In many districts the so-called Russians have perhaps more Finnish than Slavonic blood in their veins.
But what has all this to do, it may be asked, with the aforementioned Volkerwanderung, or migration of peoples, during the Dark Ages?
More than may at first sight appear.

Some of the so-called migrations were, I suspect, not at all migrations in the ordinary sense of the term, but rather gradual changes, such as those which have taken place, and are still taking place, in Northern Russia.

A thousand years ago what is now known as the province of Yaroslavl was inhabited by Finns, and now it is occupied by men who are commonly regarded as pure Slays.

But it would be an utter mistake to suppose that the Finns of this district migrated to those more distant regions where they are now to be found.

In reality they formerly occupied, as I have said, the whole of Northern Russia, and in the province of Yaroslavl they have been transformed by Slav infiltration.