Finnish Tatars
The Finnish Tatars are a Tatar ethnic group and minority in Finland, consisting of approximately 600–700 people. Tatars practice Sunni Islam and speak the Turkic Tatar language.
The community was formed between the late 1800s and the early 1900s, when Mishar Tatar merchants emigrated from the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate of the Russian Empire and eventually settled in Finland. Tatars have the main building of their congregation in Helsinki. They have also founded cultural associations in different cities. They are the oldest Muslim community in Finland.
The identity of the Finnish Tatars has had different reference points throughout their history. In the early days, they were known by their religious identity. When Republic of Turkey was established, Finnish Tatars, who speak a Turkic language, began identifying themselves as "Turks". They were influenced by Turkish culture; for example, they adopted the Latin alphabet, which replaced the previously used Arabic one. Nowadays, Finnish Tatars once again identify as Tatars and are very connected to Tatarstan. Its head, Rustam Minnikhanov, has visited the community.
Finnish Tatars have also maintained their connections to Turkey, however. President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, among others, has visited their congregation. In 2024, a history of the Finnish Tatars by Dr. Ramil Belyayev, imam of the Finnish Tatar congregation, was translated into Turkish and released in Ankara.
History
The first Muslims in Finland
It is believed that the first Turkic peoples who migrated to Finland during the early modern period were mostly Volga Tatars and Bashkirs, some of whom were also deployed in Cossack units during the Great Northern War, First Russo-Swedish War, and Second Russo-Swedish War. There were also mullahs staying on Finnish soil in the 1800s; for example, Izzätulla Timergali, who was the mullah in Sveaborg from 1866 to 1906.Migration of Tatar merchants
The migration of Tatars to Finland happened in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Tradition tells that the first Tatar merchant in Finland was the grandfather of Hasan Hamidulla, who arrived from Saint Petersburg to Vyborg in 1868. Other Tatar merchants named as the first ones on Finnish soil are Alautdin Salavat and Samaletdin Yusuf. The last Tatar migration wave happened in the 1920s, when the merchants who had settled in the country brought their family members in.These merchants were mostly Mishar Tatars, who originated from neighboring villages in Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, Sergachsky District, Russia. Many of them were from Aktuk. A few other Turkic peoples came as well, such as Bashkirs and Kazakhs, but they blended in quickly. At their home villages, Mishars worked as farmers, but eventually they became merchants, due to lack of income. They usually sold fabrics, furs, clothes and soap. Their trips reached Saint Petersburg at first, and eventually, Finland.
Finland therefore in the beginning was just a new territory to do business in. Already in the early 1880s, Tatar merchants were seen in the country, many dozens at once. Their trips had become regular especially after the Riihimäki-Saint Petersburg railway completing years before. In 1891, the railroads already reached for example to Oulu and Kemi. At first, they returned to their homes after earning enough, but after it became evident that the business conditions were better on Finnish soil, they started to settle in the country permanently. The relatively good reception of the Finns also helped. Many Tatars settled in Vyborg at first, but after it was lost to Soviet Union, they moved mainly to Helsinki, Turku and Tampere, where some fellow Tatars had already settled.
Soon, many of them transitioned into selling in halls. For example, in Vyborg halls, they sold cotton products, silk fabrics, carpets and furs. Terijoki was also an important place for business before it too was lost to Soviet Union. In Tampere, fabric was often the main product being sold. Many of them also set up their own shops.
Migration of Tatar families
Many Tatars who had settled into Finland started to arrange their family members to the country after the 1917 Russian revolution. This however, was mostly possible only after 1921, because the border of Russia and Finland was closed until the Treaty of Tartu. The relatives of these Tatar merchants had to plead for a visa from the delegations of Moscow or Saint Petersburg. They also got help for example from professor Yrjö Jahnsson, who had connections that assisted them in the migration. The migration was mainly possible until 1929. After that, some who came, came illegally or for big ransom.Finnish citizenship
While Tatars in Finland started to apply for a Finnish citizenship soon after the country's independence in 1917, still in 1939, as many as half of the community stayed in the country with Nansen passports. One reason for this was that the Finnish government demanded them to prove that they had been in the country for at least five years without leaving, and that they can provide for themselves and their families. These things got easier to prove after the second world war. The first citizenship was granted to a Tatar named Sadik Ainetdin in 1919.Wartime
Prisoners of war
After the Winter War in 1940, there were 367 Russian prisoners in Turku central prison. These included Tatars. Some of them; Ibrahim Rahman, Halidulla Utarbai, Zekeriye Abdulla and Salih Zahidulla joined the Tatar congregation after being freed but by the end of the decade they had left Finland. The Finnish State Police made a search warrant for many Muslim soldiers who had not gone back to the Soviet Union.In January 1945, most of the Muslims who had stayed on Finnish soil after the war returned to the Soviet Union "voluntarily but reluctantly". Some of the few who were able to stay for longer included an Avar named Halid Hamido, who during the war had married a Finnish woman and converted to Christianity. In Finland, the prisoners of war were employed by the Samaletdin and Ainetdin families, Ymär Sali, Zuhur Tahir, Ibrahim Hamidulla, Ibrahim Arifulla and also the two Muslims who themselves had recently emigrated to Finland; a Kazakh Ömmet Kenschahmet and a Lezgin Velibek Alibek. Thirty or so "war migrants" had been in under charge at the Helsinki Tatar congregation from February 1942. A Kazan Tatar, teacher Mahmut Rahim delivered prayers at the Tampere Tatar Congregation during 1942–1944.
Tatars from Estonia
At the turn of the twentieth century, five Tatar families lived in Estonia. In the 1920s, more of them had settled in Tallinn, Narva, Jõhvi and Rakvere, after which the number of Tatars was around 200–300. At the end of 1943, many came to Finland on motorboat rides. They registered as political refugees and applied to the Finnish military forces, where three Estonian Tatars, Ibrahim Zarip, Ahmed Haerdinov and Rafik Moks were admitted. Zarip was accepted as a sailor at the Turku naval station and after his service moved to Sweden and later lived his life in New York. Haerdinov, after his service moved to Sweden; Moks on the other hand to Canada. Six Estonian Tatars and their families received residence permit and later on, two families acquired a citizenship. Their recommenders were the Samaletdin family, imam Weli-Ahmed Hakim and merchant Ymär Abdrahim.Due to the fear of deportation and the uncertain conditions in Finland, many Estonian Tatars who came to Finland continued their journey to Sweden, and especially to the Greater Stockholm area. Before their arrival, only one Tatar, a tanner named Ibrahim Umarkajeff is known to have lived in Sweden. In 1949, the Tatars who had settled in Sweden founded an association that was initially called Turk-Islam Föreningen i Sverige för Religion och Kultur, later shortened to Islam Församlingen i Sverige. The association maintained a cemetery in the southern part of Stockholm. The Tatars lost their majority in the Islamic association in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, it was estimated that there were about 50 so-called full-blooded and 30 half-blooded Tatars in the country. Didar Samaletdin, a Tatar woman founded a restaurant called Djingis Khan in Södermalm with her husband in 1983.
Connections to home
By the beginning of the 20th century, Leningrad had its own Tatar community, largely formed by Mishars from Nizhny Novgorod region. Some of them continued their trip to Finland, others stayed in the city. The Tatars in Finland kept their connections with the Tatar relatives in Leningrad and elsewhere up until the 1930s, traveling across the border illegally through 1920's. Their ties were cut after tightened border control. Before this, they had also helped the Tatars in Leningrad by sending them money. They also personally helped theologian Musa Bigiev. When he got arrested in Moscow in 1923, the Finnish Tatar community sent a letter to the Turkish government, asking for help in releasing him. In 1930, the community also tried to bring Bigiev in the country.As correspondence and travel to the Soviet Union opened in the mid-1950s, it was possible for them to re-establish their broken connections. It wasn't until the turn of the 1960s and 1970s however that contacts with Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan began to strengthen as they received Tatar guests from across the border. They had Bashkir artists as their guests in 1967, a little before the Kazan Tatars. They were able to visit their home villages at the end of the 20th century.
Tatars in Berlin
served as a kind of meeting place for many Tatars and other Turkic exiles in the early 20th century. The Soviet intelligence agency Joint State Political Directorate was also aware of this; "The Muslims of Kazan, St. Petersburg and Finland maintain very active contacts with Berlin, where the head of the foreign Tatar counter-revolution currently gathers". Finnish professor Yrjö Jahnsson went to Berlin to meet the Bashkir activist Zeki Velidi Togan in 1925. According to him, Jahnsson's aim was to "unite the Finns and the Asian nations captured by the Russians against the Russian colonial interests". A year earlier, Finnish Tatars Zinnetullah Ahsen and Imad Samaletdin had traveled to meet Togan and Tatar activist Ayaz İshaki in the city to discuss their attempts to produce a Finnish translation of the Quran.Young Muslim emigrants also went to study in Berlin. In 1918, under the leadership of theologian Alimcan Idris, the "Assistance Society for Russian Muslim Students" was founded there, the purpose of which was to help students maintain connections with their homeland and bring new students to the city. In a 1972 interview with a Finnish sociologist Pertti Rautio, the Tatar couple Semiulla and Mahruse Wafin, who themselves had studied in Berlin described Tatar students in Germany as follows: "Many of them became scientists, teachers at the universities of Istanbul and Ankara. Most of them were Turkologists. Others were doctors, chemists, those who had attended the University of Economics and Business and these received employment in their field in Turkey and usually they were professors there."