted the onslaught and, at times, very successfully. Approximately in the 7th century. AD for several centuries a boundary was established between the two peoples. There were not only military battles on this border line. There was trade, there was an intensive cultural exchange. It happened that the noble Ainu influenced the policy of the Japanese feudal lords ...

The culture of the Japanese was significantly enriched due to its northern enemy. The traditional religion of the Japanese - Shintoism - reveals obvious Ainu roots; of Ainu origin, the ritual of hara-kiri and the complex of military prowess "Bushido". Representatives of the privileged class of samurai in Japan are actually descendants of the Ainu (and everywhere we are shown samurai of an exclusively Mongoloid type.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the swastika was most widely used in Japanese heraldry. Her image is the monom (coat of arms) of many samurai clans - Tsugaru, Hachisuka, Hasekura and others.

However, the Ainu suffered a terrible fate. Beginning in the 17th century, they were subjected to ruthless genocide and forced assimilation, and soon became a national minority in Japan. There are currently only 30,000 Ainu in the world.

“... The conquest of huge Honshu progressed slowly. Even at the beginning of the 8th century AD, the Ainu held the entire northern part of it. Military happiness passed from hand to hand. And then the Japanese began to bribe the Ainu leaders, reward them with court titles, relocate entire Ainu villages from the occupied territories to the south, and create their own settlements in the vacant place. Moreover, seeing that the army was unable to hold the occupied lands, the Japanese rulers decided on a very risky step: they armed the settlers leaving for the north. This was the beginning of the service nobility of Japan - the samurai, who turned the tide of the war and had a huge impact on the history of their country. However, the 18th century still finds in the north of Honshu small villages of incompletely assimilated Ainu. Most of the indigenous islanders partly died, and partly managed to cross the Sangar Strait even earlier to their fellow tribesmen in Hokkaido - the second largest, northernmost and most sparsely populated island of modern Japan.

Until the end of the 18th century, Hokkaido (at that time it was called Ezo, or Ezo, that is, "wild", "land of barbarians") was not very interested in the Japanese rulers. Written at the beginning of the 18th century, "Dinniponshi" ("History of Great Japan"), consisting of 397 volumes, mentions Ezo in the section on foreign countries. Although already in the middle of the 15th century, the daimyo (large feudal lord) Takeda Nobuhiro decided at his own peril and risk to press the Ainu of southern Hokkaido and built the first permanent Japanese settlement there. Since then, foreigners have sometimes called Ezo Island otherwise: Matmai (Mats-mai), after the name of the Matsumae clan founded by Nobuhiro.

"... Translators and overseers did many bad and vile deeds: they mistreated the elderly and children, raped women.

In 1777, the Irkutsk merchant Dmitry Shebalin was able to bring 1,500 Ainu into Russian citizenship in Iturup, Kunashir, and even in Hokkaido. The Ainu received from the Russians strong fishing gear, iron, cows, and eventually rent for the right to hunt near their shores.

On April 30, 1779, Catherine II issued a decree “On the non-collection of any taxes from the Ainu who were brought under citizenship”, which stated: “Do not demand any collection from them, and henceforth do not force the peoples living there to do so, but try to be friendly and affectionate for expected benefit in crafts and trade to continue the acquaintance already established with them.

In 1785, the Japanese reached the northern islands of the Ainu and began to exterminate them. Residents were forbidden to trade with Russians and crosses and other signs indicating that the islands belonged to Russia were destroyed.

Here the Ainu were actually in the position of slaves. In the Japanese system of "correction of morals", the complete lack of rights of the Ainu was combined with the constant humiliation of their ethnic dignity. The petty, absurd regulation of life was aimed at paralyzing the will of the Ainu. Many young Ainu were removed from their traditional environment and sent by the Japanese to various jobs, for example, Ainu from central regions Hokkaido were sent to work in the maritime industries of Kunashir and Iturup (which were also colonized by the Japanese at that time), where they lived in conditions of unnatural crowding, unable to maintain a traditional way of life.

Ainam staged a real genocide. All this led to new armed uprisings: an uprising in Kunashir in 1789. The course of events was as follows: the Japanese industrialist Hidaya is trying to open his trading posts in the then independent Ainu Kunashir, the leader of Kunashir - Tukinoe does not allow him to do this, seizes all the goods brought by the Japanese, and sends the Japanese back to Matsumae, in response to this, the Japanese announce economic sanctions against Kunashir, and after 8 years of blockade Tukinoe allows Hidai to open several trading posts on the island, the population immediately falls into bondage to the Japanese, after some time the Ainu, led by Tukinoe and Ikitoi, raise the uprising against the Japanese and very quickly gain the upper hand, but several Japanese escape, get to the capital of Matsumae and the Matsumae clan sends troops to suppress the rebellion.

In 1807, a Russian expedition moved to Iturup. "Duty called on us," wrote Captain Khvostov, "to free the islanders [Ainu] from the tyranny of the Japanese." The Japanese garrison on Iturup, seeing the Russian ships, fled inland. Ainam was announced "the expulsion of the Japanese, since Iturup belongs to Russia."

In 1845, Japan unilaterally declared sovereignty over all of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. This caused a negative reaction from Nicholas I. However, the Crimean War that began in 1853 forced Russian empire go towards Japan.

On February 7, 1855, Japan and Russia signed the first Russian-Japanese treaty, the Shimoda Treaty on Trade and Borders. The document established the border of countries between the islands of Iturup and Urup.

The Kuril Ainu gravitated towards the Russians more than towards the Japanese: many of them spoke Russian and were Orthodox. The reason for this state of affairs was that the Russian colonial order, despite the many abuses of the yasak collectors and the armed conflicts provoked by the Cossacks, was much softer than the Japanese. The Ainu did not break out of their traditional environment, they were not forced to radically change their way of life, they were not reduced to the position of slaves. They lived in the same place where they lived before the arrival of the Russians and were engaged in the same occupations.

However, the North Kuril Ainu did not dare to part with their homeland and go to the Russians. And then they suffered the most difficult fate: the Japanese transported all the North Kuril Ainu to the island of Shikotan, took away all their fishing gear and boats, forbade them to go to sea without permission; instead, the Ainu were involved in various jobs, for which they received rice, vegetables, some fish and sake, which absolutely did not correspond to the traditional diet of the North Kuril Ainu, which consisted of the meat of marine animals and fish. In addition, the Kuril Ainu found themselves on Shikotan in conditions of unnatural crowding, while a characteristic ethno-ecological feature of the Kuril Ainu was settlement in small groups, and many islands remained completely uninhabited and were used by the Ainu as hunting grounds of a sparing regime. It should also be taken into account that many Japanese lived on Shikotan.

Very many Ainu died in the first year. The destruction of the traditional way of the Kuril Ainu led to the fact that most of the inhabitants of the reservation passed away. However, the terrible fate of the Kuril Ainu very soon became known to the Japanese and foreign public. The reservation has been cancelled. The surviving handful - no more than 20 people, sick and impoverished - were taken to Hokkaido. In the 70s, there were data on 17 Kuril Ainu, however, how many of them came from Shikotan is unclear.

Initially, the Ainu lived on the islands of Japan (then it was called Ainumoshiri - the land of the Ainu), until they were pushed north by the proto-Japanese. But the original lands of the Ainu on the Japanese islands of Hokkaido and Honshu. The Ainu came to Sakhalin in the XIII-XIV centuries, "finishing" the settlement in the beginning. XIX century.

Traces of their appearance were also found in Kamchatka, in Primorye and the Khabarovsk Territory. Many toponymic names of the Sakhalin region bear Ainu names: Sakhalin (from "SAKHAREN MOSIRI" - "undulating land"); the islands of Kunashir, Simushir, Shikotan, Shiashkotan (the ending words “shir” and “kotan” mean, respectively, “plot of land” and “settlement”). It took the Japanese more than 2,000 years to occupy the entire archipelago up to and including Hokkaido (then called "Ezo") (the earliest evidence of skirmishes with the Ainu dates back to 660 BC). Subsequently, the Ainu practically all degenerated or assimilated with the Japanese and Nivkhs.

At present, there are only a few reservations on the island of Hokkaido, where Ainu families live. The Ainu are perhaps the most mysterious people in the Far East. The first Russian navigators who studied Sakhalin and the Kuriles were surprised to note Caucasian facial features, thick hair and beards unusual for Mongoloids. Russian decrees of 1779, 1786 and 1799 testify that the inhabitants of the southern Kuriles - Ainu since 1768 were Russian subjects (in 1779 they were exempted from paying tribute to the treasury - yasak), and the southern Kuril Islands were considered Russia as its own territory. The fact of the Russian citizenship of the Kuril Ainu and the belonging of Russia to the entire Kuril ridge is also confirmed by the Instruction of the Irkutsk governor A.I. Bril to the chief commander of Kamchatka M.K. c Ainu - inhabitants of the Kuril Islands, including those from the south (including the island of Matmai-Hokkaido), the mentioned tribute-yasaka. Iturup means " the best place", Kunashir - Simushir means "a piece of land - a black island", Shikotan - Shiashkotan (the ending words "shir" and "kotan" mean, respectively, "a piece of land" and "settlement").

With their good nature, honesty and modesty, the Ainu made the best impression on Krusenstern. When they were given gifts for the delivered fish, they took them in their hands, admired them and then returned them. With difficulty, the Ainu succeeded in explaining that this was being given to them as property. In relation to the Ainu, even Catherine the Second prescribed - to be affectionate with the Ainu and not tax them, in order to alleviate the situation of the new Russian sub-South Kuril Ainu. Decree of Catherine II to the Senate on the exemption from taxes of the Ainu - the population of the Kuril Islands, who accepted Russian citizenship in 1779. Yeya I.V. commands the hairy smokers brought into citizenship on the distant islands - the Ainu to be left free and not to require any collection from them, and henceforth the peoples living there should not be forced to do so, but try to continue with friendly treatment and affection for the expected benefit in crafts and trade to continue what has already been established with them acquaintance. The first cartographic description of the Kuril Islands, including their southern part, was made in 1711-1713. according to the results of the expedition of I. Kozyrevsky, who collected information about most of the Kuril Islands, including Iturup, Kunashir and even the "Twenty Second" Kuril Island MATMAI (Matsmai), which later became known as Hokkaido. It was precisely established that the Kuriles were not subject to any foreign state. In the report of I. Kozyrevsky in 1713. it was noted that the South Kuril Ainu "live autocratically and not under citizenship and trade freely." study and economic development, conducted missionary activities, taxed the local population with tribute (yasak). During the 18th century, all the Kuril Islands, including their southern part, became part of Russia. This is also confirmed by the statement made by the head of the Russian embassy N. Rezanov during negotiations with the representative of the Japanese government K. Toyama in 1805 that "to the north of Matsmai (Hokkaido Island) all lands and waters belong to the Russian emperor and that the Japanese did not extend further than their possessions." The Japanese mathematician and astronomer of the 18th century Honda Toshiaki wrote that “... the Ainu look at the Russians as their own fathers,” since “true possessions are won by virtuous deeds. Countries forced to submit to the force of arms remain unsubdued at heart."

By the end of the 80s. In the 18th century, the facts of Russian activity in the Kuriles were accumulated quite enough to, in accordance with the norms of international law of that time, consider the entire archipelago, including its southern islands, to belong to Russia, which was recorded in Russian state documents. First of all, we should name the imperial decrees (recall that at that time the imperial or royal decree had the force of law) of 1779, 1786 and 1799, in which the citizenship of Russia of the South Kuril Ainu (then called "furry smokers") was confirmed, and the islands themselves were declared the possession of Russia. In 1945, the Japanese evicted all the Ainu from occupied Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to Hokkaido, while for some reason they left a labor army from the Koreans brought by the Japanese on Sakhalin and the USSR had to accept them as stateless persons, then the Koreans moved to Central Asia. A little later, ethnographers wondered for a long time - where did people wearing open (southern) type of clothing come from in these harsh lands, and linguists discovered Latin, Slavic, Anglo-Germanic and even Indo-Aryan roots in the Ainu language. The Ainu were ranked among the Indo-Aryans, and among the Australoids and even Caucasians. In a word, there were more and more mysteries, and the answers brought more and more problems. The Ainu population was a socially stratified group (“utar”), headed by the families of leaders by the right of inheritance of power (it should be noted that the Ainu clan went through the female line, although the man was naturally considered the main one in the family). "Utar" was built on the basis of fictitious kinship and had a military organization. The ruling families, who called themselves "utarpa" (head of the utar) or "nishpa" (leader), were a layer of the military elite. Men of “high birth” were destined for military service from birth, high-born women spent their time embroidering and shamanic rituals (“tusu”).

The chief's family had a dwelling inside a fortification ("chasi"), surrounded by an earthen embankment (also called "chasi"), usually under the cover of a mountain or rock protruding above the terrace. The number of mounds often reached five or six, which alternated with ditches. Together with the family of the leader inside the fortification, there were usually servants and slaves (“ushyu”). The Ainu did not have any centralized power. Of the weapons, the Ainu preferred the bow. No wonder they were called "people from whose hair arrows stick out" because they wore quivers (and swords, by the way, too) behind their backs. The bow was made from elm, beech or large euonymus (high shrub, up to 2.5 m high with very strong wood) with whalebone overlays. The bowstring was made from nettle fibers. The plumage of the arrows consisted of three eagle feathers. A few words about combat tips. In combat, both "regular" armor-piercing and spiked tips were used (perhaps to better cut through armor or get an arrow stuck in a wound). There were also tips of an unusual, Z-shaped section, which were most likely borrowed from the Manchus or Jurgens (information has been preserved that in the Middle Ages the Sakhalin Ainu repulsed a large army that came from the mainland). Arrowheads were made of metal (the early ones were made of obsidian and bone) and then smeared with aconite poison "suruku". Aconite root was crushed, soaked and placed in a warm place for fermentation. A stick with poison was applied to the spider's leg, if the leg fell off, the poison was ready. Due to the fact that this poison quickly decomposed, it was also widely used in hunting large animals. The arrow shaft was made of larch.

The swords of the Ainu were short, 45-50 cm long, slightly curved, with one-sided sharpening and a one and a half hand handle. The Ainu warrior - dzhangin - fought with two swords, not recognizing shields. The guards of all swords were removable and were often used as decorations. There is evidence that some guards were specially polished to a mirror finish in order to scare away evil spirits. In addition to swords, the Ainu wore two long knives (“cheiki-makiri” and “sa-makiri”), which were worn on the right thigh. Cheiki-makiri was a ritual knife for making sacred shavings "inau" and performing the rite "re" or "erytokpa" - ritual suicide, which the Japanese later adopted, calling "hara-kiri" or "seppuku" (as, by the way, the cult of the sword, special shelves for sword, spear, bow). Ainu swords were put on public display only during the Bear Festival. An old legend says: A long time ago, after this country was created by God, there lived an old Japanese man and an old Ain man. The Ainu grandfather was ordered to make a sword, and the Japanese grandfather: money (the following explains why the Ainu had a cult of swords, and the Japanese had a thirst for money. The Ainu condemned their neighbors for acquisitiveness). They treated the spears rather coolly, although they exchanged them with the Japanese.

Another detail of the weapons of the Ainu warrior was the combat beaters - small rollers with a handle and a hole at the end, made of hardwood. On the sides of the beaters were supplied with metal, obsidian or stone spikes. The mallets were used both as a flail and as a sling - a leather belt was threaded through the hole. A well-aimed blow from such a mallet killed immediately, at best (for the victim, of course) - forever disfigured. The Ainu did not wear helmets. They had natural long thick hair, which was tangled into a tangle, forming a semblance of a natural helmet. Now let's move on to the armor. Armor of the sarafan type was made from the skin of a bearded seal (“sea hare” - a type of large seal). In appearance, such armor (see photo) may seem bulky, but in fact it practically does not restrict movement, it allows you to bend and squat freely. Thanks to the numerous segments, four layers of skin were obtained, which with equal success reflected the blows of swords and arrows. The red circles on the chest of the armor symbolize the three worlds (upper, middle and lower worlds), as well as shamanic “toli” disks that scare away evil spirits and generally have a magical meaning. Similar circles are also depicted on the back. Such armor is fastened in front with the help of numerous ties. There were also short armor, like sweatshirts with planks or metal plates sewn on them. Very little is currently known about the martial art of the Ainu. It is known that the pra-Japanese adopted almost everything from them. Why not assume that some elements of martial arts were also not adopted?

Only such a duel has survived to this day. Opponents, holding each other by the left hand, struck with clubs (the Ainu specially trained their backs to pass this endurance test). Sometimes these batons were replaced with knives, and sometimes they just fought with their hands, until the opponents were out of breath. Despite the brutality of the duel, no cases of injury were observed. In fact, the Ainu fought not only with the Japanese. Sakhalin, for example, they conquered from the "tonzi" - a short people, really the indigenous population of Sakhalin. From "tonzi" Ainu women adopted the habit of tattooing their lips and the skin around their lips (a kind of half-smile - half-mustache was obtained), as well as the names of some (very good quality) swords - "tontsini". It is curious that the Ainu warriors - the Jangins - were noted as very warlike, they were incapable of lying. The information about signs of ownership of the Ainu is also interesting - they put special signs on arrows, weapons, utensils, passed down from generation to generation, in order, for example, not to confuse whose arrow hit the beast, who owns this or that thing. There are more than one and a half hundred such signs, and their meanings have not yet been deciphered. Rock inscriptions were found near Otaru (Hokkaido) and on the sharp Urup.

It remains to add that the Japanese were afraid of an open battle with the Ainu and won them by cunning. An ancient Japanese song said that one "emishi" (barbarian, ain) is worth a hundred people. There was a belief that they could make fog. Over the years, the Ainu have repeatedly raised an uprising against the Japanese (in Ainu “siskin”), but each time they lost. The Japanese invited the leaders to their place to conclude a truce. Sacredly honoring the customs of hospitality, the Ainu, trusting like children, did not think anything bad. They were killed during the feast. As a rule, the Japanese did not succeed in other ways of suppressing the uprising.

“The Ainu are a meek, modest, good-natured, trusting, sociable, polite, respectful people; brave on the hunt

and... even intelligent.” (A.P. Chekhov - Sakhalin Island)

From the 8th century the Japanese did not stop slaughtering the Ainu, who fled from extermination to the north - to Hokkaido - Matmai, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. Unlike the Japanese, the Russian Cossacks did not kill them. After several skirmishes between similar outwardly blue-eyed and bearded aliens on both sides, normal friendly relations were established. And although the Ainu flatly refused to pay the yasak tax, no one killed them for this, unlike the Japanese. However, 1945 became a turning point for the fate of this people. Today, only 12 of its representatives live in Russia, but there are many "mestizos" from mixed marriages. The destruction of the "bearded people" - the Ainu in Japan stopped only after the fall of militarism in 1945. However, the cultural genocide continues to this day.

It is significant that no one knows the exact number of Ainu on the Japanese islands. The fact is that in “tolerant” Japan, quite often there is still a rather arrogant attitude towards representatives of other nationalities. And the Ainu were no exception: it is impossible to determine their exact number, since according to the Japanese censuses they do not appear either as a people or as a national minority. According to scientists, the total number of the Ainu and their descendants does not exceed 16 thousand people, of which there are no more than 300 purebred representatives of the Ainu people, the rest are “mestizos”. In addition, often the most unprestigious job is left to the Ainu. And the Japanese are actively pursuing a policy of their assimilation, and there is no question of any "cultural autonomies" for them. People from mainland Asia also came to Japan around the same time that people first reached America. The first settlers of the Japanese islands - YOMON (ancestors of the Ainu) reached Japan twelve thousand years ago, and yowi (ancestors of the Japanese) came from Korea in the last two and a half millennia.

In Japan, work has been done that allows us to hope that genetics is able to solve the question of who the ancestors of the Japanese are. Along with the Japanese living on the central islands of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, anthropologists distinguish two more modern ethnic groups: the Ainu from the island of Hokkaido in the north and the Ryukyuans, who live mainly on the very south island 0kinava. One theory is that these two groups, the Ainu and the Ryukyuans, are the descendants of the original Yomon settlers who once occupied all of Japan and were later pushed out of the central islands north into Hokkaido and south into Okinawa by the Youi from Korea. Mitochondrial DNA research conducted in Japan only partly supports this hypothesis: it showed that modern Japanese from the central islands have very much in common genetically with modern Koreans, with whom they have many more identical and similar mitochondrial types than with the Ainu and the Ryukyuans. However, it is also shown that there are practically no similarities between the Ainu and Ryukyu people. Age estimates have shown that both of these ethnic groups have accumulated certain mutations over the past twelve millennia - this suggests that they are indeed descendants of the original Yomon people, but also proves that the two groups have not been in contact since then.

Everyone knows that Americans are not the indigenous population of the United States, just like the current population. South America. Did you know that the Japanese are not native to Japan?

Who then lived in these places before them?

Before them, the Ainu lived here, a mysterious people, in whose origin there are still many mysteries. The Ainu for some time coexisted with the Japanese, until the latter managed to push them north.

The fact that the Ainu are the ancient owners of the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands is evidenced by written sources and numerous names. geographical objects, whose origin is associated with the Ainu language. And even the symbol of Japan - the great Mount Fuji - has the Ainu word "fuji" in its name, which means "deity of the hearth." According to scientists, the Ainu settled the Japanese islands around 13,000 BC and formed the Neolithic Jomon culture there.

The Ainu did not engage in agriculture, they earned their living by hunting, gathering and fishing. They lived in small settlements quite remote from each other. Therefore, their area of residence was quite extensive: the Japanese islands, Sakhalin, Primorye, the Kuril Islands and the south of Kamchatka.

Around the 3rd millennium BC, Mongoloid tribes arrived on the Japanese islands, who later became the ancestors of the Japanese. The new settlers brought with them a rice culture that allowed them to feed a large number of people in a relatively small area. Thus began hard times in the life of the Ainu. They were forced to move north, leaving their ancestral lands to the colonialists.

But the Ainu were skilled warriors, who were fluent in bow and sword, and the Japanese failed to defeat them for a long time. Very long, almost 1500 years. The Ainu knew how to handle two swords, and on their right thigh they wore two daggers. One of them (cheyki-makiri) served as a knife for committing ritual suicide - hara-kiri.

The Japanese were able to defeat the Ainu only after the invention of cannons, having by this time managed to learn a lot from them in terms of military art. The code of honor of the samurai, the ability to wield two swords and the mentioned hara-kiri ritual - these seemingly characteristic attributes of Japanese culture were actually borrowed from the Ainu.

Scientists still argue about the origin of the Ainu. But the fact that this people is not related to other indigenous peoples of the Far East and Siberia is already a proven fact. A characteristic feature of their appearance is very thick hair and a beard in men, which representatives of the Mongoloid race are deprived of. For a long time it was believed that they may have common roots with the peoples of Indonesia and the natives. Pacific Ocean because they have similar facial features. But genetic studies ruled out this option.

And the first Russian Cossacks who arrived on Sakhalin Island even mistook the Ainu for Russians, so they were not like Siberian tribes, but rather resembled Europeans. The only group of people from all the analyzed options with whom they have a genetic relationship turned out to be the people of the Jomon era, who were supposedly the ancestors of the Ainu.

The Ainu language also strongly stands out from the modern linguistic picture of the world, and a suitable place has not yet been found for it. It turns out that during the long isolation, the Ainu lost contact with all other peoples of the Earth, and some researchers even single them out as a special Ainu race.

Today there are very few Ainu left, about 25,000 people. They live mainly in the north of Japan and are almost completely assimilated by the population of this country.

Ainu in Russia

For the first time, the Kamchatka Ainu came into contact with Russian merchants at the end of the 17th century. Relations with the Amur and Northern Kuril Ainu were established in the 18th century. The Ainu considered Russians, who differed in race from their Japanese enemies, as friends, and by the middle of the 18th century, more than one and a half thousand Ainu had accepted Russian citizenship. Even the Japanese could not distinguish the Ainu from the Russians because of their external resemblance (white skin and Australoid facial features, which are similar to Caucasians in a number of ways).

When the Japanese first came into contact with the Russians, they called them the Red Ainu (Ainu with blond hair). It was only at the beginning of the 19th century that the Japanese realized that the Russians and the Ainu were two different peoples. However, for Russians, the Ainu were "hairy", "dark-skinned", "dark-eyed" and "dark-haired". The first Russian researchers described the Ainu as similar to Russian peasants with swarthy skin or more like gypsies.

The Ainu were on the side of the Russians during the Russo-Japanese Wars of the 19th century. However, after the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Russians abandoned them to their fate. Hundreds of Ainu were massacred and their families forcibly transported to Hokkaido by the Japanese. As a result, the Russians failed to win back the Ainu during World War II. Only a few representatives of the Ainu decided to stay in Russia after the war. More than 90% went to Japan.

Under the terms of the St. Petersburg Treaty of 1875, the Kuriles were ceded to Japan, along with the Ainu living on them. On September 18, 1877, 83 North Kuril Ainu arrived in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, deciding to remain under Russian control. They refused to move to the reservations on the Commander Islands, as they were offered. Russian government. After that, from March 1881, for four months they traveled on foot to the village of Yavino, where they later settled.

Later, the village of Golygino was founded. Another 9 Ainu arrived from Japan in 1884. The 1897 census indicates 57 people in the population of Golygino (all Ainu) and 39 people in Yavino (33 Ainu and 6 Russians). Both villages were destroyed by the Soviet authorities, and the inhabitants were resettled in Zaporozhye, Ust-Bolsheretsky district. As a result, three ethnic groups assimilated with the Kamchadals.

Northern Kuril Ainu this moment- the largest subgroup of the Ainu in Russia. The Nakamura family (South Kuril on the paternal side) is the smallest and has only 6 people living in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. There are a few on Sakhalin who identify themselves as Ainu, but many more Ainu do not recognize themselves as such.

Most of the 888 Japanese living in Russia (2010 census) are of Ainu origin, although they do not recognize this (full-blooded Japanese are allowed to enter Japan without a visa). The situation is similar with the Amur Ainu living in Khabarovsk. And it is believed that none of the Kamchatka Ainu survived.

Final

In 1979, the USSR crossed out the ethnonym "Ainu" from the list of "living" ethnic groups in Russia, thereby declaring that this people had died out on the territory of the USSR. Judging by the 2002 census, no one entered the ethnonym "Ainu" in fields 7 or 9.2 of the K-1 census form

There is such evidence that the Ainu have the most direct genetic ties in the male line, oddly enough, with the Tibetans - half of them are carriers of a close haplogroup D1 (the D2 group itself is practically not found outside the Japanese archipelago) and the Miao-Yao peoples in southern China and in Indochina.

As for the female (Mt-DNA) haplogroups, the U group dominates among the Ainu, which is also found among other peoples of East Asia, but in small numbers.

Hokaido now hosts the largest concentrations of Ainu families.

The history of the Ainu estates resembles the history of the higher castes in India, where the highest percentage of the White man haplogroup R1a1

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