Mishar Tatars

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The Mishar Tatars (endonyms: мишәрләр, мишәр татарлары, romanized: mişärlär, mişär tatarları), previously known as the Meshcheryaks (Russian: мещеряки, romanized: meshcheryaki), are the second largest subgroup of the Volga Tatars, after the Kazan Tatars. Traditionally, they have inhabited the middle and western side of Volga, including the present day Mordovia, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Ryazan, Penza, Ulyanovsk, Orenburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara regions of Russia. Many have since relocated to Moscow. Mishars also comprise the majority of Finnish Tatars and Estonian Tatars and Tatars living in other Nordic and Baltic countries. Mishars speak the western dialect of the Tatar language and, like the Tatar majority, practice Sunni Islam. They have at least partially different ethnogenesis from the Kazan Tatars, though many differences have since disappeared. Different accounts of their origin exist to this day, but most researchers connect their ancestors to the population of the Golden Horde. The Mishar dialect is said to be "faithfully close" to the ancient Kipchak Turkic language. In the 1897 census, their total number was 622,600. The estimates have varied greatly since, because they are often identified simply as Tatars.