Qualla: Lonin Museum of Veps Ethnography

Lonin Museum of Veps Ethnography: Introduction

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eniisi Lisika, CC0. Rjurik Lonin's wife started nagging about the artifacts. The attic was full. The wood shed was full. Even the living quarters were full of all kinds of things -- spinning wheels, woven textiles, carved utensils, tools from villages that were slowly emptying across the Republic of Karelia and Leningrad Oblast. Lonin, a sovkhoz worker born in 1930, had been collecting the material culture of the Veps people since 1964, and he had no intention of stopping. He just needed somewhere to put it all.

Image: Eniisi Lisika | CC0

Lonin Museum of Veps Ethnography: A People Between Languages

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ludvig14, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Veps are a Finno-Ugric people whose language is related to Finnish, Estonian, and Karelian. Historically they lived in scattered villages across what is now the Republic of Karelia, Leningrad Oblast, and Vologda Oblast in northwestern Russia. By the twentieth century, their n...

Image: Ludvig14 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lonin Museum of Veps Ethnography: Two Rooms Before the Revolution's Anniversary

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eniisi Lisika, CC0. For years, Lonin petitioned the Shyoltozero village soviet for museum space, and for years he was refused. The breakthrough came in 1967, just before the festivities marking the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution. The village council gave him two rooms in the library ...

Image: Eniisi Lisika | CC0

Lonin Museum of Veps Ethnography: The Stonemason's House

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eniisi Lisika, CC0. As the collection grew past three thousand artifacts, the museum was given a building in the Hamamattaz neighborhood. In 1980, the Karelian Ministry of Culture made it an official branch of the Karelian Local Heritage Museum, and Lonin became a full-time employee at last. The bui...

Image: Eniisi Lisika | CC0

Lonin Museum of Veps Ethnography: What Remains at Shyoltozero

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ludvig14, CC BY-SA 4.0. Lonin died in 2009, and the museum was renamed in his honor the following year: the Rjurik Lonin Museum of Veps Ethnography in Shyoltozero. Today its collection numbers approximately six thousand artifacts, of which two thousand are on display. About four thousand visitors come e...

Image: Ludvig14 | CC BY-SA 4.0