Modern Sarmatians live in Bashkiria

Sarmatians live in several municipalities of Bashkiria – such preliminary data was obtained by the copyists in the course of the all-Russian population census-2010. The exact number of modern Sarmatians as well as the representatives of other nations will be revealed only after the official results of the census are summed up.

Sarmatians are the common name of the Iranian-speaking tribes, having settled the steppes fr om the river of Tobol in the east to the Danube in the west in the III century BC – the IV century AD. The first in the line of early Sarmatians culture is dated by the IV-I centuries BC and its another name is “Prokhorovskaya culture”, coming from the name of the village Prokhorovka in Orenburg region, wh ere the ancient Sarmatian burial mounds were dug out by local peasants.

One of the most famous archeological discoveries, concerned with Sarmatians, belongs to the well-known archeologist from Ufa Anatoly Pshenichnuk. In summer 1988 the expedition, headed by him, has dug out the Philippovsky burial mound, containing the unique finds – the famous Sarmatian gold. Hundreds of golden items, weighing about 30 kilograms, have been extracted from two hiding places – the wooden deer’s figures, coated with golden and silver plates, golden decorations, golden and silver crockery, golden stamped and cast pieces and braids, female decorations, cold steel and harness. Now the Sarmatian gold is kept in Ufa, at the Museum of archeology and ethnography and it has become one of the Bashkir brands, making the name of the ancient nation once inhabiting our territory, really famous. Sarmatians according to Anatoly Pshenichnuk were Indo-Iranians and Iranian speech sounded on the territory of Bashkiria two thousand years ago. Many toponymy names are left since those times: for example, Irandyk – “precious mountain” and the names of local rivers – Yaik and Urshak. Turk speech came here in the IV century together with the invasion of Huns.

The State Duma deputy Irshat Fakhritdinov positively regards the message about appearance of new Bashkir Sarmatians:

“It is remarkable that modern citizens of Bashkiria begin calling themselves Sarmatians. Many scientists believe and earnestly prove that Sarmatians were the ancestry of Bashkirs, Russians and Tatars – the nations, forming the major part of our population now. All of us have common roots and since the origin and ancient history of Bashkortostan’s nations are closely concerned with Sarmatians, it gives us the ground to say that all citizens of the Republic are one big and friendly family”.