Kola Saami ? Citizens of Russia (Part IV)
In twelfth through the nineteenth centuries, aliens substantially increased the population. The first newcomers were natives of the neighboring nations, and the majority of Russians were from the Novgorod feudal republic. Newcomers forced the Sami to pay a tribute and gradually occupied the territory of Kola Peninsula.
Saami become citizens of Russian state in 1764 and were considered as the state peasants. However, it was their duty to support monasteries. Saami often became victims of dealers and creditors, even after serfdom was cancelled in 1861. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, Kola Saami, just as North American Indians, were victims of payoffs and deceit, and even more often became accustomed to drinking alcohol.
Strategic value of Kola Peninsula has gradually decreased after Northern War (1700-1721). Russians were lodged along the borders since 1868 and had permission to conduct trading and enterprise activity with locals. The State promised privileges to the Sami if they stopped their nomadic way of life. Replacement of Saami traditional way of life promoted intermarriages and their Russification.
One of the early records of 1866 acknowledges a reindeer breeding by Lovozero Saami. Audits have counted in the community 125 persons and 210 reindeers. Twenty years later, there were more than 3800 reindeers, almost twenty percent of livestock of domestic reindeers of Kola Peninsula. Reindeer breeding as a special kind of economic activity began to develop by the Kola Saami in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
In 1899, there was a city of Aleksandrovsk occupied basically by the military. By the end of the nineteenth century, along with Saami lived Russians,
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