General information

The most common endonym of the Chulym people (the Chulym Turki) is tadar/tadar kizhi (common, in addition to the Chulyms, to the Shors and partially to the Altaians and the Khakass). Other variants include ös kizhi, us kizhi , chulym kizhi , pistin kizhi (meaning “our people” or “the locals”). The total number according to the 2002 census is 656 persons; according to the census of 2010 - 355.

The total number of Chulyms, according to the 2020-2021 All-Russian Population Census of the Russian Federation, is 382 people (179 men and 203 women). Of these, the vast majority (336 people) are rural; only 46 people live in the city. The majority of Chulym residents (145 people) are settled in the Tomsk region (mainly in villages around the Chulym River), and a third of the total number lives in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

The Chulym represent two large linguistic, cultural, and ethnographic groups: the Verkhovsky (“Upper”) and Nizovsky (“Lower”) Chulyms, who are the speakers of the Middle Chulym and the Lower Chulym dialects of the Chulym language, respectively. A boundary between them lies approximately between the rivers Yaya and Kiya (located in the Zyryansky district of the Tomsk region). These groups are similar in their ethnographic and cultural characteristics and often do not view themselves as two separate peoples. However, they are still noticeably different in the languages they use for the Lower Chulym and the Middle Chulym dialects belong to the different groups of the Turkic language family. These two groups were further divided into sub-groups, partly on a linguistic, and partly on a territorial basis. This division roughly corresponded to the internal taxonomy of the chon / yon (peoples/families) that had existed before 1917, and the external system of the non-Slavic volosts (municipalities). Thus, the Verkhovsky Chulyms were divided into the Tutal and Melet groups ( tutal chon and melet/pelet/plet chon ). Further down the Chulym River, there was an area inhabited by various groups of speakers of the Lower Chulym dialect (the Chibi, the Kuarik, the Ketsik, and the Yatsi/Yachi). Finally, the territory of the modern Asinovsky and Pervomaisky districts was inhabited by the Nizovsky Chulyms of the Ezhi and Turgai rivers, who generally constituted one ethno-cultural group. In addition, mass migration of several family groups of the Chulyms to the Tom and Ob regions from the lower Chulym area took place at the beginning of the 18th century (prompted by the cessation of the Russian-Dzhungarian wars and raids of the Yenisei Kyrgyz), resulting in the emergence of the so-called Tom/Ob and the Verkhny Ket Karagas (the former lived in the Kozhevnikovsky and Shegarsky districts of the Tomsk region, the latter in the Verkhneketsky district).

At the moment, the state of preservation of the culture of these groups is different. The Chulym people of the Tutal and Melet groups still preserve their traditional culture, language, and self-identification. The left-bank Lower Chulym enclave around the villages of Turgai and Minaevka disappeared after the floods of the 1960s when its residents moved either to large cities or the villages on the right bank of the Chulym. The right bank enclave (the villages of Almyakovo, Ulu-Yul, Apsagachevo, Balagachevo, and Ezhi) has not been sufficiently surveyed to date. According to the historical data received from the informants on the left bank of the Chulym and in the village of Pervomayskoe, there remains a certain portion of the Chulym population there. The Ob Karagas, who had preserved their traditional culture and partly their language until the 1920s, (albeit partially adopting the culture and identity of their neighbors, the Tomsk Tatars), were Russified in 1920-1980. The Verkhneketsky Karagas retained their culture and identity until the 1950s, but there is no data as to their current cultural status.

Historically, the Chulym settlement zone occupied the entire Chulym floodplain in its taiga zone, from the rivers Suyga, Anga, and Chichka-Yul in their lower reaches to the village of Birilyussy and the city of Achinsk. The Chulyms settled exclusively along rivers and relatively large rivers at that: on the right, (the northern) bank of the Chulym, the Chulym settlements did not go north along either Chichka-Yul or Ulu-Yul, clinging exclusively to the main waterway. Thus, the western border of the Chulym area is the floodplain of the river Chichka-Yul; the eastern – the village of Birilyussy and Achinsk; the southern – the foothills of the Kuznetsk Alatau and the northern – the right bank of the river Chulym.