Chuvashia

Chuvashia, officially known as Chuvash Republic — Chuvashia, is a republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. It is the homeland of the Chuvash people, a Turkic ethnic group. Its capital is the city of Cheboksary. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 1,251,619.

The Chuvash Republic is located in the center of European Russia, in the heart of the Volga-Vyatka economic region, mostly to the west of the Volga River, in the Volga Upland. It borders with the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast in the west, Mari El Republic in the north, the Republic of Tatarstan in the east and southeast, Republic of Mordovia in the southwest, and the Ulyanovsk Oblast in the south. There are over two thousand rivers in the republic—with the major ones being the Volga, the Sura, and the Tsivil—as well as four hundred lakes. Some of the Volga River valley reservoirs are in the north of the republic, and the Sura River flows towards the Volga along much of the republic's western boundary.

The climate is moderately continental, with the average temperatures ranging from −13 °C (9 °F) in January to +19 °C (66 °F) in July. Annual precipitation varies between 450 and 700 millimeters (18 and 28 in), but is uneven from one year to another. Natural resources include gypsum, sand, clay, sapropel deposits, phosphorite, and peat. There are oil and natural gas deposits, although their extraction has not yet been commercially pursued. Forests, mostly in the south along the Sura River, cover approximately 30% of the land.

The ancestors of the Chuvash were Bulgars and Suars, Oghur Turkic tribes residing in the Northern Caucasus in the 5th to 8th centuries. In the 7th and 8th centuries, a part of the Bulgars left for the Balkans, where, together with local South Slavs, they established the state of modern Bulgaria. Another part moved to the Middle Volga Region (see Volga Bulgaria), where the Bulgar population that did not adopt Islam formed the foundation of the Chuvash people.

During the Mongol invasion of Volga Bulgaria, the steppe-dwelling Suar migrated north, where Volga Finnic tribes, such as the Mordvins and Mari lived. The Chuvash claim to be the descendants of these Suars who assimilated with the Mari. In 1242, they became vassals of the Golden Horde. Later Mongol and Tatar rulers did not intervene in local internal affairs as long as tribute was paid annually to Sarai. When the power of the Golden Horde began to diminish, local Mişär Tatar Murzas from Piana and Temnikov tried to govern the Chuvash area.

During Ivan the Terrible's war of conquest against the Khanate of Kazan, in August 1552, the Chuvash Orsai and Mari Akpar Tokari princes swore their loyalty to the Grand Duchy of Muscovy at Alatyr on the Sura River. Between 1650 and 1850, the Russian Orthodox Church sent Chuvash-speaking missionaries to try to convert the Chuvash to the Orthodox faith. A group of these missionaries created a written Chuvash language. Most of the Chuvash who stayed in the area became Orthodox Christians, but some remained pagan.

On 15 May 1917, the Chuvash joined the Idel-Ural Movement and in December 1917 joined the short-lived Idel-Ural State, when an agreement was reached with Tatar representatives to draw the eastern border of Chuvashia at the Sviyaga River. Between 1918 and 1919, the Russian Civil War encompassed the area. This ended with victory for the Bolsheviks. To gain support from the local population, Lenin ordered the creation of a Chuvash state within the Russian SFSR. On 24 June 1920, the Chuvash Autonomous Oblast was formed, which was transformed into the Chuvash ASSR in April 1925.

Until 2012, the Chuvash Republic officially had the status of a state. In the constitution of Chuvashia (version 6, dated 13 September 2011 No. 46), the following was fixed: "The Chuvash Republic is a republic (state) within the Russian Federation."