Estonian Charity Foundation announces Medal for Ingrian Indigenous Minority Vodian Cross VADDA RISSI

In December 2024, the Sihtasutus Traderson Foundation—whose main activities include innovative and venture investments as well as film and art production—established a commemorative medal called Vadda Cross / Vadda Rissi to be awarded to the last representatives of the vodians (vadda, vadja) and to those who have contributed to preserving this small indigenous people residing in the Leningrad Region of the Russian Federation, as well as in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

For this purpose, the charitable foundation produced a commemorative Votic medal, styled after the national symbol of the vodians—the Votic Cross (Vadda Rissi)—at a coin factory. The foundation’s founder, a representative of this dwindling community, provided funding for the medal’s production and has already begun awarding it to vodians as well as to distinguished figures in science and culture from various countries who have contributed to the preservation and study of the vodians’ language and culture.

“Today, anyone who identifies with the indigenous vodians can be called, in the spirit of Fenimore Cooper—the author of ‘The Last of the Mohicans’— ‘The Last of the Vodians’,” notes Andrew Traderson, the initiator of the commemorative medal and a representative of the vodians.

The vodians are the oldest indigenous population of the western regions of the Leningrad Region, now primarily concentrated in the Kingisepp District of the Russian Federation. Historically, their settlements extended from northeastern Estonia to Lake Ladoga and as far south as Novgorod. The Votic language belongs to the Baltic-Finnic group of Finno-Ugric languages, and the traditional occupations of the vodians include arable farming, fishing, and forestry.

Historical records indicate that the vodians have experienced a difficult and often tragic fate. They were frequently decimated by hunger, and between 1444 and 1447, Livonian knights drove a significant group of vodians to Bauska (in modern Latvia). The vodians suffered greatly from the repressions of the 1930s and mass resettlements during World War II; during the war, vodians, along with Izhorians and Ingrian Finns, were deported to Finland. When Finland signed an armistice agreement with the USSR, the vodians were allowed to return; however, they did not reclaim their original homes—already occupied by newcomers—but resettled in Estonia, Pskov, Novgorod, Velikiye Luki, and other regions. The deportees were permitted to return to their native areas only in 1956, though not all survived until then. Today, in the Leningrad Region, the indigenous Finno-Ugric vodians are on the brink of complete assimilation, with only two compact settlements remaining—in the villages of Krakolye and Luzhitsy in the Kingisepp District.

Only a few vodians remain worldwide as speakers of the original Votic language, many of them of advanced age—with women aged 83 and older. As of 2021, Russia is home to 105 vodians, and according to some sources, approximately 100 individuals in Estonia identify as vodians.

During the Soviet era, linguists and ethnographers from Tartu State University (Estonia) made significant contributions to the preservation, study, and development of the Votic language (vadda ceele) and culture. Paul Asiste, an academician of the university whose 120th anniversary was recently celebrated, played a pivotal role in preserving this endangered language; he was posthumously nominated for the Vadda Rissi award, and the medal will be awarded to his granddaughter. His students, including the outstanding linguist and associate professor of the Department of Baltic-Finnic Languages, Heinike Heinsoo (also nominated for the award), continued the scientific work on preserving and studying the Votic language and culture. Other distinguished nominees for the award include prominent Russian linguists and Tartu philologists such as Olga Konkova (with the medal being posthumously awarded to her daughter, who resides in Finland), Mehmet Muslimov, Feodor Rozhansky, Elena Markus, Vitaly Chernavsky, and others.

The Sihtasutus Traderson Foundation invites all vodians to register for the presentation of this commemorative medal.

Sihtasutus Traderson Foundation
www.traderson.info
+37253376600