"Why is it so dark?"

The "Finno-Ugrian world" is the topic of Anders Kreuger's fascinating and lyrical essay in Eurozine. Lying buried underneath Russia's northern forests is the heritage of its Finno-Ugrian peoples. Speakers of obscure languages related to modern Finnish, Estonian and (distantly) Hungarian, their minority culture has passed through neglect, open hostility, and neglect from Czarist through Soviet to Putin-era Russia.

Kreuger traveled to Russia's Republics of Mordvinia, Udmurtia, Mari El and Komi to see how these languages and their speakers are getting by in a forsaken corner of Russia. Encounters with suicides, non-functioning parachutes and blindness ensue. Oh, and contemporary art.