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Peoples of Russia
Siberian Tatars
The Siberian Tatars are a subethnos of Tatars which has been historically formed in and mostly inhabits the Western and Southern Siberia.
Language
The written and native language for the majority of the Siberian Tatars is the Tatar standard language. However, with some Siberian Tatars, a separate Siberian Tatar language can be distinguished, which by the majority of its phonetic and grammatical indicators belongs to the Kipchak-Nogai subgroup of the Kipchak group of the Western Hun branch of Turkic languages. According to various classifications, the language of the Siberian Tatars is viewed either as the eastern dialect of the Tatar language including groups of subdialects, or as a separate language, with the groups of subdialects being considered as dialects. There are the following dialects: Tobol-Irtysh (Tara, Tevriz, Tobolsk, Tyumen, Zabolotny subdialects), Baraba and Tomsk (Kalmak and Eushtin-Chat subdialects).
Dispersion
The Siberian Tatars mostly live in the countryside districts of the Tyumen, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Kurgan regions as well as in Tyumen, Tobolsk, Tara and other Western Siberian cities.
Traditional occupations
The traditional occupations of the Siberian Tatars were agriculture and cattle breeding. For some groups, hunting played a significant role in the economy. For Baraba Tatars, lake fishing was significant. The northern groups of Tobol-Irtysh and Baraba Tatars fished on rivers and hunted. Some groups of Siberian Tatars combined different types of culture and economy. Fishing was often combined with cattle grazing or looking after the plots of land under crop at the fishing locations. Cattle raising was mostly commercial: cattle was raised for sale. The well-developed crafts included tanning, making ropes out of linden fiber, knitting nets, making baskets out of willow rods, making birch bark and wooden kitchenware.
Food
The basis of the diet was formed by baked articles, fish, dairy and meat dishes. Milk was used to make cream (kaymak) and ayran, horse milk was used to make araka – the milk vodka, nonfermented cheese (pashlak), sour cheese (kurut) and butter. Meat was also used to make the kazy sausage, tutyrma, to cook broth jelly and pilaf. Fish was preserved salted, cured or dried.
