The Kola Peninsula
The first to explore new lands in the west were Polykarp Rochev, Ivan, Martyn and Arseny Terentyevs, Stepan Filippov, Fedor Kanev, Timofey Chuprov and the Nenets Ananiy Khatanzei. There were 65 people in the first group of the resettlers. In the autumn of 1883, with a herd of 9000 reindeer, along the sea coast, they moved towards the Kola Peninsula. In the spring of 1884, having reached the Kandalaksha Bay, they crossed the ice to the Kola Peninsula. In the winter of 1886-1887, they reached the Sami churchyard of Lovozero. Having decided to settle there, but having no legal basis for settling in the Kola district, the Izhemtsy used various ways to obtain permission to stay. Only in 1896 three families were accepted by the provincial authorities, the rest of the Izvatas continued to live semi-legally.
In 1898, 121 Komi lived in Lovozero (69 men and 52 women). In 1901 there were already 151 people (87 men and 64 women), and in 1902 – 206 people (110 men and 96 women). New resettlers from the Izhma volosts from the banks of the Izhma river also continued to arrive. By 1915 the Izvatas made up the majority of the population of Lovozero (439 Izvatas out of 690 people of the total population of the settlement).
By 1934, 764 Izvatas lived in Lovozersky district, which constituted 48% of the district’s population, and already in 1938 there were 964 Izvatas (80% of the population).
In 1979, 2007 Komi lived in Murmansk oblast, in 2002 – 2177 (1128 of them self-identified as the Izvatas; there is reason to believe that the real number of the Izvatas was and is higher), in 2010 – 1649 (of them 472 Izvatas).
In addition to settling Lovozersky district, the Izvatas founded the villages of Ivanovka (1917), Kanevka (1924), Krasnoshchelye (1921, the original name was Krasnaya Shchelya), Oksino (1926) and Makarovka.
Despite tense relations with local residents, who were also engaged in reindeer herding, with the arrival of the Izvatas to the Kola Peninsula, local reindeer husbandry began to flourish. The Izhma reindeer herds began to outnumber the Sami’s.
The approach of the Sami and the Izvatas to reindeer herding was very different. The Sami kept reindeer solely for transport needs, while the Izvatas practiced commercial reindeer herding. The housing of the Sami and the Izvatas was also different. If the Sami lived in vezhi (a hut made of poles), the Izvatas brought with them the tradition of building large two-story houses with various household buildings.
The Komi were more literate than their tundra neighbors, the Sami and Nenets: in 1927 their literacy was 45%, while among the Nenets it did not exceed 29%, and among the Sami it was only 3%.
Of course, living together, the Komi, the Sami and the Nenets influenced each other. Komi malitsy (with a hood and mittens sewn to the malitsa, in contrast to the Sami malitsa), toborki and pimas were recognized as more comfortable and practical. In turn, the Izhma craftswomen adopted the Sami methods of decorating fur products with cloth and beads. Meanwhile, the Izhma Komi dialect gradually became the language of interethnic communication. At the same time, everyday trilingualism was unique in those places – the majority of population could speak the language of their neighbor at the basic level. Nowadays, the Izhma Komi dialect is substituted by Russian as a main language.
Currently, on the Kola Peninsula, the Izvatas live mainly in Lovozersky district, namely in the villages of Lovozero, Kanevka, Sosnovka, and Krasnoshchelye.